12.8%. That's the margin Hillary won CA by. Remember those suspect polls that were

[MariaThinks]

putting Bernie ahead by 10% the weekend before the race? They smelled bad and in fact were bad. Just like the polls that showed Romney would beat us in 2012.

The polls organizations have to stop lying.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

1. They are not intentionally lying

The Democratic race has been hard to poll. Defining who is a Democrat and who is a likely voter are real challenges for pollsters this time out, given how many independents are supporting Sanders. What I'd be more interested in knowing is who has had the best predictive track record so far.

[Cheese Sandwich]

24. Yeah well a news bomb stomped on turnout in California so that changed the situaton

Hillary was hoping for low turnout

[mythology]

30. And yet Clinton wins primaries that have much higher turnouts than caucuses

Sanders wins when fewer voters turnout not more.

[Cheese Sandwich]

34. And yet polling clearly showed that high turnout in California would benefit Sanders

Poll: Sanders edging Clinton out in California

A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released Thursday evening shows Sanders leading with 44 percent to Clinton's 43 percent.
...

But, the poll found, Clinton has a 10-point lead among those likely to vote next week, primarily due to support from older voters.

Sanders has continued to close the gap between him and Clinton and has been campaigning hard across the state.

“Bernie Sanders has tapped into a wellspring of support in the Democratic primary over the last several weeks and he’s closing with a rush,” said Dan Schnur, director of USC’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, which partnered with the L.A. Times to conduct the poll.

"If Clinton manages to hold him off and win the primary, it would be as a result of a low turnout that tilts the electorate in her direction."
...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/bernie-sanders-leads-hillary-clinton-new-poll-california


News bomb motive established.

[Lord Magus]

47. Bernie had a slight lead if those who SAID THEY WOULD NOT VOTE were included in the poll.

Among those said they were likely to vote, Hillary won. Dan Schnur putting a pro-Bernie spin on the results doesn't change that.

[GoneFishin]

70. They also needed a cover story to explain why Bernie's 10% expected win turned into a 12% reported

loss. If there was no widely publicized explanation then these fishy numbers would attract much more attention.

This pattern has repeated itself several times over this primary, when fishy numbers were explained away by some widely circulated bullshit meme prior to a state primary.

If you are going to steal then make sure there is someone else in the room who you can blame.

[Hortensis]

72. GoneFishing, a couple of political scientists

discussed the proliferation of "cringe-worthy" polls this season, as well as the extreme fallibility of even good ones. They had a couple of tips to avoid getting dragged around by them.

1. The media tend to grab the most senationalistic and less reliable polls. If the poll itself is the subject of a header, be very suspicious.

2. Look to poll averages, instead of individual polls.

It's not all because of some evil conspiracy, it's because of low standards and higher profits.

[Helga Scow Stern]

113. Yes, that's how they do it.

Election theft needs a story to explain why there is such a surprising result.

[onenote]

35. the question is why did Bernie's enthusiastic supporters let him down

He had made it clear even before Monday's announcement that a big win in CA was key to his strategy for persuading SDs to change their position even if Clinton had a combined 2383 in pledged delegates and SD commitments. There was no pretending that Clinton wasn't going to be pronounced the presumptive nominee, it was only a question of when. It could just as easily have been Saturday night or Sunday night if a bunch of SDs had told AP they were committing.

Bernie's supporters should have known that Bernie wasn't planning on quitting just because Clinton was pronounced the presumptive nominee. They should've rallied to his cause. But either they didn't exist in the numbers you assume or they were fairweather supporters who simply didn't show up -- not the enthusiastic supporters Bernie said would distinguish his support from Clinton's.

And let's be honest: if AP had found out over the weekend that a dozen previously uncommitted SDs and a few Clinton SDs were jumping on Bernie's bandwagon and they withheld that information until after the Tuesday primaries, the Sanders team would have gone nuts and justifiably so.

[Cheese Sandwich]

37. The question is who coordinated the movement of 20+ superdelegates on the night before the

California primary.

[onenote]

39. Again. Imagine the scenario in which there were a dozen or more SDs ready to jump on Sanders' side

And the campaign knew about it. Would you fault them for timing the release of that information for maximum effect on the Tuesday primaries?

I don't know whether the Clinton campaign "coordinated" the "movement" of SDs the night before the primary. From what I've read, they didn't and the surveying wasn't done that night, it was done over several days. Holding onto newsworthy information would have been journalistically unethical. Just as it would have been unethical for the media to withhold disclosing information favorable to Sanders had they had such.

[Cheese Sandwich]

40. Surveying has been for the past year.

The superdelegates choose when to return the calls and emails to the press.

20 of them moved on the same day, without talking to the campaign first? No way.

[onenote]

43. You didn't answer my question.

If the Sanders campaign had gotten information about SDs switching to their side and held it for maximum impact on the voting on Tuesday, would that be wrong? And if the media had gotten that same information and sat on it preventing it from having any impact, would you think that was proper?

[Cheese Sandwich]

46. You're raising a good point

It depends what you mean by wrong.

On one level it would be just great campaign strategy. It would be an example of the world's greatest media manipulation.

So in that sense it is expected behavior from a political campaign.

