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When the US presidential election was called, even Republican strategist Mike Murphy declared data dead. Others have said it’s the end of polling. To those who felt a Hillary Clinton victory was all but certain, Donald Trump’s success at the polls might undermine faith in big data. But this sentiment misunderstands statistics. Data is impartial and accurate; when things go wrong, it’s usually when we try to interpret it. How different people assess risk and make decisions often comes down to how we perceive probabilities. Assigning a probability to an uncertain outcome is part art and science. The most scientific way is to use data—in this case, polling numbers. This time, election forecasts based on polling data were spectacularly inaccurate. They predicted an easy Clinton victory, and assumed that women and college-educated voters would turn out for her in large numbers. In fact, according to exit polls, 42% of women voted for Trump, including 45% of white women with college degrees. Forecasts also predicted hardly any minority voters would consider Trump. But they did. Minority groups voted more for Obama than Clinton. A non-trivial number, nearly one third of Hispanics and Asians, voted for Trump. What seems like a failure of polling data, though, is really our inability to approach the data objectively....
Regardless if you agree with the today's choice to put Donald Trump in the White House, there's one thing clear -- he's not a big fan of technology. It’s not just that he doesn’t know what the internet is about, this is a guy that thinks he can call Bill Gates to shut down the internet. I mean, come on. Nobody knows what the coming years will bring for the US, but from a political standpoint they’ll be very interesting — rest assured many will write about that in the coming days. But from a tech view, I’m scared. At least Trump seems to have a friend that shares his views....
Forget Nate Silver. There’s a new king of the presidential election data mountain. His name is Sam Wang, Ph.D.
Haven’t heard of him just yet? Don’t worry. You will. Because Wang has sailed True North all along, while Silver has been cautiously trying to tack his FiveThirtyEight data sailboat (weighted down with ESPN gold bars) through treacherous, Category-Five-level-hurricane headwinds in what has easily been the craziest presidential campaign in the modern political era.
When the smoke clears on Tuesday—and it will clear—what will emerge is Wang and his Princeton Election Consortium website and calculations (which have been used, in part, to drive some of the election poll conclusions at The New York Times’ Upshot blog and The Huffington Post’s election site). What will be vindicated is precisely the sort of math approach that Silver once rode to fame and fortune....
Just as with the polling numbers for the election itself, it’s difficult to tell what’s what with Ivanka Trump’s line of clothing. Is it benefiting from all the exposure, including that afforded the #GrabYourWallet boycott campaign started a few weeks ago after the videotape of her father’s salacious brags to Billy Bush surfaced, or is it taking a hit?
“The boycott was started on October 11 by Sue Atencio, a 59-year-old grandmother, and marketing specialist Shannon Coulter, who said they were shocked by Trump’s recently unearthed interview with ‘Access Hollywood’ in which the then-reality TV host bragged about his sexual conquests of women and his ability as a celebrity to ‘grab them by the p–sy,’” Itay Hod writes for The Wrap.
The New Yorker’s Sheelah Kolhatkar wrote an insightful look at Ivanka fighting to “save the brand” the following week.
“She embraced the family philosophy of turning everything into an opportunity for personal enrichment; the morning after she introduced her father at the Republican National Convention, she broadcast on Twitter an image of herself wearing one of her fashion label’s dresses on the stage with the exhortation: ‘Shop Ivanka’s look from her #RNC speech,’” Kolhatkar wrote....
Out-of-home has been a great venue for anti-Trump advertising this year, from the Nuisance Committee's clever billboards to Wieden + Kennedy's baloney-fixated food truck. Now, we can add an unpaid guerrilla campaign to that list, as some strikingly weird Donald-bashing posters suddenly popped up Wednesday on bus shelters in New York City.
There are five executions in all. Each poster is based on a fictional story—Dr. Strangelove, Dumb & Dumber, Humpty Dumpty, Thelma & Louise and The Shining.
Check out the ads below—in situ, as well as the original artwork.
Donald Trump is more popular than Hillary Clinton on Twitter -- with both humans and machines.University researchers who track political activity on Twitter have found that traffic on pro-Trump hashtags was twice as high as pro-Clinton hashtags during the first presidential debate. But the team of academics, led by Oxford University professor Philip Howard, also found that 33% of pro-Trump traffic was driven by bots and highly automated accounts, compared to 22% for Clinton. Bots are automated social media accounts that interact with other users. Some are able to answer basic questions and serve a customer service function, but they can also be used to spam and harass people....
For all the chaos and unpredictability and the sometimes appalling spectacle of this election season, the question of which candidate actually deserves to be president has never been a difficult one.
Vogue has no history of political endorsements. Editors in chief have made their opinions known from time to time, but the magazine has never spoken in an election with a single voice. Given the profound stakes of this one, and the history that stands to be made, we feel that should change.
Vogue endorses Hillary Clinton for president of the United States....
Excitement is building for the final of the three US Presidential debates.
We’re excited to have a scoop about Donald Trump’s final debate strategy courtesy of a leaked email shared with Sean Hannity and me (The PR Coach) from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Polling reveals Trump opportunity
Campaign Manager Kellyanne Conway’s secret polls have turned up some potentially explosive insight that could help the Trump campaign mount a PR and political comeback according to the email from Conway to Trump.
The secret national poll of registered voters found BBQ was more popular than Hillary Clinton by a whopping margin of 76% to 24% nationally....
