I have a substack! It's basically the best stuff I do, collected from the (many) disparate places it lives in the internet:
No charge ever
No set frequency
I keep it short
Just all things David Byler!
This site, May 2020: "Biden has the most progressive platform of any Democrat in modern history!! 😍😍😍"
This site, April 2022: "Hey, ELON -- Democrats have NEVER moved to the LEFT on ANYTHING 😡😡😡"
New one on why Warren gets v positive press
1) Obvs her rise is a big story
2) Her view of how politics should work (wonky, policy) matches the press's
3) Her support looks like media + their neighbors
4) She matches an upscale idea of who POTUS should be
New piece up on white non-college educated *Democrats*
Basically
1) There are waaaaaaay more of them than many think
2) They aren't just confused Republicans
3) Ignore them at your own risk
Here's the piece, and now a thread w/findings:
idk much about amy coney barrett, if she's a good person, what she means when she uses specific terms etc
but FWIW "Kingdom of God" is a pretty common christian phrase in my experience. if it sounds foreign, scary, etc may be worth asking a christian friend what it means to them
andrew yang and pete buttigieg are definitely archetypes of people i hung out with in college
swalwell is the archetype of the dude i did not know, somehow showed up in the middle of otherwise fun conversations, acted like he knew everyone and interrupted a lot
My meta theory on Trump is still that he never really updated his playbook/personality/strategy from the GOP primary.
It worked well enough to barely win a general election against HRC, but it hurt him in the midterms and makes him unpopular now.
And imo that explains a lot
Conspiracy Theory:
1) Terrible Maps posted this, knowing that it's a good map
2) Election Twitter folks QT saying "Noooo it's a good map!! I know things!!"
3) They sit back and go heh heh heh while raking in the engagement
It's entirely possible that
1) Dems gained about three points after Dobbs
2) On Election Day, there's an R+3 result
3) It would've been R+6 if Dobbs hadn't happened
Polls aren't only indicator something's up: Special elections, Kansas referendum, recent voter reg numbers, small donor fundraising, also things we know tend to benefits incumbents like falling gas prices. But even then, not sure how it all translates to midterm turnout.
1. It is bad when Republicans nominate election denying / decertifying candidates
2. It is bad when Democrats try to help those candidates, no matter what the rationale
These things are both true. This isn't that hard
in 2016, there were two really big forecasting lessons
1) you can't round a 20% chance down to 0%
2) polling movement/error isn't disconnected from one state to the next. if MI moves, WI may be moving too
if a model or analysis doesn't get that, that's a huge problem
this is a thought under development and may be dumb
but i sometimes wonder if we think too hard about why candidates fail to gain traction
like maybe a decent candidate can do his/her best, get lucky/unlucky w/getting media attention and that's most of the story
one thing i keep coming back to is the 2016 GOP primary
everyone knew who trump was
he was more vulnerable then than at almost any other time
many in the GOP wanted him gone
and almost everyone made *awful* moves/mistakes
such a big failure, w huge consequences
if you're wondering why trump has a greater than 0 win prob, look at the middle column here. a poll error that makes this race *competitive* or even gives trump a win is still possible
If a poll makes you feel bad
- Find a weird cross-tab, yell about it
- Emphasize the early vote instead
- Predict how polls will err, in detail and w/certainty
- Look at a poll that makes you happy instead
- Say the poll is wrong, w/no explanation
All good, healthy things to do
biden did not gain back blue collar portions of the midwest that obama won in 2012
educational polarization continues, despite Ds picking a candidate whose strategy was to win by slowing it down
would be kind of funny if after all of this Biden just cruised through, got the nomination and won the popular vote by 6 or something
not a prediction that will happen obvs. Just thinking about how what has seemed like The Darkest Timeline could become The Most Boring Timeline
You're a pro-life R in Dec. 2021. God comes to you in a dream and says
"In a year, you can have
Senators Herschel Walker, Blake Masters and Adam Laxalt, plus 15 extra Republicans in the House majority
OR
Roe is gone but Dems keep Senate"
Pretty obvious which one you'd prefer
The "Buying Greenland Is What White Working Class Voters Wanted All Along" take is just sitting there, waiting to be written by whoever types fastest and loves clicks the most
Every quantitative indicator looks meh to bad for Republicans -- except for primary turnout.