On the other hand, if you think the likely result of dropping this bomb is to reduce of voter turnout in the California primary, and you deliberately do it for that reason, I think it can be seen as a dirty trick.

[Lord Magus]

48. You know what happened before Monday that convinced more supers to announce for Hillary?

Puerto Rico happened. She won a bunch more delegates that put her just barely short of the threshold.

[riversedge]

57. So, why did the Bernie fans in CA not vote??

[Cheese Sandwich]

65. Maybe they thought the election was over since that message was blaring from every MSM news?

[riversedge]

80. haha.

[Hoyt]

103. Well, Sanders preyed upon their gullibility. If you are right, that gullibility cost him California

Ifor anyone sat at home it should have been Clinton supporters, not Berners.

[Corporate666]

73. How does it change the polls?

I would like to see a scientific study of what such announcements do to turnout. I am sure it's down, but my gut feel would be that Hillary would be harmed more than Sanders by the announcement.

You'll get a lot of HRC voters thinking "meh, no need to go now that she's won" but the Sanders voters knew it was a long shot all along, so and they know she wasn't going to get 2026 delegates without CA, so I imagine they would still turn out big time for Bernie. Not to mention the protest vote... like "screw her! Let's get out there and give her a beating".

I could be wrong and I am not aware of any peer reviewed studies on this, but my gut feel is that the announcement hurt HRC way more than BS. And even if it hurt both of them, it doesn't explain the poll discrepancy.

I think it's much simpler... there are so many demographic groups and nobody can know who will come out to vote and for whom, so anything they do is just estimates. That's why there were poll numbers all over the place in weeks leading up to CA. When a poll comes out showing BS ahead by 5 and one the week before showed HRC up by 10... it's not that he gained 15 points on her. It's that none of these polls are anything close to perfect.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

75. How about "it rains on both sides"?

FWIW, the term for the theory Sanders supporters are talking about is "Bandwagon Voting." Californians (or whoever) hear a race has been called in favor of candidate "X", and then go cast their vote for "x" to feel like winners. It's a west coast phenomenon - obviously - because of time zones. There have been calls over the years for embargoed results until everyone has voted.

[Corporate666]

79. Has there been a study?

of the effects of "bandwagon voting" vs "f-you voting" (my term for those that cast a protest vote)?

I agree with your assertion that it rains on both sides. I don't think the BS voters in CA thought it was anything but a long shot, I think they had to know at this point he was way behind and really needed to win all of yesterdays states by large margins. Should the press not report NJ results too, to keep the hope alive that BS could win?

In my opinion, not reporting facts for the express purpose of helping one specific candidate to win is anti-democracy. To give a totally unrelated example - it's like when a species goes extinct for reasons other than human meddling. If the progress of nature had that species going extinct, then it was never meant to survive in the first place.

And if BS's campaign requires a media blackout of actual news and mass censorship of truth and facts so that he has the advantage he needs in order to win, then his position was so weak that he has no shot to start with.

I mean, if HRC and her presidential bid was so fragile that BS saying she is unqualified tanked it... it doesn't make Bernie an evil bastard for saying it. It means she wasn't strong enough to win in the first place.

[CorporatistNation]

94. ENSURED AS DESCRIBED BY GREG PALAST ANALYSIS!

LOOK IT UP!

[Bill USA]

56. this is just for California

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-california-democratic-presidential-primary

[Algernon Moncrieff]

93. Thanks!!

I'd love to know the differences in methodologies. Survey USA/Hoover and Survey USA/KABC/SCNG came pretty damn close with USC/LATimes doing respectably.

[tonyt53]

2. People are on polls overload. polls now about November aren't worth the time to look at.

Most polls aren't lying, they just aren't asking the right questions. Or, they are asking certain questions to solicit a certain reply. Happens all the time with the GOP machine.

[virtualobserver]

3. News flash from the Associated Press: vote suppression works

[MariaThinks]

5. oh - so you think Romney didn't lose?

[virtualobserver]

10. The AP didn't call an election in 2012

[KingFlorez]

8. It stinks to lose, doesn't it?

[virtualobserver]

11. No, vote suppression stinks.

[onenote]

41. Calling this vote suppresion is insulting to the victims of real vote suppression.

You know, the people who have faced violence and intimidation to prevent them from voting, who in the past faced poll taxes and other unconstitutional hurdles, and who today are being disenfranchised by ID requirements that are difficult for poor and elderly voters to meet.

No one prevented a single Sanders voter from going to the polls. Not one. If they chose not to vote it's entirely on them. The reality is that they had exactly the same reason to vote Tuesday as they would have had if the AP story hadn't come out. Sanders announced strategy for the past few weeks (if not longer) was to win as many contests by as large a margin as possible thereby cutting into (but almost certainly not erasing) Clinton's pledged delegate lead. His strategy was to take the results from the final primaries, particularly California, along with GE polls and the message that his supporters were more enthusiastic than Clinton's, to the SDs in an effort to persuade them to switch.

That strategy was unaffected by Monday's announcement. Indeed, it had been widely reported on Sunday and Monday morning that Clinton was so close to having a combined total of pledged delegates and SDs after VI and PR that it was inevitable that she would be proclaimed the presumptive nominee as soon as New Jersey (a state Sanders admitted he isn't going to win) was called.

