The graph below depicts the 2016 campaign as I see it. When all the polls are displayed on a graph with a y-axis from 0-100% and a fairly strong “smoothing” algorithm is applied, it becomes evident that hardly anything has changed for 18 months. Hillary Clinton has been ahead of Donald Trump by about 4-5 points nationally all along, and she leads by a mean of exactly four points in the major final polls released by this point on the last Monday. The ups and downs revealed by zooming in are best understood as temporary responses to news that may influence who participates in surveys–or who feels enthusiastic on a given day–but very few people have actually changed their minds; and most of those switches have been random and have canceled each other out.

I think this means that Clinton is likely to win the national popular vote by about 4 points, although GOTV operations could change result that (in either direction).

It’s hard to know whether different nominees would have performed differently. A reasonable guess is that if both parties had nominated politicians with typical levels of popularity who used typical methods of campaigning, the Republican would have an edge. That implies that Trump v. Clinton costs the GOP maybe 4-6 points, net–but that is not much more than a guess.

By the way, 2012 looks about the same, except Romney ran closer to Obama all the way along.

But 2008 was different: McCain was ahead at first but slipped behind Obama to lose pretty badly.

For me, the interesting question is what this means about our civic culture and the purpose of campaigns and elections. The presidential candidates have raised about $1.3 billion so far and spent most of that on such activities as advertising, canvassing, and events. The press has spent untold billions on campaign coverage and commentary. All kinds of remarkable events have occurred. As all that has played out, citizens have been exhorted to pay attention and to change their opinions in response to arguments and information. But it looks as if almost everyone already had enough data 18 months ago to make up their minds. That includes me: nothing has transpired since June 2015 that has altered the probability of my voting for Clinton versus Trump by even one thousandth of a percentage point.

I used to subscribe to the view that the actions of candidates and campaigns matter, but they usually cancel each other out because all presidential nominees of major parties are effective campaigners. This year, we have one truly incompetent candidate, yet the trend remains flat. Unless you think that Clinton’s weaknesses cancel out Trump’s incompetence, it looks as if campaigns hardly matter at all. Once citizens know the candidates’ party labels, demographics, and basic facts about their biographies, they are ready to vote.

Perhaps Joseph Schumpeter was right, at least about presidential politics. It’s all about rendering a verdict on the status quo and choosing either the incumbent elites or an outsider. Schumpeter adds:

The reduced sense of responsibility and the absence of effective volition in turn explain the ordinary citizen’s ignorance and lack of judgment in matters of domestic and foreign policy which are if anything more shocking in the case of educated people and of people who are successfully active in non-political walks of life than it is with uneducated people in humble stations. Information is plentiful and readily available. But this does not seem to make any difference. Nor should we wonder at it. … Without the initiative that comes from immediate responsibility, ignorance will persist in the face of masses of information however complete and correct. It persists even in the face of the meritorious efforts that are being made to go beyond presenting information and to teach the use of it by means of lectures, classes, discussion groups. Results are not zero. But they are small. People cannot be carried up the ladder. …

Thus the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. He becomes a primitive again. His thinking becomes associative and affective.

Since Schumpeter’s view of democracy is unattractive, we must either reform presidential politics or (if that seems impossible) write it off and focus on other aspects of our political system, where more people can show more “immediate responsibility” for collective decisions.

David Iaconangelo writes, “this year is seeing a resurgence of vote-swap websites and apps that pair voters for a major-party candidate – in most cases, Democrats in blue states – with a third-party supporter living in a swing state. … Some find the tactic a little unsettling, even if it isn’t illegal or clearly unethical. ‘I’m a little conflicted,’ says Peter Levine, a political philosopher and associate dean at Tufts University’s College of Civic Life.”

As I say in the article, you’re not supposed to do anything as a quid pro quo for your vote. Swapping would seem to violate that principle. “On the other hand, the president is a national political figure, meaning the allocation of one’s vote across state lines might be considered a matter of personal choice. And if there’s no enforcement involved …, the deal might be little more than two people talking about how they’re going to vote, since the ballot is secret, anyway.”

I also note in the piece that we may have two different theories of what a vote is. On one view, it’s an instrument for getting the outcome you want. The point of our voting laws should be to ensure that everyone has the same influence. The Electoral College introduces inequality because only some states are competitive. If you can coordinate with someone in a different state to remove that obstacle, you are using your instrument more effectively.

