Unlikely to improve. The Biden team is making it clear that they intend to move to the right to get the voters they think they need this election cycle.
Its also pretty clear to any one with eyes that he’s not going to find the voters he needs there, but it is what it is.
For context, no incumbent has ever won a second term with an approval of less than 51%.
Even though Biden is not very popular a lot of people will be thinking twice about voting in a man convicted of thirty-four felonies to the white house.
This might make Biden the guy who breaks that record and that’s what the comic is about.
No, its not. Again, a misunderstanding of what was said.
The point isn’t that it hasn’t been attempted. It has, repeatedly. The XKCD is all examples of things that haven’t happened.
The example provided is something specific that has been attempted, repeatedly, where we know the answer (not the felonious aspect, but the low approval. Don being a felon was never a point of discussion).
Its both a misunderstanding of the XKCD and the statement.
Plenty of incumbents with low approval have run. They don’t win their elections. We’ve got lots of data on this.
Consider why the comic cites categorical reasons, not continuous ones.
Specifically, I can put a mean and a standard error down on polling, approval, and using a factor like incumbency calculate a probability of re-election based on a given approval or polling metric.
Polling and approval data, is something at least hypothetically ‘exists’ for all candidates, ever, even if it went unmeasured.
And it does exist for these candidates. Don’s felony would fall within the bounds the premise of this comic, but not polling or approval. The relationship between polling, approval, and incumbancy doesn’t because we do actually have those information on those things. We can look at all presidents prior to now that we have data for, we can divide them into ‘re-elected’ and not ‘re-elected’, calculate a mean and standard error of their polling, and their approval, anything we can measure, and look at the probability of occurrence for the thing given their polling. We couldn’t actually do that with any of the factors in the XKCD because we’d be dividing by zero. We literally couldn’t create the statistic to get a probability distribution from because there are no examples of President running has parameter “thing B”, which is the actual point of the comic. “thing B” gets more and more ridiculous as the comic goes along.
Why the current example isn’t that case is that we do have examples of incumbents with low approval trying to be elected. The “thing B” about the incumbent exists and has been tested, so we can calculate the probability distribution.
against a convicted felon. And we have the data on it. You don’t win the presidency with a felony conviction.
…
I mean the felon part actually would be in bounds of the logic of the comic. We can’t observe the probability of a felon getting elected because it hasn’t occurred before, and therefore we can’t calculate a statistic.
Based on historical data, no, they are undefined. It’s expressed as the number of historical wins divided by the total number of historical felons running. There have been zero historical felons running, and dividing by zero is undefined.
I’d rather express it as the number of federally-elected felons over the total number of historical presidential elects… which seems to be what the comic is using.
No convicted felon had ever won a presidency before… but no convicted felon has ever lost a presidency before, either. If you want to study that variable, you have to have the data.
The comic might be doing that, but the entire point of the comment is to show that it’s illogical. It’s literally titled “The problem with statements like…”
The comic is highlighting the absurdity of taking something that is technically undefined, and thinking that you’ve got a counter-factual (with is, like, exactly what is happening for most people in this thread).
If no felons have ever previously run for president, you have no data on how felons perform. You have an N of 0 because the event hasn’t occurred. Its a null result. NA. Undefined. You have no information. Its untested.
Even further, it highlights the very exact point of the comic, which is that when you rely on currently has an N of zero as a counter factual, you are going beyond the scope of what your data is capable of speaking to.
To assess the impact of a candidate with a felony on their chances of winning a presidential election, we need to know how many felons have run and how many have won. However, if no felon has ever run for president, we have zero data points for both felons running and winning. This means our calculation for the probability of a felon winning would involve dividing by zero, which is mathematically undefined and impossible. Without any previous instances to examine, we simply cannot make a statistically grounded prediction about the impact of a felony on a candidate’s electoral prospects; we lack any empirical evidence to base such an assessment on.
Its a divide by 0. We can absolutely put down a probability of Bidens likelihood to win based on current polling or approval, because we have an N to divide by.
We don’t have an N to divide by in the felony issue (or any of the issues cited in the comic), and so can’t calculate a probability.
“X has never happened (until it happened)” is literally the point of the comic.
It’s not a divide by zero problem because we’re looking at all the presidents for a given criteria. N is the number of presidents elected.
Every one of those blurbs, and the two additional ones suggested here, are a situation where N equals the number of prior presidential elections. And all of them are 0%, because the listed criteria were always 0/N.
And no challenger has ever won with an approval rating as bad as Trump’s. One way or another a historically unpopular candidate is going to get their second term.
Yeah, I mean, its super interesting in an academic way.
And, you know… panic inducing in almost every other way.
If Cornell West hadn’t clustered the fuck out of his candidacy, we could have been seeing a Green party & Independent coalition representing a viable third party threat this year. The Green party is the only third party that had the infrastructure in place to get onto the ballot in all 50 states. But West screwed the pooch. I think he with Stein as running mate might have actually been able to make it happen, purely based on how hated the two extant candidates are.
Unlikely to improve. The Biden team is making it clear that they intend to move to the right to get the voters they think they need this election cycle.
Its also pretty clear to any one with eyes that he’s not going to find the voters he needs there, but it is what it is.
For context, no incumbent has ever won a second term with an approval of less than 51%.
Sigh Relevant XKCD
You are misinterpretting the XKCD.
Its not as if incumbents with approvals this low haven’t competed. They have.
We have the data on it. You don’t win the presidency with an approval this low.