So if Sanders voters stayed home it is not a case of vote suppression. It's a case of those voters letting Sanders down when he needed them the most.

[virtualobserver]

55. there are many forms of vote suppression...

acknowledging this form is not insulting to those whose votes are suppressed in other ways.

Political and media establishment forces have been placing their thumb on the scale throughout in many ways....starting with the undemocratic Superdelegates, minimizing the number of debates and scheduling them in a way that reduced viewership.

All of these things were designed to favor the establishment candidate.

It is all legal. It is the way that our current political structure works.

Soon, those on this site who have been dismissing this kind of manipulation in the primary, will be complaining about the same sort of behavior from Republicans.

[onenote]

64. It really is.

Tell the person whose life has been threatened if they vote or who has been prevented from voting by unconstitutional poll taxes or ID laws that what they've been subjected is in any way comparable to someone deciding not to vote because they heard that the other candidate in the election had been proclaimed the presumptive winner, even though everyone knew that was going to happen sometime on Tuesday anyway and even though the candidate they supported had made it clear that his path to overcoming the proclamation of his opponent as the presumptive winner depended on a big victory in California.

[virtualobserver]

66. you are just making excuses for this kind of manipulation

[onenote]

78. No you are making excuses for people who get a sad and decide they don't want to vote

And refusing to acknowledge that there is a fundamental difference between someone who wants to vote being prevented from doing so and someone deciding they don't want to vote because they got bad news is shocking.

Here's a question: do you think the media should always withhold accurate information if its release could deter some people from voting? If not aways, when?

[nadinbrzezinski]

81. Well this is a very well known effect, among experts

every four years we see it, and yes people have proposed not releasing any information until all precincts nationwide have closed. Even GASP some in the media, they even were discussing this very thing GASP on NPR, and mentioned the best known case of this, Carter- Reagan, 1980. I predict this AP gaffe will be also an example.

It would inconvenience people in the East Coast, yes, but it would be healthy for democracy, and I mean that with a small d.

As usual, people like you blame the individual voter. After all they could not register, did not check their registration or in your words, had a sad. But when something can be proven to cause harm to democracy, yes we should

The US is far from a mature democracy and it is becoming increasingly dysfunctional... and in no small part due to hyper partisans on both sides.

[onenote]

83. Reporter gets reliable tip day before NY primary that Clinton is going to be indicted

Report or not report?

[nadinbrzezinski]

84. Reporter has to run up the flag to editor and make sure

this is valid and will not get you in trouble, for example, real world, HUFF POST contributor runs a piece about a RICO indictment, that was not 11o percent bulletproof. We actually have the actual real world example,

I know that after that piece went up, there were a series of emails going back and forth, between the editors and the lawyers, and perhaps a few other sources, to make sure.

Something like that to be 110 percent bulletproof.

You actually gave me an actual real world example. If it is bulletproof, then and only then you run it. That is actually REPORTING on a story, not becoming part of the story, and advocating for a candidate.

[onenote]

88. two more examples

Reporter surveying SDs finds 20 previously uncommitted SDs that tell him they are unequivocally with Sanders, plus five others say they're switching from Clinton to Sanders -- first indications that Sanders strategy might work. It's the night before the CA primary. Report or not report?

Reporter surveying SDs finds 20 previously uncommitted SDs that tell him they are unequivocally with Clinton, plus five others say they're switching from Sanders to Clinton -- driving a big hole in Sanders strategy and putting Clinton within one delegate of having 2383 combined pledged delegates and committed SDs. It's the night before the CA primary. Report or not report.

[nadinbrzezinski]

89. Not report and the AP is getting it from ethics folks.

Including oh FAIR, and they became part of the story. Hell, they were part of the story. SPJ calls this advocacy, especially since SDs can change and the Party told them not to fucking count them in the tally. Incidentally we are still not counting them in the tally, nor using the word presumptive. We are making an ethical stand. Did I mention the DEMOCRATIC PARTY ASKED PRESS NOT TO DO THAT BACK IN FEBRUARY?

Oh and did I mention they I know of the effect?

[onenote]

90. Personally, I think the idea of the press taking direction from a political party

to be terrifying. I much prefer an independent press, even if it means that they sometimes make wrong decisions.

[nadinbrzezinski]

92. I find advocacy unethical

this is what this was.

And SDs are not fixed in stone

[onenote]

95. Of course they're not. Which is why Clinton is the presumptive nominee

Not the official or even conclusive nominee. As the story said in its lead.

The story also contained reaction from Sanders. And it also reported that the delegates that AP surveyed had said they were unequivocally behind Clinton and that no Clinton delegates have switched to Sanders over the course of the campaign.

These are facts. Reportable true facts. They are no more advocacy than it would be for a news organization to report that a pre-election poll taken the day before the presidential election indicates the Democrat is likely to win that states electoral votes because the poll shows a lead of 30 points.

The news media reports all kinds of predictions and forecasts based on polls, surveys, and hard information. The fact that people react in varying ways to that information -- they get excited, they get depressed, they get happy, they get angry, is the way it should be. Reporting tempered by a concern that it might upset someone is not reporting at all.

[nadinbrzezinski]

96. Which is why the party told press NOT TO COUNT THEM

thank you for making the point.