On a different view, voting is partly an expressive civic act. Your vote won’t make a tangible difference in a presidential election anyway (with or without the Electoral College). But your vote is one way for you to belong to a community that governs itself–and not only by voting. You should vote in the community that you belong to.

I have a expressed a similarly nuanced opinion about where you should vote if you have a legal right to choose. For example, I support the right of college students to decide whether their residence is their college or their family’s home for the purpose of voting. However, it’s not obvious to me that they should (ethically) make that choice by deciding where their vote will count the most. Quite honestly, the differential impact of where you cast your single vote in a presidential race is microscopic. I think you should decide where you are a citizen in the full sense, and vote there.

When CIRCLE’s Millennial survey was conducted (9/21-10/3), Clinton was beating Trump by 21 points (49% vs. 28%). Clinton may do better when the actual votes are cast, because there seems to be a trend in her favor among youth. That said, the CIRCLE poll allows detailed comparisons between young Americans who were favoring the two candidates at a moment when Trump was drawing one in four.

Young Trump and Clinton voters were starkly different people, and today CIRCLE has published an analysis that compares them by demographics and by opinions. For example, this graph shows Trump winning a plurality of non-college-educated men under 30 even as he was losing college-educated young women by almost 2-to-1.

A couple of other illustrative findings from the report, which deserves to be read in full:

• 85% of young Trump voters are dissatisfied with the way things are going for the country, and they are far more likely than Clinton supporters to believe that the country’s best days are behind us.
• Trump supporters are less experienced with various types of political engagement, and more likely than Clinton supporters to say that they would “never, under any circumstances” do things like volunteer for a campaign or attend a political rally, suggesting that Trump supporters are overall less likely to be politically engaged.

CIRCLE has begun to release results from its survey of 1,605 Americans between the ages of 18 and 34. CIRCLE’s headlines are:

• Most Millennials paying attention to presidential election, but far fewer to congressional elections
• 30% of Clinton supporters contacted by campaigns, 28% of young Trump supporters contacted, 70% not contacted at all

Contact is important because it gives the recipients information and motivation to vote. These contact rates are disturbing low–and also uneven by region, gender, and party. Young men who live in battleground states have been contacted at nearly twice the rate of young women in “safe” states (38% vs. 20%).

Among likely young voters, Clinton beat Trump by 21 points (49% vs. 28%) in this poll, which was conducted between September 21 and October 3, 2016. USA Today/Rock the Vote released a youth poll yesterday that put the margin at 68%/20%. I’m not sure whether that difference results from methodological choices, such as the way the surveys define likely voters and present third-party candidates; but it is interesting that USA Today/RtV were in the field on October 11-13. The difference could therefore suggest a substantial improvement in Clinton’s margin since September.

The CIRCLE release presents additional information about young people’s attitudes, including this chart that compares the words that Trump supporters and Clinton supporters used to describe their own favored candidate.

I have a short piece in the New York Times’ “Room for Debate” section this morning. It begins:

Once young adults start voting, the habit tends to persist for their whole lives. One way to boost young people’s voting — and their understanding of the political system and current issues — is to teach them civics while they are still in high school. Young adults are more likely to vote if they have experienced interactive civic education, if a teacher specifically taught them about voting, and if they discussed current events while they were teenagers.

After elaborating a bit on the importance of civics, I turn to political competition:

A wealth of experimental evidence also shows that young people respond well to personalized outreach: We have to ask them to vote. The organizations that have the greatest capacity to contact youth are parties and campaigns, and nothing would increase turnout as much as a robust competition for the youth vote.

Another contributor to the forum, Lisa Garcia Bedolla, also argues for personalized outreach, but Alan Gerber provides evidence that it is not hugely effective. I’d argue that outreach is particularly valuable for youth, who gain more than older adults do from information and encouragement, and who begin lasting habits of turnout. Finally, Jan E. Leighley and Jonathan Nagler make the case for being able to register on the same day you vote, which our research also finds beneficial for youth.

It flabbergasts many people to learn that more Americans view Trump rather than Clinton as “honest and trustworthy” (35% versus 33%), even though we can read in The New York Times, “A Week of Whoppers from Donald Trump”; in The Washington Post, “Trump’s Week Reveals Bleak View, Dubious Statements in ‘Alternative Universe‘”; and in The Los Angeles Times, “Scope of Trump’s Falsehoods Unprecedented for a Modern Presidential Candidate.”