Basically if you add up turnout in all the primaries AND control for the effect of Dobbs, Trump's civil war -> there's evidence of a GOP advantage
New piece:
If you're a D who thinks
a) The Senate has a very strong, durable pro-GOP bias b/c of small states
b) The filibuster should be gone
that's fine!
but you had best really really REALLY believe in what you're doing right now
if you're mid recession, mid pandemic POTUS who is up for re-election in a month, it's a good idea to do stimulus. it's a really bad idea to stop and voluntarily take blame
California's population growth has ground to a screeching halt. Here's why
-- housing prices drive people out
-- birth rate down b/c of 08 recession + cultural change
-- immigration down b/c of 08 recession, immig policy, and more
new piece on all of it!
one more thought on this -- nobody floats joe manchin as a D potus candidate b/c everyone gets he's too centrist for a primary electorate
why people don't apply the same logic to hogan is beyond me
thoughts on hogan 2024
*the top three finishers in 2016 were trump, cruz and rubio. moderate lane is narrow
*GOP got close in the EC in 2020, may not need/want a trad "electability" candidate
*wishy-washy on abortion prob isn't great in a GOP primary
Latest piece is on Texas Senate, and I argue
1) Cruz has been ahead this whole time
2) This election is way more normal/generic than coverage suggests
3) We're obsessed w/Texas b/c we believe that it shows us the future
4) It actually doesn't
When Roe was overturned and Rs started facing fallout, they had three options:
1) cross fingers/ ride it out
2) moderate on abortion
3) find an issue that the base likes, but is more popular than full abortion bans
Looks like they're going for 3)
New:
You're going to hear a lot of spin today about Saccone being a bad candidate, this election being a fluke, etc.
That's not how you should view this race.
This huge Dem overperformance is part of a broader pattern that includes generic ballot polls, specials, Trump JA and more
alright we're fast approaching the deadest part of the of dead time
where everyone is losing their mind waiting and there is almost no new information to be learned
fwiw i think one big lesson of 2016 was that if a major party nominates a person, they can become president
that applied to trump, and it applies to sanders
biden's vote margin in
WI: 20,565
AZ: 10,457
GA: 14,028
NV: 33,596
that's a lot of electoral votes decided by a small margin
biden's popular vote is obvs v important for how we all interpret 2020. but so is stuff like this imo
There is only one chart you need to understand Pence dropping out
Favorability among Republicans
- plummets after Jan 6
- never stops dropping after that
-- Trump's endorsement is helpful in GOP primaries
-- His endorsement isn't all powerful. Never has been
-- Trump is still the dominant figure in the GOP
defund the police is not the most popular police reform
trying to make mainstream it and/or pushing for more than you think you're going to get (i.e. bargaining) are obvs reasonable strategies
but heads up that not all proposals have equal public support
First WaPo piece is up!
Basically it's about how the "polls" Cohen tried to "rig" aren't real polls + what the differences are + how not to get confused about fake polls, non-scientific polls, etc on the internet
I don't get the "IF BIDEN DOESN'T RUN IT'S KAMALA AND THEN DEMS WILL LOSE" thing
If there's a 2024 D primary, other people will run against her
And if she's as bad as everyone says, they'll nominate someone else!
New piece!
* Roughly eight percent of US adults changed their racial identity w/in a 4-8 year span, according to panel studies
* Switching out of Hispanic, multiracial or "other" was common
* Switchers often went to the White category
* And many voted R
will be very interesting to watch demographics finally wipe out the republican party and forever change the landscape of american politics. it sure was crazy when it happened in 2004, 2010, 2014 and 2016.
