The Official Obama Approval Ratings Thread
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1025 on: June 10, 2009, 10:01:25 AM »

I have a better algorithm than what you are using, it's called common sense.

What constitutes common sense is a matter of taste. Sometimes, reality is counter-intuitive, and in such a case common sense fails.

The system that I offer is very flexible -- and swift to respond to change. It can also offer the counter-intuitive. If I had no polling data, I would base any prediction of 2012 upon what happened in 2008. I would expect Obama to effectively trade Indiana for Arizona because Indiana was a fluke (everything going wrong for the GOP that year) and Arizona had a favorite-son candidate if nothing else truly changed. The map suggests otherwise for now -- that he will win Indiana but lose Arizona.

The map suggests that the GOP is doing surprisingly badly in places that it won by huge margins -- most notably the states that Bill Clinton won but Obama didn't. If a state like Arkansas looks like a likely tossup even if Obama lost it by a margin of 20% or so then that suggests that political reality is different from what it was in November. The alternative of course is that the model is wrong.

I admit its limitations. It can't predict scandals, military or diplomatic catastrophes, or economic realities. It can't predict the health of Barack Obama. It can't predict whether the GOP nominating process will be a knock-down, drag-out struggle or a dull process. Above all it pits the current President against some Republican named "Generic", and no Party ever nominates someone named "Generic". Mitt Romney would win a different set of states than would Mike Huckabee.   
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Devilman88
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« Reply #1026 on: June 10, 2009, 10:24:46 AM »

Current prediction -- for now. Alabama is definitely not a tossup.




Key:

GOP wins by 10% or more
GOP wins 5-9%
GOP wins up to 5%
tossup
Obama wins up to 5%
Obama wins 5-9%
Obama wins 10% or more


Much depends, of course, on who the GOP nominee will be.

OMG, I hope you really don't believe that. If you do go ahead and change your name to #1ObamaHack.
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change08
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« Reply #1027 on: June 10, 2009, 10:46:39 AM »

Current prediction -- for now. Alabama is definitely not a tossup.




Key:

GOP wins by 10% or more
GOP wins 5-9%
GOP wins up to 5%
tossup
Obama wins up to 5%
Obama wins 5-9%
Obama wins 10% or more


Much depends, of course, on who the GOP nominee will be.

OMG, I hope you really don't believe that. If you do go ahead and change your name to #1ObamaHack.

NC and IN before CO is laughable enough.
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Devilman88
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« Reply #1028 on: June 10, 2009, 10:48:25 AM »

Current prediction -- for now. Alabama is definitely not a tossup.




Key:

GOP wins by 10% or more
GOP wins 5-9%
GOP wins up to 5%
tossup
Obama wins up to 5%
Obama wins 5-9%
Obama wins 10% or more


Much depends, of course, on who the GOP nominee will be.

OMG, I hope you really don't believe that. If you do go ahead and change your name to #1ObamaHack.

NC and IN before CO is laughable enough.

LA, AR, NE, TN, ND, SD, KY and WV are all laughable too.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1029 on: June 10, 2009, 11:15:45 AM »


OMG, I hope you really don't believe that. If you do go ahead and change your name to #1ObamaHack.

NC and IN before CO is laughable enough.

LA, AR, NE, TN, ND, SD, KY and WV are all laughable too.

For real laughs may I suggest Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and the Marx Brothers.

I said that it was counter-intuitive. It all depends upon polls of transient usefulness and often-questionable reliability.

Can you accept these statements as facts?

1. The GOP was losing popularity in November -- which explains the meltdown of the McCain/Palin campaign.

2. The economic woes of which we are aware are still largely associated with GWB and company.

3. Because John McCain had the war record, he had a stronger appeal than any other imaginable GOP candidate in 2008.  Someone else would have lost even worse.

4. Aside from nationwide approval polls that say nothing about individual states, the approval polls in the individual states (40 -- although the one for Nebraska is partial) are the only indications of how states might vote. 

5. Obama's popularity was rising in early November and it is stable now.

6. Although Obama generally does better in states that he won big in, he isn't so far behind in approval in some in which he did badly. Such holds true for states that Bill Clinton won in 1992 and 1996 but Obama got clobbered in. Should Obama do much that Bill Clinton did as President (politically -- not sexually, and he has far less leeway for sexual misconduct than did Bill Clinton, for obvious reasons) he can win those states in 2012.

7. If anything, the political polarization of America that marks the last twelve or so years seems to be weakening.

   

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Devilman88
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« Reply #1030 on: June 10, 2009, 11:30:58 AM »

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Yes, but what does that have to do about 2012?

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Wrong, the economic woes are now on Obama, after the first 100 days it became Obama's woes. Also, the economy was find until 2007 when Democrats took over.

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Wrong, McCain just has that appeal, which has nothing to do with war record.