In philosophy school, you learn to make distinctions, and I think two distinctions may be useful for interpreting the public’s response. First, “truthfulness” can mean:

1. Saying what is true. Because they envision truths as claims consistent with evidence, many fact-checkers compare candidates’ assertions to government data and public records or to academic research. For instance, Donald Trump has said that Lester Holt, the debate moderator, is a Democrat, but official records show that Holt is a registered Republican. The Times calls that a “whopper.” I am confident that Hillary Clinton’s claims are far more often verifiable than Donald Trump’s, and in that sense, she is more truthful and trustworthy.
2. Investing skill and effort in finding the truth. If truth is correspondence to some independently verifiable reality, then a person could say something true–or false–by accident. We can also err when we fact-check. But some people truly strive for truth. They are careful not to opine on matters for which they lack evidence, they listen to alternative views, they complicate their positions when they encounter contrary evidence, they may even seek contrary evidence, and they select appropriate methods for answering empirical questions. They can still be wrong, but they have a respectful attitude to truth. I am confident that Hillary Clinton is a much more dedicated and skillful truth-seeker than Donald Trump is, although one could raise serious criticisms of her truth-seeking in episodes like her vote to authorize the Iraq War (when she had privileged access to intelligence) or her endorsement of the “super-predator” theory of crime.
3. Speaking what is in your mind. For many people, honesty and truthfulness mean candor, sincerity, or forthrightness. Provoked by tricky Odysseus, guileless Achilles exclaims, “I hate like the Gates of Hell a man who says one thing and thinks another in his mind!” A candid straight-shooter can say lots of things that are false, either by accident or because he’s not a good truth-seeker. If he really, truly thinks that taxes are higher in the US than any other country, he looks you in the eyes and says so. Judged by that third standard, I am not sure whether Trump is “honest.” Although he may be guileful, it’s at least plausible that he blurts out what he really thinks, reflecting an ideological/normative worldview that he genuinely holds. Sometimes he even says things that cost him tactically because they make him look dumb or alienate a specific voting bloc that might have preferred him. And just for that reason, lots of people think he’s “honest.” As for Hillary Clinton, I perceive that she thinks many things in her mind and puts them through a very careful screen before she speaks aloud. Voters are sensitive to that kind of processing. They take slip-ups, like her “deplorables” comment, to be glimpses of a hidden stratum of sincere beliefs. This is what some have in mind when they call Trump more honest than Clinton.

“He tells it like it is”

My own view would be something like this: Truth-seeking is an important virtue for political leaders. It raises the odds that leaders will know the actual truth, although I’d forgive any human being for making errors if she demonstrates both commitment and skill in her truth-seeking.

Politicians should also demonstrate some candor. To struggle to know the truth and then to say something less than, or different from, the truth in public is not very democratic. On the other hand, politics isn’t a seminar room, a lab, or a witness stand in a court of law. Other political virtues may conflict with candor, such as tact, diplomacy, privacy, national or global security, and sheer effectiveness. A political leader must strive to enact and change policies, and it can undermine her effectiveness if she says everything she believes. I am pretty sure that’s why Clinton talks as she does, but because many people equate truthfulness with candor, she pays a price.

It’s also worth distinguishing between …

1. the immediate empirical truth of statements (e.g., “Lester Holt is a Democrat,” which is false), and
2. the truth or validity of broad ideological positions (e.g., “The media is biased against regular folks”).

I believe that Hillary Clinton’s center/left ideology is much more defensible than Trump’s authoritarian ethno-nationalism, but that requires arguments rather than empirical data; and other positions are more defensible still than Clinton’s.

I am also inclined to think that Trump is pretty candid about his own ideological position, although he fails to acknowledge its implications (which is a fault of his truth-seeking). I am not sure how candid Clinton is about her ideology; that is hard to assess from afar. I’d argue that center-left American politicians exhibit a general lack of ideological candor because they presume that many beneficial policies are unpopular. For instance, it would be wise to borrow and spend on infrastructure, but you can’t say that because the American people don’t trust government. It would be desirable to standardize curricula and tests because in lots of communities, parents are creationists or otherwise misguided, but you’d better not say that because those people vote. I’d posit that Clinton struggles to attract trust in part because she belongs to a whole ideological bloc that has struggled since the 1970s to present itself candidly to the electorate.

See also: Bernard Williams on truth as a virtue of the humanities; why Hillary Clinton appears untrustworthy; and Hillary Clinton on spending for infrastructure.

Medford/Somerville, MA – Will the youth vote help shape the next Congress? A new index ranks the top 50 districts where young people could have a significant influence on the outcome of Congressional races across the country. The Youth Electoral Significance Index Top 50 was developed exclusively by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) – the preeminent, non-partisan research center on youth engagement at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.

