Abstract for Belichick, McDaniels, and Patricia (2016)

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2024 Projection: Not Going Back

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  This is the most difficult little projection that I can remember doing because the polling industry seems broken. I'll get to why in the polls section below. But first, I think Kamala Harris is winning, and as I've told a few reporters this week, on track for perhaps a "comfortable" win. Let's talk about why. Kamala June 28-July 21 of this year was just about the most fascinating period of party politics I've ever lived through, rivaled only by the 2008 Obama-Clinton primary, or 2015-16 Trump vs. Everyone in the Republican party primaries. But Joe Biden's terrible debate was almost more interesting because there was no schedule, no rhythm to it. In those party nomination contests there's a cycle of polls-fundraising numbers-nomination contest-polls-etc. that was absent here. This was just Democrats working behind the scenes to determine who was their best chance to win the election. I was shocked by what I saw from Biden in the debate, and even thou...
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The 2016 Projection: Hillary's day finally comes

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Clinton 323, Trump 217 Since it became clear that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination in June, I have been about 80% certain that Hillary Clinton would beat him in the General Election. So I put my money where my mouth is, buying stock in Clinton the day before the Democratic Convention when the price was $0.64 to win $1.00, in essence a 64% chance of winning. Like any good scientist, I was prepared to factor new information into my view. But the real threats to Hillary's candidacy (an indictment from the FBI investigation, a Lehman Brothers like collapse, etc.) never materialized. On Twitter, I doubled down on this confidence a number of times in response to particulary silly moments in the news cycle, such as when Hillary was struck was pneumonia... If you're a bettor, feel free to cash in on this ridiculous news cycle that has Hillary's chances at $0.64 to pay $1 https://t.co/nWJbkxXoNK — Alex Garlick (@garlicksauce) September 13, 2016 or wh...
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Turnout for What?: An altogether different concern with field experiments

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To the degree that Political Science Twitter can blow up, it blew up this week with the controversy over a field experiment run by professors at Stanford and Dartmouth in Montana (For the latest in the debate, see John Patty ; for overview, Derek Willis in NYT ). I don’t have anything to add to the ethics in field experiments discussion, although I am sympathetic to the accused profs. (If you would like a totally ethical look at how information increases participation in races like these, see my MPSA paper from last year!) My concern with this episode is that it illustrates a problem with the literature on turnout studies. They’ve gotten too good. One only needs to look around at the mail parties send to voters to see that voter shaming ( like in Alaska ), and possibly intimidation, is alive and well. These are techniques that were first tested by field experiments. (Look, it even happened to me in 2012) The combination of these techniques and the robust field offi...
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