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You can't base how states will vote on approval polls. You are just trying to twist it to make it look like Obama is going to win states he will never win.

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It isn't stable, his popularity is slowing falling.

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You are using polls that were taken right after Obama won. Like in WV, last poll showed Obama with a 36% approval rating, but you don't have that on there.

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Not really, it only seemed to weakening because Obama won by 7%, due to the economy being blamed on the Republican, which is not true, but most Americans are to stupid to know the real truth.
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Mr.Phips
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« Reply #1031 on: June 10, 2009, 11:39:42 AM »

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Yes, but what does that have to do about 2012?

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Wrong, the economic woes are now on Obama, after the first 100 days it became Obama's woes. Also, the economy was find until 2007 when Democrats took over.

.

That is actually not true at all.  The economy was clearly weakening in 2006.  The housing bubble popped in the summer and GDP growth slowed to almost nothing toward the end of the year. 
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BM
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« Reply #1032 on: June 10, 2009, 12:29:47 PM »

Gallup is showing their highest disapproval and lowest approval to date.  They're also getting closer and closer to Rasmussen

Gallup:

Approve 59%
Disapprove 34%


Rasmussen:

Approve 57%
Disapprove 42%
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Zarn
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« Reply #1033 on: June 10, 2009, 01:28:41 PM »

Gallup is showing their highest disapproval and lowest approval to date.  They're also getting closer and closer to Rasmussen

Gallup:

Approve 59%
Disapprove 34%


Rasmussen:

Approve 57%
Disapprove 42%

I don't see an approval in the late 50's as surprising. What I do find slightly surprising is that there is only a 2% difference between likely voters and all adults.
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Tender Branson
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« Reply #1034 on: June 10, 2009, 02:10:26 PM »

Diageo Hotline:

65% Approve
31% Disapprove

67% Favorable
29% Unfavorable

Looking ahead to 2012, if the presidential election were held today, would you
vote to reelect Barack Obama or would you like to see someone else become President?

46% Reelect
30% Someone else
18% Too early to decide

The Diageo/Hotline Poll was conducted by telephone from June 4 – 7, 2009, among a random, representative sample of 800 registered voters, age 18 and older (margin of error +/- 3.5%).

http://www.diageohotlinepoll.com/documents/diageohotlinepoll/FDDiageoHotlineJuneToplineFORRELEASE061009.pdf
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ej2mm15
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« Reply #1035 on: June 10, 2009, 02:16:47 PM »

So Obama's approval rating debating? Being a republican I hope it goes down, but not to the point where he puts the country in the sh**tter
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1036 on: June 10, 2009, 04:04:02 PM »

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Yes, but what does that have to do about 2012?

The GOP is not gaining popularity.

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Wrong, the economic woes are now on Obama, after the first 100 days it became Obama's woes. Also, the economy was find until 2007 when Democrats took over.[/quote]

100 days? The subprime lending, the de-industrialization of America, and the meltdown of the speculative booms went into overdrive when Dubya was President.

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Wrong, McCain just has that appeal, which has nothing to do with war record.[/quote]


I say that it was worth at least 2% of the vote.

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You can't base how states will vote on approval polls. You are just trying to twist it to make it look like Obama is going to win states he will never win.[/quote]

That's all that we have now, isn't it?

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It isn't stable, his popularity is slowing falling.[/quote][/quote]

Statistical noise.

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You are using polls that were taken right after Obama won. Like in WV, last poll showed Obama with a 36% approval rating, but you don't have that on there.[/quote]

Show me the poll. Who, when, and link.

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Not really, it only seemed to weakening because Obama won by 7%, due to the economy being blamed on the Republican, which is not true, but most Americans are to stupid to know the real truth.
[/quote]


What "real truth"? That we didn't have high-enough pay for our executive elite, that we didn't outlaw labor unions, that we didn't abolish welfare,  that we didn't restore the seventy-hour workweek, and that we establish bondage as a consequence of default on debt? That Dubya was a wonderful President instead of the buffoon that he seems to be?

The polarization that I recognized was that Obama was winning a bunch of states with large two-digit margins and losing some by similar margins, and that roughly 100 electoral votes were decided by 9% or less (as opposed to 160 or so in 2000 or 2004).   

Oh, who is to get the blame for the messed-up economy?  It looked much like a reprise of 1929-1932 for a while, and now it seems to have improved some:

 

Take a good look at the blue line in September and October 2008. That's when catastrophic  devaluation of assets went on, when the American economy was on the brink of a 1929-style free-fall. If the objects of excessive and destructive speculation were different (real estate as opposed to securities), the mechanism was the same, and the consequences had parallels that few could fail to miss. Roughly the same economic policies of eighty years earlier brought analogous results.