They aren’t misinterpretting the XKCD.
Even though Biden is not very popular a lot of people will be thinking twice about voting in a man convicted of thirty-four felonies to the white house.
This might make Biden the guy who breaks that record and that’s what the comic is about.
My (parent) comment didn’t mention Te-felon Don.
So I’m sticking with them not understanding the XKCD or the parent.
But the whole idea is so-and-so can’t win if so-and-so.
Until they do.
No, its not. Again, a misunderstanding of what was said.
The point isn’t that it hasn’t been attempted. It has, repeatedly. The XKCD is all examples of things that haven’t happened.
The example provided is something specific that has been attempted, repeatedly, where we know the answer (not the felonious aspect, but the low approval. Don being a felon was never a point of discussion).
Its both a misunderstanding of the XKCD and the statement.
Plenty of incumbents with low approval have run. They don’t win their elections. We’ve got lots of data on this.
Until they do and that’s the point of the comic.
Sure, but its still a misinterpretation.
Consider why the comic cites categorical reasons, not continuous ones.
Specifically, I can put a mean and a standard error down on polling, approval, and using a factor like incumbency calculate a probability of re-election based on a given approval or polling metric.
Polling and approval data, is something at least hypothetically ‘exists’ for all candidates, ever, even if it went unmeasured.
And it does exist for these candidates. Don’s felony would fall within the bounds the premise of this comic, but not polling or approval. The relationship between polling, approval, and incumbancy doesn’t because we do actually have those information on those things. We can look at all presidents prior to now that we have data for, we can divide them into ‘re-elected’ and not ‘re-elected’, calculate a mean and standard error of their polling, and their approval, anything we can measure, and look at the probability of occurrence for the thing given their polling. We couldn’t actually do that with any of the factors in the XKCD because we’d be dividing by zero. We literally couldn’t create the statistic to get a probability distribution from because there are no examples of President running has parameter “thing B”, which is the actual point of the comic. “thing B” gets more and more ridiculous as the comic goes along.
Why the current example isn’t that case is that we do have examples of incumbents with low approval trying to be elected. The “thing B” about the incumbent exists and has been tested, so we can calculate the probability distribution.
And he’s up against a convicted felon. And we have the data on it. You don’t win the presidency with a felony conviction.
…
I mean the felon part actually would be in bounds of the logic of the comic. We can’t observe the probability of a felon getting elected because it hasn’t occurred before, and therefore we can’t calculate a statistic.
Are the “probabilities” of both, based on historical data, not currently 0%?
Based on historical data, no, they are undefined. It’s expressed as the number of historical wins divided by the total number of historical felons running. There have been zero historical felons running, and dividing by zero is undefined.
I’d rather express it as the number of federally-elected felons over the total number of historical presidential elects… which seems to be what the comic is using.
No convicted felon had ever won a presidency before… but no convicted felon has ever lost a presidency before, either. If you want to study that variable, you have to have the data.
The comic might be doing that, but the entire point of the comment is to show that it’s illogical. It’s literally titled “The problem with statements like…”
The comic is highlighting the absurdity of taking something that is technically undefined, and thinking that you’ve got a counter-factual (with is, like, exactly what is happening for most people in this thread).
If no felons have ever previously run for president, you have no data on how felons perform. You have an N of 0 because the event hasn’t occurred. Its a null result. NA. Undefined. You have no information. Its untested.
Even further, it highlights the very exact point of the comic, which is that when you rely on currently has an N of zero as a counter factual, you are going beyond the scope of what your data is capable of speaking to.
To assess the impact of a candidate with a felony on their chances of winning a presidential election, we need to know how many felons have run and how many have won. However, if no felon has ever run for president, we have zero data points for both felons running and winning. This means our calculation for the probability of a felon winning would involve dividing by zero, which is mathematically undefined and impossible. Without any previous instances to examine, we simply cannot make a statistically grounded prediction about the impact of a felony on a candidate’s electoral prospects; we lack any empirical evidence to base such an assessment on.
Its a divide by 0. We can absolutely put down a probability of Bidens likelihood to win based on current polling or approval, because we have an N to divide by.
We don’t have an N to divide by in the felony issue (or any of the issues cited in the comic), and so can’t calculate a probability.
“X has never happened (until it happened)” is literally the point of the comic.
It’s not a divide by zero problem because we’re looking at all the presidents for a given criteria. N is the number of presidents elected.
Every one of those blurbs, and the two additional ones suggested here, are a situation where N equals the number of prior presidential elections. And all of them are 0%, because the listed criteria were always 0/N.
Thats just not how probabilities work.
No convicted felon has been elected. I don’t think anyone has ever had a second term with someone between either…
Once. Grover Cleveland. His party basically blew the 4th year election, and his second term was a pretty strong showing.
And no challenger has ever won with an approval rating as bad as Trump’s. One way or another a historically unpopular candidate is going to get their second term.
Yeah, I mean, its super interesting in an academic way.
And, you know… panic inducing in almost every other way.
If Cornell West hadn’t clustered the fuck out of his candidacy, we could have been seeing a Green party & Independent coalition representing a viable third party threat this year. The Green party is the only third party that had the infrastructure in place to get onto the ballot in all 50 states. But West screwed the pooch. I think he with Stein as running mate might have actually been able to make it happen, purely based on how hated the two extant candidates are.
Don’t forget that Drump has NEVER WON the popular vote. Not in 2016 and certainly not in 2020