Which is why... people like Fairness and Accuracy in the Media took the AP to the carpet Which is why I sent them a nasty gram, kept it professional, and took them apart in an editorial, and at least one my local races might very well have been affected DIRECTLY by this. The difference to claim outright victory was less than 1 percent. The depressed turnout is likely around 5 percent. As you all kept going over the course of the last whatever, MATH!

At least our local minimum wage workers did not have to wait for a wage increase.

And I am willing to bet that if this happened abroad, the State Department would be issuing a few carefully diplomatically worded condemnations,

Lastly, since you are such a partisan, if that election went to the DEMOCRAT, we would not be worrying about who the fuck will control the city council come November. Thank you AP. .

And you are telling me how it works when that is what I do for a living? Now that is hilarious. I got a press pass sitting by me and I spent all day yesterday doing well, that. As I said, I find advocacy to be something to despise. So does the Society of Professional Journalists, Of course this year the Major media has crossed so many ethical lines, that this was just gobsmacking how hard they did that. It is like why bother having a code of ethics...

[onenote]

97. Yes you are a journalist. But your views on journalism are not the only views

And a great many journalists would disagree with you vehemently, especially with respect to the idea that journalists should hop to the tune dictated by a political party, or any other organization for that matter.

The rules adopted by the DNC are published for anyone to read. There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- in them that says that SDs can't endorse someone before the convention, or can't tell anyone who they endorsed. The party isn't into gag rules and neither should be the press.

But at least you've acknowledged that you are such a partisan that it influences your views of what should be reported.

If polls are conducted and they get reported and it impacts how people feel or act, so be it. That's what the dissemination of truthful information does. And there is not a single untruthful statement in the AP story.

[nadinbrzezinski]

100. Of course,

funny this came up yesterday, while killing time, though you might be shocked the majority of the people in the room did not approve of the AP, and the reason given was advocacy. It is a no no, You are getting to hear me, Most people do not discuss these things with their friends. Here from FAIR

Action Alert: AP’s Premature Call for Clinton Does Disservice to Democracy
AP Count: Clinton Has Delegates to Win Democratic NominationThe Associated Press (6/6/16) has unilaterally declared Hillary Clinton to be “the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president,” based on the news agency’s own polling of unelected superdelegates.

Superdelegates—who have a role in the Democratic nominating process based on their institutional positions rather than being chosen by voters—do not vote until the Democratic National Convention, to be held on July 25. They can declare their intention to vote for one candidate or another, just as voters can tell pollsters who they intend to vote for before Election Day, but like voters they can (and do) change their mind at any time before the actual voting. Media do not generally call elections weeks before the actual voting based on voters’ intentions.


The timing of AP’s announcement–on the eve of primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Montana and South Dakota, and caucuses in North Dakota—raises concerns of voter suppression, intentional or not. The six states choose a total of 806 delegates on June 7, making it the second-biggest day in the Democratic primary calendar (after “Super Tuesday,” March 1, when 865 delegates were at stake).

News outlets generally withhold the results of exit polling until voters have finished voting, regardless of how far ahead the leading candidate is, because they don’t want to confuse poll-based speculation with the actual electoral results. AP, it seems, has no such qualms.

CNN: Hillary Clinton Clinches Democratic Presidential NominationCompounding the damage done by AP’s premature call were other major news outlets that joined the rush to declare the nominating process over. NBC News (6/6/16) came out with “Clinton Hits ‘Magic Number’ of Delegates to Clinch Nomination.” “Hillary Clinton Clinches Democratic Presidential Nomination,” was CNN’s headline (6/6/16); an onscreen graphic reported that “Hillary Clinton Earns Enough Delegates to Win Democratic Nomination,” an odd choice of verb to describe the inclinations of unelected delegates.

At least NBC and CNN claimed to be making its own independent count of superdelegates; USA Today (6/6/16) had the headline “Hillary Clinton Clinches Nomination: Here’s How She Did It,” as if the AP call were an objective fact that needed no attribution.

ACTION: Please tell AP not to preempt the democratic process by telling voters their votes don’t matter.

To: AP political editor David Scott

email: [e-mail]

Twitter: /twitter.com/AP">@AP

Facebook: /www.facebook.com/APNews">https://www.facebook.com/APNews

Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave copies of your messages to AP in comments /fair.org/home/action-alert-aps-premature-call-for-clinton-does-disservice-to-democracy">here.

Read the original post here.

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[onenote]

105. I'm quite familiar with FAIR. And while I like some of what they do

no one would ever buy the notion that they are not without their own biases and agendas and that the entire press world agrees with everything that they say.

AP did not "call the election" -- they reported that Clinton, based on the information they obtained through their investigation - had enough support to be deemed the 'presumptive' nominee -- a label that has been historically applied to candidates who have obtained enough support that it is a fair presumption that they will carry the day at the convention unless something happens that would upset that presumption.

That's the whole thing about presumptions -- they are fluid. They can get stronger or weaker. At the time of the AP story it was (and remains) a fact that not a single Clinton SD has changed its position. Could it happen down the line -- sure, and if it did, it would begin to weaken the presumption, possibly to the point where Clinton would no longer be the presumptive nominee. Similarly, if, as the days and weeks go by, Sanders doesn't pick up new SDs, doesn't flip any previously Clinton SDs, and Clinton picks up more SDs and more pledged delegates, the presumption grows stronger. Its never conclusive until after the votes are cast, but it is no less valid as a presumption.

