Hey, first of all sorry for being a nitpicky statistics nerd. I hope this doesn't come off as debate pervertry, pedantry and the like, but i want to clarify a few things.
Their core point is that Harris didn't lose the swing states because of absent former Biden voters, but because Trump mobilized voters that didn't vote for him in 2020. Harris lost 79,000 voters there, Trump won 810,000. The Biden 2020 voters who didn't go to the polls because of Gaza wouldn't have been enough to change that result, because while Harris lost a lot of these throughout the country, she barely lost any in the battleground states. Beating Trump's mobilization of new voters there would have required successful mobilization of people who didn't vote Biden in 2020.
And these people are simply not represented in the dataset. People who usually don't vote would have been interesting, first time voters would have been interesting, people who could have voted for the first time but didn't go to the polls would have been interesting and the latter two in particular might have been won over by a convincing anti-genocide stance. Maybe enough to flip the election, the tendency shown by the results of this survey and the opinion of young people on Gaza absolutely make that a plausible assumption. That's were i disagree with the person you're replying to, we can't rule out this issue was decisive. But they're correct that this survery doesn't prove that it was, because it looks entirely at people who voted Biden and didn't vote Harris.
Sure, I know you aren’t being debate perverty because you aren’t arguing with a claim that I actually made. Nowhere did I say people sitting out in the election was the reason Harris lost. I said Gaza was the main reason people who voted Biden in 2020 did sit out the election. Those are two entirely different claims.
That being said, I think you are making the same assumption as the other person. Looking at net voter gains/losses across the two years is meaningless without the data to separate them into groups. Harris lost 79000 votes there? Ok. Who? The same exact slate of people that showed up in 2020 minus 79000? That isn’t how election turnout works
We can't rule out the decisiveness of this issue based on the contents of this thread. I have seen enough other polling about low engagement/infrequent voters to have convinced me throroughly that those folks who might have turned out, but did not favored Trump because they thought he would be better on the economy.
Even that, I admit, does not mean there was not some way for Harris to come out against Israel and distance herself from Biden that would have managed to motivate a subset of low engagement voters who weren't that concerned about the economy, were concerned primarily about Gaza, and large enough to be decisive, but we're getting pretty thin thin with the should/could/would haves here.
Hey, first of all sorry for being a nitpicky statistics nerd. I hope this doesn't come off as debate pervertry, pedantry and the like, but i want to clarify a few things.
Their core point is that Harris didn't lose the swing states because of absent former Biden voters, but because Trump mobilized voters that didn't vote for him in 2020. Harris lost 79,000 voters there, Trump won 810,000. The Biden 2020 voters who didn't go to the polls because of Gaza wouldn't have been enough to change that result, because while Harris lost a lot of these throughout the country, she barely lost any in the battleground states. Beating Trump's mobilization of new voters there would have required successful mobilization of people who didn't vote Biden in 2020.
And these people are simply not represented in the dataset. People who usually don't vote would have been interesting, first time voters would have been interesting, people who could have voted for the first time but didn't go to the polls would have been interesting and the latter two in particular might have been won over by a convincing anti-genocide stance. Maybe enough to flip the election, the tendency shown by the results of this survey and the opinion of young people on Gaza absolutely make that a plausible assumption. That's were i disagree with the person you're replying to, we can't rule out this issue was decisive. But they're correct that this survery doesn't prove that it was, because it looks entirely at people who voted Biden and didn't vote Harris.
Sure, I know you aren’t being debate perverty because you aren’t arguing with a claim that I actually made. Nowhere did I say people sitting out in the election was the reason Harris lost. I said Gaza was the main reason people who voted Biden in 2020 did sit out the election. Those are two entirely different claims.
That being said, I think you are making the same assumption as the other person. Looking at net voter gains/losses across the two years is meaningless without the data to separate them into groups. Harris lost 79000 votes there? Ok. Who? The same exact slate of people that showed up in 2020 minus 79000? That isn’t how election turnout works
Some pedantry from me.
We can't rule out the decisiveness of this issue based on the contents of this thread. I have seen enough other polling about low engagement/infrequent voters to have convinced me throroughly that those folks who might have turned out, but did not favored Trump because they thought he would be better on the economy.
Even that, I admit, does not mean there was not some way for Harris to come out against Israel and distance herself from Biden that would have managed to motivate a subset of low engagement voters who weren't that concerned about the economy, were concerned primarily about Gaza, and large enough to be decisive, but we're getting pretty thin thin with the should/could/would haves here.