 
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Devilman88
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« Reply #1037 on: June 10, 2009, 04:09:01 PM »

WV: PPP poll

Do you approve or disapprove of President
Barack Obama’s job performance? If you
approve, press 1. If you disapprove, press 2.
If you’re not sure, press 3.
Approve ................. 39%
Disapprove............. 50%
Not Sure................. 10%
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1038 on: June 10, 2009, 04:33:52 PM »






Key:

GOP wins by 10% or more
GOP wins 5-9%
GOP wins up to 5%
tossup
Obama wins up to 5%
Obama wins 5-9%
Obama wins 10% or more


See? The system works. Even if I split the "not sure" 50/50 (which may be charitable for Obama), WV is on the line between "medium" and "hard". In the event of a tossup between such categories I use the 2008 vote to decide -- and it decides that Obama would lose by at least 10% in West Virginia. 

Now that I think of it, that criterion allows me to distinguish Nebraska as a likely win for the GOP nominee and Colorado as a likely win, however marginal, for Obama.
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Alcon
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« Reply #1039 on: June 10, 2009, 04:37:19 PM »

A system that identifies Nebraska as likely Republican.  You've clearly found the Holy Grail of analysis here
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Rowan
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« Reply #1040 on: June 10, 2009, 04:40:37 PM »

I love that Obama will win VA by 10 points or more. Dude, your "system" sucks.
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justfollowingtheelections
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« Reply #1041 on: June 10, 2009, 04:45:19 PM »

I honestly don't understand why everyone is giving pbrower such a hard time.  I don't think he ever claimed that THIS is what will happen in 2012.  His maps are clearly based on numbers and the only numbers we have right now are approval/favorability ratings.  There are of course many factors they cannot measure, but they're fun to look at.  I'm sure that if/when Obama's approval ratings drop, pbrower's map will become more red and you will all be happy.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1042 on: June 10, 2009, 04:47:57 PM »

A system that identifies Nebraska as likely Republican.  You've clearly found the Holy Grail of analysis here

I had Nebraska as a tossup because of NE-02, which barely voted for Obama but gave a 62% approval rating. That caused me to believe that NE-01 is a tossup even if NE-03, one of the most right-wing congressional districts in America, is a sure loss for Obama. Because Kansas wasn't decisively-enough for a generic Republican and South Dakota seemed to be trending toward Obama, with Nebraska electorally in between,  I had Nebraska as a tossup. I explained how I could choose between categories, and that forced me to take another look at both Colorado and Nebraska. Colorado is far more likely to go for Obama than Nebraska... for good reasons.

I can modify the technique to resolve something troublesome -- and not only because I dislike the results.  
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Rowan
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« Reply #1043 on: June 10, 2009, 04:50:15 PM »

But clearly approval ratings in June 2009 are not even close to what will happen in November 2012. His approvals are buoyed by 25% Republican support. I think anyone with half a brain knows he won't get 25% R support in 2012, so these numbers are useless.
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Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #1044 on: June 10, 2009, 04:56:17 PM »

I agree with blagohair. Too many posters are willfully ignoring pbrower's explanations in order to take some cheap shots against him.

The guy has said time and again that he works with current numbers and that it is more than certain that things will be very different by 2012. Yet some people continue to pester and mock him as if he said the exact opposite.

Perhaps next time before they attack him, they should take off their blinders and earplugs.
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« Reply #1045 on: June 10, 2009, 05:04:41 PM »
« Edited: June 10, 2009, 05:15:44 PM by MagneticFree »






Key:

GOP wins by 10% or more
GOP wins 5-9%
GOP wins up to 5%
tossup
Obama wins up to 5%
Obama wins 5-9%
Obama wins 10% or more


See? The system works. Even if I split the "not sure" 50/50 (which may be charitable for Obama), WV is on the line between "medium" and "hard". In the event of a tossup between such categories I use the 2008 vote to decide -- and it decides that Obama would lose by at least 10% in West Virginia. 

Now that I think of it, that criterion allows me to distinguish Nebraska as a likely win for the GOP nominee and Colorado as a likely win, however marginal, for Obama.

I fixed it, gave Colorado 10 electoral votes. 

With an approval rating that Obama has in CO, I would clearly make Colorado as tossup or even 5% for the GOP.  His popularity is not going to last forever in CO.  Another reason is people are already getting sick of the democrat governor that we have and his job approval.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1046 on: June 10, 2009, 06:01:21 PM »

I love that Obama will win VA by 10 points or more. Dude, your "system" sucks.

Obama won Virginia by 6.3% in 2008.  A 10% margin? Sure -- if the young-adult vote turns out to be as liberal-leaning in 2012 as in 2008. I see no reason to expect otherwise. They will be supplanting older voters who are not-so-liberal (largely voters born in the late 1920s and early 1930s).  Whether the polls take that into account or don't is beyond my knowledge of specific polls. In any event I take an approval rating as an estimate of the likely vote. The same applies in Ohio (which I consider a surprise), Florida, Indiana, Missouri, or North Carolina.

