A buddy of mine was hard up for campaign work -- lost a State Sen. primary, then was running a Congressional campaign for Congress but got fucked by Rubio's re-entry, so took a job with Trump in Pennsylvania. He is constantly telling me shit about how disorganized and lackluster everything is. The only thing the campaign does well is put on rallies. They are completely braindead at the day-to-day operations. He gets volunteers in the door and can only collect their information, because they don't have the equipment or resources for door-knocking or phonebanking. Their yard signs are under lock-and-key because there's so much demand but so little to go around. (Plenty of hats, though!) Because Trump has outsourced basic campaign functionality to the RNC and state parties, that means volunteers who go to Trump's office have to be redirected to the nearest state party office -- which may be several towns over, if nearby at all. Furthermore, half the people that walk in the door are ardent Trump supporters who think the RNC and GOP are fucking sell-out establishment whores who'd be caught dead walking into a party office... so they just take a hat and go home.

Favorite story: he gets there, and there's an event the next week that he helps set up for. And while they're doing the setup, he asks, hey, what do we do with the crowds of people who show up hours before it starts? "I dunno. Some people sell them shit, I guess." My guy: "Okay, so why don't we sent out some people to collect data -- phone numbers, email addresses, names, and build a contact list and append our data files to show that these people came to a rally and are therefore hardcore Trump voters." "Oh shit, that's a great idea!"

They've had thousands of people voting for their guy in the same place at one time, dozens of times over, and no one ever thought to try and figure out who's actually there. They also don't have lists of voters or any basic campaign literature. Oh, and he's also told me a not insignificant amount of people have come in citing the bogus online poll that gives Trump a 67%-19% lead over Clinton, and have told him that they don't need to bother since Trump has the election locked up.

pacino wrote:A Breitbart poll has Clinton up 5 in a 4 way race..that's basically Trump's media outlet.

pacino wrote:A Breitbart poll has Clinton up 5 in a 4 way race..that's basically Trump's media outlet.

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:A Breitbart poll has Clinton up 5 in a 4 way race..that's basically Trump's media outlet.

I think Gravis is a bad pollster (and continue to think they're a cheap firm that produces weird results sometimes), but props to them for putting that out and not #$!&@ around with the data to show the race tied or Trump ahead

jerseyhoya wrote:....props to them for putting that out and not fucking around with the data to show the race tied or Trump ahead

Alex Marlow, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart News, said it was the natural next step for Breitbart to establish its own series of polls.

“It’s an open secret that polls are often manipulated and spun to create momentum for a particular candidate or issue,” Marlow said. “Breitbart News Network’s first national poll marks the start of a major initiative to give our readers an accurate assessment on where the American people stand on the key topics and people of the day — without the mainstream media filter.”

Kaplan said Trump has the ability to reach out to voters, who were turned off by Republicans in the past, but he it is not without leakage from his Republican support.

“In this environment, too many ambitious Republicans are willing to take their chances in 2020 against Hillary Clinton, instead of waiting out eight years of Donald Trump,” he said.

“Former rivals, who should be working to secure his base for him are stirring it up instead, forcing Trump to defend his own base, while reaching outside his base,” he said.

Inside the poll, Trump is gathering support from communities that have been traditionally solid for Democrats. In 2012, Obama gathered 93 percent of 67 percent African-American turnout, but Clinton has support from 80 percent of black voters, with Trump’s 11 percent almost doubling Romney’s 6 percent. In 2012, the black vote was the margin of victory for Obama in seven states for a total of 112 of his 332 electoral vote total. Romney won 206 electoral votes.

The question remains: Will the black turnout will be strong for Clinton like it was for Obama in 2008 and 2012, or would it fall back into 2010, 2014 levels?

“Granted 2010 and 2014 were midterms, but it is still an open question,” Kaplan said. “Then, if Trump can cut into the black vote on his own, it could be very damaging to the Democratic turnout models.”

“Michael Ellis,” the man listed as LongRoom’s managing editor, is described in only the vaguest of terms as “an Internet Executive with over 23 years of experience, including general management of mid to large sized publications. He has been involved with internet community management his entire career.” The three other staff members have similarly indistinct bios, and rather than photographed headshots, the staff is depicted in sketches. None of the staff appears to have Twitter accounts, let alone follow the @LongRoomNews account. Searches for the staff on other social networking sites did not lead anywhere and there is no listed point of contact for any of the LongRoom staff members anywhere on the site. FiveThirtyEight reached out to the site’s only point of contact for comment — a support email address — and did not hear back. A public records search for LongRoom yielded no results for the business. (In addition to its “unbiased” polling operation, the site aggregates news stories.)

But an analysis of the site’s IP address showed that in April 2015, LongRoom switched its registration to a domain that for a fee, allows registrants to keep their names private — Domains By Proxy, LLC. The last name associated with the website, as recently as January 2015, is Fred Waid, who listed the site’s associated organization as “American Separatist” based out of New Mexico. FiveThirtyEight reached out to Waid but had not heard back as of publication.

As English majors know, it’s best not to get too bogged down by the authorship question — work must stand on its own at a certain point, which is why everyone should stop obsessing over Elena Ferrante’s true identity — but polling is a business of transparency. It’s not enough to write out your methodology; if one purports to be holding other polling organizations publicly accountable, then isn’t it only fair to be publicly accountable yourself?

SK790 wrote:I don't know where you guys get this idea that I don't understand that Hillary is the best realistic choice given the options. I have not posted a single fucking time "hey don't vote for Hillary" or anything like that, yet youse feel the need to treat me like I do.

i posted a bunch of stuff about how hillary has been gross and it was met with a bunch of excuses, so it seems like people aren't that concerned.

thephan wrote:Trump set up businesses, takes them public, then charges those businesses consulting, and licensing fees in the millions (while the companies free fall). Any surprises? No.

One example of the consulting arrangements between DJT and Trump: Between 1999 and 2002, the company paid Trump $10.2 million for the "Castle Services Agreement," filings show.

Under this deal, an entity called TCI-II provided marketing, advertising and promotional services to a limited partnership called Castle Associates.

Trump was listed as the sole director and shareholder of TCI-II. He was also the chairman of Castle Associates, a partnership that owned the Trump Marina Hotel. The deal was terminated after 2002.

DJT also paid Trump for other gigs.

In 1995, Trump earned $1.7 million for providing consulting services to Taj Associates. That group owned the Trump Taj Mahal casino, which at the time was majority owned by Trump. Translation: The public company paid Trump for providing expertise to a casino that he owned a stake in.

Then there was what was known as the "TPM Services Agreement." This required Trump Plaza Management, a company wholly owned by Trump, to provide consulting services for marketing and advertising as well as license the Trump name to a DJT subsidiary. Trump received $1.3 million for these services in 1995 alone.

CalvinBall wrote:yeah, but those goldman sachs guys probably shouldnt be president either.