pudge's Journal: Demo-Math

This post makes no sense. It reminds me of the popular illogical that Al Gore had more popular support in 2000, except it's far less logical.

There's no way to actually know it, because of the fact that people in different states vote for actually different things. The most important factor is that people in different states have far different liklihoods of their chosen candidate being elected, which in some cases directly impacts how they vote (for example, people might be less likely to vote in Texas, where Bush was a lock). But there's also different candidates (some states have Green and Libertarian candidates, some don't), too.

But in this case, they are doing something far worse, because they are comparing votes for a completely different and unrelated slate of Senators. A vote for Ted Kennedy (very senior, and essentially unopposed) is not the same as a vote for Maria Cantwell (freshman, and strongly opposed), and you can't reasonably compare the two. Add in the fact that the Democrats have many of their most popular Senators up for election this year, and the Republicans very few of theirs. And don't forget that a full third of the nation (by state) doesn't even get to vote at all because they have no Senators up for election in the first place.

So the actual numbers here are completely and utterly meaningless as an indication of support for Democrats. Yes, it shows Democrats have more support, but not by any particular percentage. A far more important number is simply the fact that the Democrats did not lose any seats, and the Republicans lost several. But you can't glean from these numbers any meaning about by "how much" the Democrats are favored, because there is no reasonable way to group them together to quantify it.

It may have been a blowout, but...

[Bill Dog]

But you can't glean from these numbers any meaning about by "how much" the Democrats are favored

Not only can it not be gleaned how much Dems are favored, it can't even be gleaned that they even are favored. Afterall, they didn't run on how great they are, they ran on how bad Republicans and Bush are. It's not a Democrat victory, by a 13.4% or any other margin -- the people don't suddenly actually like Democrats -- it's a Republican defeat.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[pudge]

Get over what? I honestly have no idea what you think you're talking about. I was not denying the Democrats won, in any way. I was not complaining about the election, I was not whining, I was not doing anything except noting that a certain attempt at analysis had no basis in fact. Is there something wrong with that? Jeez ... chill out.

Over at Ezra Klein's 'blog

[GMontag]

A lot of those guys seem to think this was a national mandate rather than a collection of individual, barely related if-that events.

Also, seems some of them have the idea that any Republican who won was due to cheating or John Kerry.

All I've been really saying is

[WilliamSChips]

that checks and balances are back. I also haven't heard anyone saying that Democrats are any percentage favored--the only thing anybody has said this implies is that Republicans are losing favor, for quite obvious reasons. Actually, most of what I've been hearing is that people are glad Republicans are out of Congress.
And by the way, Pudge, remember that every Representative seat was up for election.

Re:

[pudge]

No, the link I provided DOES say the Democrats are favored, by a large percentage. It says precisely what you say you haven't heard.

And I don't know what your "by the way" refers to: the link was specific to the Senate, not the House. The House would still be a illogical to group together like that (as raw numbers of votes for Reps), but would make a hell of a lot more sense than grouping together all the Senate votes.