The AP story clearly stated it was a presumption. It contained a clear statement from the Sanders camp that anyone reading would understand to be saying that, from the Sanders' camp's perspective, votes continued to matter.

We're just going to disagree on this. You say it was advocacy. I say it was reporting.

[nadinbrzezinski]

106. And by doing that likely affected the election

by a very well known phenomena called the Band Wagon effect. This is not unknown to most political reporters. This was a call from the head editor at the political desk. If the Editor at the AP did not realize that he or she was creating news, that person needs to go back to school and take a few classes, Journalism 101 and Ethics would be two good ones.

And the AP story might have said whatever, it had the effect it had, I told you one very specific example locally. It is close enough where not all ballots have been counted, (yeah, yeah, they are not counted as in absentee ballots,) and as usual I will be watching the registrar for the next week or so. But if the turnout was not likely down by about 5 percent, we would not be having that specific of a conversation,

The same happens every November, by the way, This is not a new problem.

And your bias is quite partisan. My bias is professional, There is a difference.

I know from experience that this effect is real, I am careful to the point of never ever say who I am supporting... of course people here took it to be the guy you do not like.I ain't telling who we voted for. Suffice it to say we did, but that is the extent of what you need to know, And when asked about actual endorsements or recommendations by readers, we endorsed voting. Yup, we have our favorites, we are not telling. And in November we are again planing to endorse voting, or perhaps money in politics, as a joke mostly. Maybe wake up a reader or two to that issue.

I know you do not want to believe this likely had the effect it did, But i know more than a few of my circle of friends were disgusted. and a few actually sat it out. (Those are real world examples, as anecdotal as they are). And I could show you academic writings, or even hearings, 1980 led to hearings... it will not change your opinion. But facts are pesky on this.

[onenote]

114. Yes, the reporting of facts can impact an election

Reporting is funny that way. It tells people things and then they make decisions based on the information received. Did the AP story impact the results? Entirely possible. If it did, by how much? I've seen nothing to tell us. But let's assume that instead of Clinton winning, Sanders would have won -- an assumption for which there is no real support according to the polling reported by RealClearPolitics. And even if you accept the polls most favorable to Sanders (47%) and then bump up his total by 10 percent (to 51.7) -- an arbitrary number without any factual basis -- you end up with Sanders winning by a relatively narrow margin -- not enough to deny Clinton a majority of the pledged delegates, not enough to significantly cut into here popular vote margin and not enough, in all likelihood, to cause any SD to change his or her support to the outsider candidate who has been very critical of the Democratic establishment -- the very people who make up the SDs.

And sitting out the election when you know that the bigger the vote for Sanders the better for him is just cutting off one's nose to spite one's face -- the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy as it were. No one made them sit it out. They decided to do so to prove a point although what they were proving escapes me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

117. The AP did not report in this case

It called an election based on a poll. Perhaps we should not bother voting and just let media call it.

[virtualobserver]

91. it wasn't "bad news".....they were told that the Presidential race was over

Since the beginning of the primary, Superdelegates have been used to declare Hillary's lead insurmountable. They are a tool to ensure the continuance of the status quo.

It is perfectly legal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

74. Jesus

you know why I carry a passport when I go vote? take a guess. The difference is that one is actually ilegal.

[1StrongBlackMan]

63. Thank you ... I'm tired of saying it.

[oasis]

13. It won't stink to LOSE the Hillary conspiracies at DU. Sometimes losing

can be a good thing.

[Blanks]

4. It's the press 'horse race' mentality...

They figure no one will pay attention if it doesn't look close.

[TwilightZone]

6. There weren't any polls showing Bernie 10% ahead.

In four months of polls, he never had a lead.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ca/california_democratic_presidential_primary-5321.html#polls

The only source showing him far ahead was a 14-year-old Italian kid who some decided was some kind of polling genius.

Here's one of the posts:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511946984

And a link to the site:

https://thepoliticalanalyzer.com/2016/05/31/sanders-leads-in-california-with-673/

[still_one]

27. exactly. Most recent polls had a two point spread. It was the survey USA and one other one I don't

recall that had it close to the actual results

Sander's was never ahead by 10 points in California

[larkrake]

7. I would be real careful about bragging about a CA win, entire blocks were not on rosters,

party affiliations were changed, and AP screwed the whole state . We will never know the truth about the Tuesday elections in all those states. Just another batch of repressive dirty tricks

[MrWendel]

9. Sounds...

like every state that had a contest where Bernie lost was subject to dirty tricks. Any state where he actually lost clean?

[MariaThinks]

15. amazing isn't it. Regardless of the margin of victory, regardless of the 2008 support levels,

everyone is Bernie, and any support for Clinton is suspect.

[onenote]

44. Yep. The great conspirators allowed Sanders to win in MN and WI just to throw folks off the scent

Probably actually pumped up Sanders numbers even higher than they were.

[oasis]

99. Cruel were the "powers that be" to allow Bernie's Michigan win.

That's where they could have ended the whole thing and saved Hillary a lot of trouble.

