09 October 2020

Apples and Oranges - part the second

Today the Left Wing News contained much angst, comparing the 2016 Clinton/Trump poll numbers to current Biden/Trump poll numbers. Their point: the margin for Clinton and Biden vis-a-vis Trump, and she still lost. None of these whiners put this margin in context. Which context is simple: Johnson pulled 5% and Stein pulled 2%. My arithmetic says that's a 7% solution.
The poll shows Clinton with 50% support to Trump's 38%, with 5% backing Libertarian Gary Johnson and 2% supporting the Green Party's Jill Stein.
Now, naturally, in 2016 if both Johnson and Stein had been absent, the likely results would be the same in the electoral college. And Trump might well have won the popular vote, given that a Johnson voter would have gone with Trump, and a Stein voter would have stayed home drinking Merlot. This year, there's no leakage. Keep that in mind.

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