Taking into account the competitiveness of the Congressional races, as well demographic characteristics, the number of higher education institutions in the district, and historical youth turnout data, the index highlights the districts where young people are poised to have a disproportionately high impact this year.

“Young people can shape our elections and the make-up of Congress, but their potential is limited when campaigns don’t reach out to them,” said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Director of CIRCLE. “We hope this tool encourages campaigns, media outlets, and advocates in these districts – and in many others – to engage young people on issues that matter to them.”

Key findings include:

• Iowa’s 1st Congressional District comes out on top due in large part to a large number of college campuses (31) and high percentage of young people enrolled in college in the district.
• New York has six Congressional Districts in the YESI Top 50, the most of any state. Though New York tends to be reliably Democratic in presidential and Senate elections, many Congressional races are much more fiercely contested.
• Colorado has four districts on this list, including the number 2 spot in the ranking: the Colorado 6^th, which includes the eastern part of the Denver-Aurora metro area. This district ranks highly due to its competitiveness: in 2012, the election was decided by only 7,000 votes, young people cast a high number of ballots, and the seat is expected to be highly contested again this year.
• Four Michigan districts make the Top 50, including two in the top 15: Michigan’s 7^th District, which includes parts of Lansing, the western suburbs of Ann Arbor, and the southeast corner of the state; and Michigan’s 1^st District, in which there are 12 colleges and universities with close to 20,000 enrolled students.

Throughout this election season, CIRCLE’s 2016 Election Center will offer new data products and detailed youth voting analyses.

With the national presidential polls suddenly looking very tight, here are three ways of looking at the state of the election.

1. An election is like a race. As in a race, the contenders stand in some relation to each other at any given moment. They can increase or reduce their speeds, but it’s an advantage to be in front, and more so as time passes. If an election is like a race, then it becomes increasingly important who’s ahead as the finish line approaches. A race course may have features that favor one or the other contender at a given moment. For instance, each presidential candidate gets a burst of speed after her or his convention, and a debate offers a chance for one of them to speed up or stumble, but the last stretch will be pretty level and even. In that case, it is bad news for Clinton that her lead had dissipated as we’ve moved through September. Much depends on whether that trend continues or reverses in the next few weeks, because by mid-October, a candidate who trails has little time to make up the gap. (That conclusion follows from the race metaphor.) It supports the idea that Trump has as much as a 40% chance of winning.
2. An election is an event that occurs at one moment (although kind of a stretched-out moment nowadays, thanks to early voting). Polls ask people how they will vote once the big moment comes. It’s not clear when our predictions are most accurate, and accuracy may not necessarily increase over time. Instead, we might think of each of the many hundreds of polls taken so far as a measure of how the public will vote once the actual election comes. The best estimate, from this Bayesian perspective, averages all the polls taken so far. It does so not only to maximize the sample size but also to negate the random variations in competitors’ standing due to recent events. As Sam Wang says, “I still expect Clinton’s lead to increase again, on the grounds that she has led all year. Previously, I noted that the national Clinton-vs.-Trump margin in 2016 has averaged 4.5 percentage points. The standard deviation is 2.2 points, comparable to the four Presidential elections from 2004 to 2012. … Today, conditions seem right for regression to the mean.'” There is no such thing as regression to the mean in a race, where the leader accumulates an increasing chance of winning. But this second way of thinking about the election avoids the race analogy. Wang‘s own Bayesian prediction is a little more complicated, but it gives Trump only a 14% chance of winning.
3. An election is an event that will happen at one moment in the future, and each poll is a prediction of what will happen when that moment comes–but the sample that responds to pollsters varies depending on recent events. Democrats, for instance, may have become marginally less likely to answer surveys in the last two weeks because of some generalized discouragement–or Republicans who were going to vote for Trump all along may have become more willing to answer the pollsters’ calls. If this theory applies, I think we should act as Wang recommends, because we should treat the variations in response rates as pretty random. But we might view the real vote as similar to a single poll and ask whether the experience of actually voting will encourage or discourage the people who have been favorable to Clinton or to Trump all along. We cannot tell the answer to that question from poll data, but we might propose reasonable hypotheses about it.

Since I don’t know which of these theories is true, I’m inclined to estimate the odds of a Clinton win somewhere between the Bayesian estimate (86% or so) and the horse race estimate of only about 60%.