[geek tragedy]

14. no, we already know the truth, some people just invent elaborate conspiracy theories

to shield their fragile psyches from the possibility that people don't agree with them

[fleabiscuit]

23. Hell of a suppression technique that keeps 80% of the registered Dems from voting

in California

[Lord Magus]

50. And not a shred of evidence to support any of those assertions.

We certainly do know the truth and the truth is that Hillary won. Big.

[JI7]

12. i don't remember any polls with him ahead. at best he was a couple points behind

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Hmm conicidence

My county Registrar was predicting anywhere from 55-60 percent on Friday

We got a turnout of barely 50 percent.

Hmm, nice evidence right there of the bandwagon effect,.

Thanks



This is not new either.

[pnwmom]

18. Your county registrar was just guessing. And s/he wasn't that far off. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. 10 points is way off

and the guess what based on mail n voters, Yup, band wagon effect. And the AP knew about this. They were taken to the cleaners for doing the same exact shit in 1980. Then it took out a very powerful Oregon Democratic congressman, who lost by 2000 votes.

There are academic studies on this, I know you guys do not want to believe it, but what the AP did crosses into advocacy.

And that OP is pretty good evidence that a statistician should look into the actual effect. There was one.

[pnwmom]

22. "Barely 50" and 55 is pretty close. Good guess.

But I agree that the AP should have waited. This didn't help Hillary because she wanted her win to be based on the pledged delegates she got on Tuesday.

Instead, when she won NJ the networks barely acknowledged it and immediately switched to Trump -- when it should have been a huge deal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. 60 percent, 55-60, that is what Michael Vu spoke about

he tends to be conservative in his numbers, They usually out perform his estimate by 3 to 5 points, So when he said 55, I was looking forwards to presidential level turnout. Turns out we did not need it for the issue that mattered to me. But it might have been the difference in district one, Yup, Barbara Bry might have been able to win outright. Oh so close. She is right now at 49.05 Percent, she needed 50.01 to avoid the November run off. That's ok, money in this city will flow down from Soledad Mountain to La Jolla... oh and that seat will determine the balance in the council.



And those are the effects that again, experts speak off.

[d_legendary1]

38. But voter suppression is easy

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. They do not wnat to admit it

this might have been voter suppression. Might until statisticians find out the actual effect, in which case it will be in an obscure journal, that none will read.

[onenote]

49. If people choose not to vote it shouldn't be called vote suppression

No one was stopping or hindering anyone from going to the polls on Tuesday. And, in fact, turnout appears to be not far off what it typically has been in California's Democratic primaries (not counting years where its lower because there is an unopposed incumbent on the ballot or a unique year such as 2008 when CA's primary was early in the campaign and like most states, turnout was at crazy high, record levels -- 74 percent in California, as compared to between 43 and 48 percent in 1992, 2000, and 2004. Yesterday's turnout appears to have been at least 42 percent, and probably will turnout to be somewhat higher when the final count is certified.

Were there voters who decided not to vote because of the news on Monday? Probably. There probably were voters who decided not to vote because of the news on Saturday and Sunday when Clinton's wins in VI and PR were accompanied by stories indicating that she was close enough to having a combined number of pledged delegate and SD commitments of 2383 that the results in NJ would put her over the top before the polls even closed in California.

As I've suggested elsewhere, if the news media had information that would have been helpful to the Sanders campaign -- such as information about Clinton SDs switching to Sanders or previously uncommitted SDs committing to Sanders, and they held that information until after the voting on Tuesday, the Sanders team would have been justifiably outraged by the unethical withholding of information.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. This is a well known tecnnique

if the AP was the Xiang Central News Bureau, and they did that in China... my email box would be groaning with state department statements, ok more than usual. That is what I get for subscribing to these emails.

And I can almost predict the condemnation.

This is a well known effect among academics. I cannot do more than just inform you of it. What you do with the information is up to you.

[Lord Magus]

52. Because it clearly was not voter suppression. -nt-

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. Experts in the field do not agree with you.

All I can do is point to you the name of the phenomena. band wagon effect, after that it is up to you, not me.

[Lord Magus]

61. So the media should avoid reporting facts because they might impact an election?

That is not voter suppression. That is the media doing its job. They're not supposed to hide stories "for our own good."

Think about this: if the AP's superdelegate survey had instead shown that a hundred supers who had previously pledged to Hillary were switching to Bernie, do you think they should've sat on that story because it could impact the election?

[nadinbrzezinski]

68. Actually there have been proposals on this

Proposals have been offered over the years to prevent media organizations reporting on results in the east during the presidential race when precincts are still open all the way to Hawaii. This is when the effect is the most obvious. This would have be to a federal law, and you could prove damage.

For example, my own city yesterday, lets even assume the 5 percent that would be the low number, that might have given District One Candidate the needed 50.1 percent needed to not go to November and since this matters to you, assured democratic control of the city council. Yes, it was that close.

This would have to be a federal law. Something like under seal. And more mature democracies than ours, do this by the way, They admit this is a real effect. They have acted on it.

And if 100 SD switched to Bernie, I am willing to bet the AP would not have jumped the gun. You know what the margin was? 1. Ann in that case I am betting it would have lit a fire under HRC supporters. But also Bernie supporters, That is different than going race is over, Which is essentially what the AP did.