Obama will have to be a very effective President to win Virginia, let alone Ohio, by a 55-45 or larger margin. He had to be a very effective campaigner to win Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia, states that hadn't voted for a Democratic nominee for President since 1964, 1976, or 1964, respectively. He will have to be an effective President to win Indiana or North Carolina again, let alone pick off Missouri.

Obama won Michigan and Pennsylvania by double-digit margins; those two states are ordinarily close in close elections.  Face it: only a very adept politician can pull that off.  History shows that effective campaigners are effective Presidents. That means Obama, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon (for a time), JFK, Eisenhower, Truman (to an extent) and of course FDR.  

We shall see, of course.
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Alcon
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« Reply #1047 on: June 10, 2009, 06:26:39 PM »

I'm sorry, px, I wasn't meaning to be as critical as you're making the comment out to be.  I just find the idea that this map is an especially good predictive, or even cross-sectional analysis, to be misfounded.  Even if we were assuming that approval ratings are strongly correlated (which they are sorta), this ignores:

1. That some outfits treat "fair" as disapproval, while people often think of "fair" as "OK."

2. Time.

3. Differences in pollster quality.

4. Differences in push levels.

It's not a bad effort, it's just not anything to base an electoral narrative on.  pbrowser deserves credit for compiling this all, but the extrapolations being made are unfounded.
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Vepres
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« Reply #1048 on: June 10, 2009, 06:27:58 PM »






Key:

GOP wins by 10% or more
GOP wins 5-9%
GOP wins up to 5%
tossup
Obama wins up to 5%
Obama wins 5-9%
Obama wins 10% or more


See? The system works. Even if I split the "not sure" 50/50 (which may be charitable for Obama), WV is on the line between "medium" and "hard". In the event of a tossup between such categories I use the 2008 vote to decide -- and it decides that Obama would lose by at least 10% in West Virginia. 

Now that I think of it, that criterion allows me to distinguish Nebraska as a likely win for the GOP nominee and Colorado as a likely win, however marginal, for Obama.

I fixed it, gave Colorado 10 electoral votes. 

With an approval rating that Obama has in CO, I would clearly make Colorado as tossup or even 5% for the GOP.  His popularity is not going to last forever in CO.  Another reason is people are already getting sick of the democrat governor that we have and his job approval.


Since when did Colorado have 10 EVs? If you mean in 2012, I'm not sure it will gain any then.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #1049 on: June 10, 2009, 06:30:06 PM »

I honestly don't understand why everyone is giving pbrower such a hard time.  I don't think he ever claimed that THIS is what will happen in 2012.  His maps are clearly based on numbers and the only numbers we have right now are approval/favorability ratings.  There are of course many factors they cannot measure, but they're fun to look at.  I'm sure that if/when Obama's approval ratings drop, pbrower's map will become more red and you will all be happy.

I qualify my statements, and I show my methods. I suggest my prediction as "likely results if nothing really changes". Much WILL change by November 2012 -- most particularly that we will have no "Generic Republican" nominated for President.

This model does not allow someone to say such things as "when Oregonians get tired of high taxes or when the auto industry blows up on Obama, then Oregon, Michigan, and Ohio will be easy pickings for any Republican" before such happens. Likewise it does not allow one to say that  "when poor whites and poor blacks recognize shared interests in economics, then they will vote alike -- for Obama".  If "tax revolts" become successful in some states  in the so-called Blue Firewall or if the American auto industry implodes, then Obama will be in political trouble, as shown in Obama having approval ratings in the forties or thirties in such states. Likewise if white poor people and black poor people in the South find common cause in struggles against shared exploiters and oppressors, Obama could win a raft of states that he didn't win in 2008, and that would show in approval ratings in the sixties or higher.

My map is modeled, such as it is, on models not in use (Electoralvote.com, 538.com, 270 to win) since the 2008 election. I respect those models. Am I completely justified in assuming that a 52% approval rating suggests a likely win? Hardly. People who approve of an incumbent President are likely to vote for him; those who don't generally vote for someone else. That's before I can account for the personality of someone who will comprise half the attention of the Presidential campaign of 2012 -- the Republican half.  

Not until we have specific polls involving specific candidates in specific states will we have a really good idea of how Election 2012 will be going. We will have heard the rhetoric at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. We will see the campaign ads.

My system lets nobody count chickens before they hatch; it shows where the eggs are and it might not even be able to tell whether the eggs are from hens or from snakes. They can show statewide trends (in case anyone still needs to be educated on this matter, the States decide who becomes or remains President, and voters don't).
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