America was great during slavery, Moore tells black man

[_Xenophon]

To expand further on EA's points:

This election is actually shaking up to be a pretty good barometer for what methods are most effective in surveying/polling. And if you are an analysis junkie it is definitely worth taking a deep dive on the different methods and what results they are returning. Obviously we won't have good answers until the final vote count but we should get another strong data point on what methods work best in elections where a lot of polling and analysis hasn't been done before (given the non-competitive nature of the seat generally). Even if the results aren't what you were hoping for, it is shaping up to be an interesting battle between traditional vs automated/online polling strategies.

If you're looking for a good jumping off point I would start with 538's breakdown here. Although it is very high level and doesn't add much more than what EA said, it has a ton of really good references that are worth exploring if you are intrigued by these kinds of things. It also highlights how Survey Monkey stressed this point by releasing 10 different versions of the same poll with various assumptions on demographics and turnout data.

Although releasing 10 different versions of the same poll may be overkill, it illustrates the extent to which polling can be an assumption-driven exercise, especially in an unusual race such as Alabama’s Senate contest. Perhaps the most interesting thing SurveyMonkey found is that there may be substantial partisan non-response bias in the polling — that Democrats were more likely to take the survey than Republicans. “The Alabama registered voters who reported voting in 2016 favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by a 50 to 39 percentage point margin,” SurveyMonkey’s Mark Blumenthal wrote. “Trump’s actual margin was significantly larger (62 to 34 percent).”

In other words, SurveyMonkey’s raw data was showing a much more purple electorate than the solid-red one that you usually get in Alabama. If that manifests in actual turnout patterns — if Democrats are more likely to respond to surveys and are more likely to vote because of their greater enthusiasm — Jones will probably win. If there are some “shy Moore” voters, however, then Moore will probably win. To make another generalization, traditional pollsters usually assume that their polls don’t have partisan non-response bias, while automated polls (and some online polls such as YouGov) generally assume that they do have it, which is part of why they’re showing such different results.

[_Xenophon]

Also, this nice little op-ed from the Washington Post that I will share in full:

Some good reasons to vote for Roy Moore:

On the one hand, The Post has reported that Roy Moore made advances on numerous women when they were in their teens and he was in his 30s. On the other hand, though, he thinks America was last great when slavery was still legal and “families were united.” (This could not have been less true under slavery, a system of absolute brutal disregard for the family that tore families apart and enshrined rape.)

But then again, on a third hand, he thinks that repealing all the amendments after the 10th would “fix a lot of problems.” (Poof! Women’s suffrage is gone! Poof! Slavery is back!)

But then again, on a fourth hand, he was removed as a judge for refusing to take down a monument to the Ten Commandments.

But then again, he was suspended a second time, also for failing to respect the law. But then again, he thinks women are unfit for office. But then again, you have to remember that he has no regard for the Constitution. But then again, Stephen K. Bannon, a nightmarish human being who runs Breitbart and has helped bring the alt-right, writhing and squirming, into the light of everyday conversation, is a big fan and has been working hard to make Roy Moore happen.

Republican support for Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama shows the #metoo moment isn't yet a national movement, says Post opinion writer Christine Emba. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)
But then again, Moore has said that evolution does not exist and that believing in evolution makes people act like animals. But then again, maybe we wanted to reenact both “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “Inherit The Wind” and come to the wrong conclusions.

But then again, if we do not vote for Moore, there will be no way to get through ill-advised jury-rigged tax reform plans that kick the middle class in the gut and run away laughing. After all, who doesn’t sometimes want to push the republic all the way to the edge just to feel something?

But then again, maybe, months ago, just when President Trump said he would need more information before denouncing the KKK, the Republican Party discovered that it had forgotten its safe word and could not stop all this horrifying white-supremacist dog-whistle roleplay, and it has finally ceased struggling.

On the other hand, if you ignore everything he has ever said or done in the course of his entire public life and imagine he is someone different, Moore is a pretty good person to have in the Senate.

It is important to hear both sides.