This is being analyzed as a breach of ethics and the AP committed the cardinal sin, they became the news.

But this is not a new effect, This is well known, ok not well known outside of academicians, and I admit not all reporters know this. But for real, read what happened in 1980. There were hearings and everything in the Congress, and this issue rears its ugly head every four years. I admit, people in the East Coast mostly, do not give a care in the world, and are far more concerned about known NOW, not at 3 in the morning, who the President would be, or worst, next day, if we held for Hawaii. Given that in older times it took up to 2 months, communications... I think next day would be healthy for democracy, with a small d.

[Lord Magus]

69. Sorry pal, we've got the 1st Amendment here.

The federal law you're calling for would be unconstitutional.

[nadinbrzezinski]

71. Not if you can prove harm

which I think you can. The first amendment does not protect screaming fire in a crowded theater unless there is a fire of course,

And I am media by the way, I work with this all the time.

So if you prefer your preferred candidates to lose due the band wagon effect, by all means. Let's change all the rules to back in 1979, before some reforms were actually adopted by media organizations, it used to be worst,. and have it it. I predict this will affect elections in major ways, all the way to the East.


Have at it.

Hey it should be fun.

And it could be done. It is called not having the results made public by registrars until ALL precincts, are closed nationwide. It is not preventing you from getting the information.

[LisaM]

32. But there were all kinds of other races on the ballot

What kind of voter would not turn out just because one race had been pre-emptively called? I'm asking in all honesty. I live in a West Coast state, and I don't let it bother me if an election is called for one race before I go to the polls. And if you are saying that they are new voters that just wanted to vote for Sanders, well, he was exhausting all means to get them to the polls so he could be close or even eke out a win, so that means it makes even less sense.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. This is an effect that has been known for decades

it might be less because of mail in ballots, but many voters, especially first time voters, or those with limited time, decide to vote on that critical race, the high profile one. Guess which one was the high profile one? You will show up, becuase partly it is a habit, I will show up in spite of the fact that I have completely lost all faith in the system. This year was the end of a 16 year saga for me, starting in 2000. So I am too stubborn and still show up, And well I bothered reading all there is to know about this, and damn it, it takes two minutes at that point to fill a ballot. But there are people, they are a large group, that only cares about THAT RACE.

This effect is very well known among political scientists. And trust me the AP is getting it with both barrels from people who do ethics in the media, among them FAIR, and quite a few members of the press. I personally blasted them over email, and took them apart in an editorial. In 1980 the effect on the west coast, when Carter conceded at 12:00 PST was radical and obvious. People simply did not bother to show up.

For me what mattered was not the primary. I was far more invested, or as invested as a reporter should ever get, mostly since I have been following that saga for the last two and a half years, with the minimum wage. It passed. by massive numbers. If I had staid home it would not have made a difference, but I was there, why not?

That is the last story I have to write for the day, the resolutions. But I actually made the day of one of my local minimum wage workers, She had a smile from ear to ear when I told her it passed, To you and me 50 cents and hour might not mean much, but is truly transformational for her.

[TheFarseer]

17. It throws it off a bit

When the day before the election, they tell all the Bernie people, don't bother to vote. We already decided it and your vote doesn't count.

[pnwmom]

19. They told that to all the Hillary people, too.

But my daughter voted yesterday anyway.

[TheFarseer]

82. They told them

Come out and vote. You guys were right. Come be part of history with your vote.

[pnwmom]

85. Bernie's campaign spent too much money on large rallies (which are very expensive)

and not enough on phone banks, which are a cheaper and more effective way to GOTV. Why didn't Bernie's campaign focus more on getting their voters to send mail-in ballots? Then they wouldn't have been dependent on last minute voters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512160752

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/bernie-sanders-rallies-money-221201

[TheFarseer]

86. You're not wrong

Bernie got killed in mail in ballots. Idk enough about it to say whether his phone banking efforts were subpar. The huge rallies might have been important in getting the ball rolling early on though.

[kstewart33]

20. Polling organizations live and die by the accuracy of their polling predictions.

They don't lie. They simply have flaws in their polling methodology.

The pollsters failed in their California predictions because they greatly underestimated the size and impact of the absentee (early) voters. These voters went for Hillary big time, and that largely made the difference.

[JDPriestly]

29. They also probably did not account for the provisional ballots that were foisted on unwary voters.

Fortunately for Hillary, Californians are very anti-Trump. Because if we weren't, Hillary's name would be mud here among about half of the California voters.

The primary was a mess in terms of respecting people's voting rights and organization.

Many first-time voters were not on the voting lists at the polls.

[JudyM]

25. What smells bad is the >30% reduced voter turnout due to the corporate media. The election results

yesterday are meaningless and to think otherwise is to believe in fairies.

[onenote]

45. Comparing any primary to 2008 is bogus

2008 was a unique year. Democratic primary turnout was at record levels everywhere. California, whose primary was held early in the campaign, had an astonishing turnout rate of 74 percent.

In other years (and this information can be gleaned from the detailed reports that the California Secretary of State publishes and puts online after every election), the turnout in the Democratic primary has been between 43 and 48 percent. (This covers 1992, 2000, and 2004; I'm not including 1996 and 2012 because in those years there was an unopposed incumbent president on the ballot and the turnout was very low, under 30 percent).

