These are some of my closing thoughts about the election. If necessary, I will do a midweek update. I think this presents an opportunity to reflect on how change impacts our lives. Equally important is the role of circumstances that rarely or never change. Both types of experiences influence our lives even when we are not in an election cycle. Thank you for subscribing, and if you enjoy reading this, please forward the newsletter to your friends. ~ Kevin
To be honest I am getting a little burned out thinking about and talking about the 2020 U.S. election. Part of the weariness is the time spent thinking about it over prior months, but also burnout from hearing people speculate about things that have weak causal relationships. Perhaps it’s my old age speaking, but I have grown tired of speculations that are not grounded in causal relationships or plausibility. In this cycle, everyone has enjoyed picking and choosing their favorite polls as well as inferring possible results from turnout trackers presented by the respective political parties. Picking and choosing polls is grounded in confirmation bias and turnout trackers are notoriously poor predictors of election outcomes.
Instead, these are my closing thoughts, which I will seek to sync up with a general discussion that may be useful over the coming weeks. When looking at individual states that are most consequential for the electoral college, I regularly return to my discussion about variance in statistics. I argue simply that some state polls have less variation than others. This is shown to be particularly the case with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. So while it is fascinating to look at North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio, the lack of variation in polling for the first group of states mentioned may be more definitive in the electoral outcome than all the variations that we follow in the closely watched states. This is because of the significant edge Biden has going into the election with existing electoral votes.
It’s not insurmountable for Trump, but it is challenging. In Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan Trump's numbers have had little variation. Biden’s numbers have also shown little variation in these three states, and this is a net positive for Biden because of his favorable spread in these areas. One important difference between this election and the previous election is how few voters say they are undecided in this cycle. Therefore, the margins the undecideds contribute to the outcome are far smaller than the difference between Biden and Trump. For a helpful tracker for the electoral college, please follow the Cook political reports reference sheet and if you enjoy gaming out multiple scenarios for the election, I encourage you to go to 538’s election map that simulates outcomes.
These sites also have helpful information about House and Senate races and what to follow in these closing days. The pool of competitive races has increased significantly since the beginning of this year.
Afterthought:
This point is related to the election, but it is also a broader observation. As a society, we like to focus on change. But if we look at the election trends, the most consequential factors of the election have been about less change or nonchange.No doubt day after day there are news stories about the election and without a doubt, Trump has a way of capitalizing on numerous media cycles. This can lead us to the conclusion that change is always happening. However, it could also be argued that there has been relatively little change in the polls.
Many of the polling averages in these core states I am talking about have changed very little over recent months, even under the interesting and unique circumstances we have experienced. So in short, for all of the variation that’s regularly discussed, there seems to be less variation in the impressions left among members of the public. The impressions seemed to be more ingrained as negative and positive for each of the respective candidates as the election has rolled on. But this is not unique.
There are a whole range of things in our lives that we make conclusions about. I focus on this because there are only so many things we can think about in a day and it’s also because we are satisfied with a lot of the conclusions that we reach. So, while we favor habits and patterns that engrain continuity, our minds are much more actively aware of change. While I think we have a bias towards noticing change and its influence in our lives, it does make sense that we notice it. However, I do think it is a flawed approach to only look at the influence of change in our lives and not to consider the elements of continuity as well.
So the elements of continuity may be daily routines, specialties skills, traditions, relationships, and a lot of the things that people will sometimes say that they take for granted. Those can be continuous factors. A lot of times change has associated negative repercussions, so it is logical that we sometimes focus on change instead of the things that remain more stable. In our social interactions, also, we sometimes emphasize change more than things that are continuous.
An example of this interaction of change and nonchange around the globe is an illustration involving the number of great powers in the world. While countries are constantly interacting with each other and engaging in dialogue about change, the frequency of change of power status occurs much less often. In fact, in my lifetime there are about two examples of major change from this frame of reference. At the same time, a plethora of interactions, conflicts, dialogue, and trade have continued to transpire.
These are all examples of change and continuity in our lives.
News:
twitter.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/1323206645661470720
twitter.com/BBCNewsAsia/status/1322339729686306818
I am enjoying the chance to share these newsletters with you in the form of the new podcasts and appreciate your continued feedback. You can reply to this email or leave your comments below. I sincerely enjoy chatting and learning what folks think. Thank you ~ Kevin
Closing Thoughts