Gubernatorial elections are so interesting but SO under-covered
Prob partially because the categories from other elections (swing state! red state Dem! Obama-Trump district! etc) don't fit as well
So I made up some categories for you and described them!
i love the "post-trump GOP" discourse as much as the next guy. in fact, prob love it much more.
but i'm not sure the GOP will think it needs to change. the senate stuff is looking good for them. also what would the results look like if trump had demonstrated basic competence?
would be kind of funny if after all of this Biden just cruised through, got the nomination and won the popular vote by 6 or something
not a prediction that will happen obvs. Just thinking about how what has seemed like The Darkest Timeline could become The Most Boring Timeline
Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had underwater approval ratings and bad midterms, yet both got reelected. Politics in 2021-22 doesn’t tell you much about politics in 2023-24.
Warren's base -- more white, more affluent, more educated, liberal Ds -- also look like the friends and neighbors of many people who work in the press
It's like the Buttigieg thing
@ForecasterEnten
pointed out earlier (link in piece) -- media is personally surrounded by her base
Lots of people are like "Buttigieg was a Rhodes Scholar! Wow!"
But Cory Booker was also a Rhodes Scholar. It's literally the same academic achievement/accomplishment!!
serious question: beyond some faculty with languages, what is the evidence that Buttigieg is “the smartest?” and what makes his educational background unique from say Cory Booker or Julian Castro or Amy Klobuchar?
tough things about polls being off
-- in 3/4 of the last elections, they've overestimated Dems. Not wonderful for media trust
-- there's not a great alternative. most other stuff has higher error or just isn't meant to gauge the whole electorate
-- readers love the horse race
Oz could win Pennsylvania by 4 and this website would be like "Wow, only a four point victory?? By my calculations, he underperformed the fundamentals by nine. Terrible candidate."
Republicans did a LOT worse in the Midwest/Mid-Atlantic in 2018 than 2016. But if you break it down
Some signs of GOP resilience in OH + signs MI might be becoming generally swing-ier
WI, MN did what was expected
PA was really bad for Rs
New piece:
VIRGINIA MATH
Give Youngkin the best of the Trump and Romney coalitions:
In every county, he gets Trump's 2020 margin or Romney's 2012 margin -- whichever is better for him
And every county casts about the same % of the statewide vote as in 2020
---> VA is virtually tied
Raw turnout numbers suggest an R+4 to R+5 GOP advantage in the midterms
If you're pretty conservative (try to control for Dobbs, Trump vs establishment GOP primaries, etc.) you still get something like an R+2 advantage
New piece
thoughts on hogan 2024
*the top three finishers in 2016 were trump, cruz and rubio. moderate lane is narrow
*GOP got close in the EC in 2020, may not need/want a trad "electability" candidate
*wishy-washy on abortion prob isn't great in a GOP primary
OKAY so I did a 2020 Senate Piece!
Basically my point is that Rs have a worse map this time.
Rs defending: CO, AZ, IA, ME, GA, TX
Ds defending: AL, MI, NH, MN, VA
IDK if those will ALL be real races. But on balance it's a good map for Ds
Jan 2041
"Gaetz, once a vocal member of the GOP's far-right wing, is now facing accusations that he is too close to the establishment -- and not conservative enough to lead his party's new House majority"
Rs will win the House popular vote
If you're an anti-gerrymander / pro-proportional representation person who dislikes GOP maps and thinks Ds should have more seats...
Just think about the consistency of your positions
There's a TON of media speculation about which Trump Tweets people do/don't like, whether it's all "red meat for the base", etc.
YouGov polled national samples on *over 3000* Trump tweets
I got the data. Here are some basics:
Trump's base is actually pretty split on how enthusiastic they are about the president.
But the large majority of people who dislike Trump strongly dislike him
This and more in my latest piece on SurveyMonkey polling:
Some Buttigieg takes
The bump is real: see $ + google search + polls
He's at worst in tier 2
Awareness of him is higher here than IRL
Media is prob demographically closer to his base than Ds
Like everyone, his win prob is not high. But he's in better shape than many others