This year the turnout appears to have been around 42 percent, marginally lower than the typical contested primary years.

[JudyM]

51. Seems it was reported that there were more new registrations in CA for this election...

[onenote]

62. Correct. And the calculations I gave you took that into account

It was reported by the state that as of May 23, 2016, Democratic party registrations had jumped to slightly over 8 million from 7.4 million in 2012. (These registration numbers tend to fluctuate; the 7.4 number is 2012 was higher than the 6.7 million number in 2008, but that number was still lower than the previous peak of 6.849 million back in 1996.

Anyway, taking the approximate number of votes cast of 3.4 million and dividing it by 8.029 million registered Democrats (the May 23 number), you get 42.35 percent turnout.

[JDPriestly]

28. That is not the final tally. The provisional votes (and based on my experience, there were lots of

them) will not be counted for 21 days.

Bernie is staying the race.

i doubt that the provisionals are so numerous that they will put Bernie over the top, but the result will probably be closer, and there is a chance that Bernie could win depending on how many of the provisional ballots there are and how the provisional ballots voted.

A lot of people who registered on the internet or right before the deadline (at least that's what they thought they were doing) were shown to be registered on-line, but were not on the voter rolls in the precincts in which I visited the polling places.

California's votes have not all been counted.

[Trust Buster]

33. This serves as a perfect example of why these potential presidential matchup polls that some

have been crowing about are completely worthless.

[w4rma]

60. Clinton is far more likely to get hit with a "November surprise" than Sanders is. (nt)

[Trust Buster]

104. Sure she is because she's the nominee and Sanders isn't. ????????

[w4rma]

115. No. Because there are a million FBI investigations surrounding her private server.

And her coordination of State Department activities with donations to the Clinton Foundation.

[Bill USA]

53. that's a big margin! those predicting bernie by 10 were off 22%age points!

recommended.

[Zynx]

54. There weren't any polls putting Bernie that far ahead. The best he's done was 1 pt.

More often he was down.

[GoneFishin]

67. Pretty handy that there were none of those pesky exit polls which prove that Bernie should

have won but mysteriously didn't, as has happened in so many other states.

Hmmm. I wonder why no exit polls were done? Hmmm.

[qdouble]

108. exit polls cost money and Hillary was a shoe in to win the nomination regardless of who won

not worth it.

[HassleCat]

76. It should have been a 20 point win.

After the mainstream media all declared Clinton the nominee.

[AzDar]

77. Stolen.

[bhikkhu]

87. Stolen from Bernie

...by nearly 2 million Hillary voters.

If you want to put it that way. I also think it unlikely that 400,000 Bernie supporters decided to stay home because of the AP story the day before. Or that 400,000 people were Bernie supporters, but decided to vote for Hillary because a story said she was going to win anyway. Neither of those describe any of the Sanders supporters I know, or any of them here; the simple problem was just that he didn't have enough supporters in California.

[brooklynite]

98. What did the "Citizens' Exit Poll" determine?

Or was that more smoke and mirrors, like the "enough is Enough" march on Washington?

[grasswire]

101. 500,000 votes still uncounted in CA..

....at a minimum.

[merrily]

102. If you need to believe that AP's announcement did nothing, then sure, pollsters lied.

Why exactly? Is there a lot of demand for polls that lie, or even err innocently by wide margins?

Did they yearn to go out of business but were just too shy to do it, so they lied so people don't hire them in the future?

The reality is that the announcement depressed turnout and very likely caused some people to change their votes.

Deal with the truth or kid yourselves that pollsters lied. Or know that they lied and try to fool others. No one cares.

[qdouble]

109. It doesn't matter. Even if for some miracle Bernie won by a few percentage points, Hillary would

still be the presumptive nominee. The delegate count isn't close.

[merrily]

110. Irrelevant to my post and also untrue.

[qdouble]

111. The AP announced it because your candidate lost. News organizations have been counting

superdelegates before the convention since 2004 at the very least (as far as I can google). When you add up superdelegates and pledged delegates, Hillary would have crossed the media's threshold regardless of what happened yesterday. Time to enter reality.

[merrily]

112. False and still irrelevant to my post.

You don't seem to want to discuss, only to push talking points. I'm just going to move on. Have a good evening.

[JonLeibowitz]

107. "the polls that showed Romney would beat us" ? Are you sure about that?

Election polls were somewhat accurate in 2012 iirc. Romney's mistake was 'correcting' the polls.

[MariaThinks]

119. Romney 49%, Obama 48% in Gallup's Final Election Survey

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158519/romney-obama-gallup-final-election-survey.aspx

[ThinkCritically]

116. I just read that there are still approximately 3 million votes not counted.

Which everyone knew already, with the exception of a few. California won't be done counting for at least a couple days. Mail in ballots are counted one by one. They have to make sure it is signed and filled out properly in order to count. People were able to mail their ballots out up until the day of voting as long as it is postmarked. So it will be a longer process than most states.

[MariaThinks]

120. and if they all are for Bernie, he wins California!

[applegrove]

118. Those polls showing Bernie ahead were not of likely voters.