There’s a Word for Using Truthful Facts to Deceive: Paltering Virtually everyone lies when we interact or communicate with others. Hard to believe? Well, here is what the evidence tells us: people (you and me included!) tell, on average, one or two lies per day. Many of these lies are harmless: e.g., giving a spouse or friend a compliment we really don’t mean. Others, however, when mixed in with actual facts, have important consequences. Take politics, where candidates all too frequently employ such distortions to influence voters.For example, in the U.S. vice-presidential debate between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, Kaine pushed Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, to release his tax returns. (Trump has said he’d do it once the Internal Revenue Service completed an ongoing audit.) Kaine asserted that “Richard Nixon released tax returns when he was under audit,” leaving the impression that Nixon, a Republican, did so while running for re-election, creating a precedent for Trump. But as the New York Times pointed out, “Mr. Nixon released his taxes while under audit — but it was not until a year after his 1972 re-election.” Another recent example is Trump’s response in the September 26 presidential debate to a question about a federal lawsuit that charged his family’s company with housing discrimination. His answer was: “When I was really young, I went into my father’s company. We, along with many, many, many other companies, throughout the country — it was a federal lawsuit — were sued. We settled the suit with zero — no admission of guilt. It was very easy to do. But they sued many people.”...
Debate strategies leaked by insiders in advance
We were able to speak with campaign insiders on both sides and can now disclose in advance their debate strategies and key messages for tonight. You read it here first!
Just when you think Donald Trump can’t out-Trump Trump, he goes and does this. The Republican presidential nominee has definitely made some hefty promises this election, but somehow, the one he made yesterday might just take the cake. Doubling down on the self-aggrandizing claims he’s made during the campaign, he went and announced at a press conference that he is far and away the only candidate who can stop the vines that constantly strangle him in his own reflection. Looks like this self-proclaimed “government outsider” thinks he can take on the endless landscape of darkness that shrouds his body in mirrors all by himself. Typical Trump.While unleashing a series of attacks against democrats yesterday, Donald Trump boldly stated that he was the only person who could defeat the thick, dark vines that slowly wrap around his reflection’s neck anytime he looks at a mirror, rain puddle, or any polished surface. In classic Trump fashion, the candidate took broad swipes at everyone from the Clintons to President Obama, and went so far as to say that no one else in the world was prepared to step up and rid his mirror of vines when they routinely slither up his reflection’s legs toward his head until they engulf his entire, paralyzed body, slowly constricting around it until he is fully unable to breathe....
No, Donald Trump didn't descend from Loompaland, but one look at his unmistakably orange complexion, and you'd be forgiven for thinking so. Puzzled citizens have questioned the origins of the Republican presidential candidate's orange skin tone: Is it a Jersey Shore spray tan? The work of a cancer-causing tanning bed? The after-effects of chemical peels? A beta-carotene addiction? (Perhaps if he squeezed a few carrots between taco bowls.) Some have speculated what he would look like without the rumored fake tan. We may never know the cause of Trump's sui generis skin tone—just as we may never know his firm policy stances—but we can deduce the nearest color, and what it means, thanks to the expert eye of the color company Pantone and its standards manuals. It's difficult to boil him down to just one color, but if you blended together all his hues, you would probably get Pantone 16-1449: the aptly named Gold Flame....
These past three weeks have been tough for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. That's reflected in the new Time magazine cover featuring an orange Trump melting down.
Trump's campaign has been unconventional since the get-go -- which has resulted in a number of standout magazine and tabloid newspaper covers. Here are some of the most memorable so far...
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Breitbart, the website at the center of the self-described alternative online media, is planning to expand in the United States and abroad. The site, whose former chairman became the chief executive of Donald J. Trump’s campaign in August, has been emboldened by the victory of its candidate.
Breitbart was always bullish on Mr. Trump’s chances, but the site seems far more certain of something else, as illustrated by a less visible story it published on election night, declaring a different sort of victory: “Breitbart Beats CNN, HuffPo for Total Facebook Engagements for Election Content.”
It was a type of story the site publishes regularly. In August: “Breitbart Jumps to #11 on Facebook for Overall Engagement.” In June: “Breitbart Ranked #1 in the World for Political Social Media; Beats HuffPo by 2 Million.” Late last year: “Breitbart News #6 for Most Comments Among English Facebook Publishers Globally.”
These stories were self-promotional. But the rankings, released on a monthly basis by a company called NewsWhip, which measures activity on social networks, represented a brutal leveling. They were unelaborated lists that ranked outlets in terms that were difficult to dispute — total shares, likes and comments....
Drawing the drama: Cartoonists from around the world on Trump's defeat of Clinton. These cartoons give us a global perspective on the US election.
It's been quite the year. From the FBI's Clinton email bombshell to Trump's bragging about sexual assault, this election has been unlike any other in memory. It's also been full of visual emblems, from red Make America Great Again hats to the near-constant stream of memes both campaigns churn out. Yet there hasn't been a single image that truly encapsulate the mania of 2016: Where is this election's Hope poster? There are several reasons for that, as I wrote back in August. One, the candidates are some of the most well-known—and the least liked—in electoral history, and haven't necessarily inspired artists the way Obama did. Meanwhile, the way we consume images has significantly changed over the past eight years. Today, we are constantly inundated not only with images, but with video and other forms of media. In response to this question, Co.Design asked three graphic designers—Natasha Jen of Pentagram, Carly Ayres of HAWRAF, and Bobby C. Martin of Original Champions of Design—to create an image that they believe gets at the heart of this election cycle. Today at Fast Company's Innovation Festival, all three discussed the images they created in response to our brief....
Donald Trump’s foray into news-like production has taken its next step, with the launch of a nightly program on Facebook Live. The show, Trump Tower Live, started Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET. It’s hosted by campaign advisors Boris Epshteyn and Cliff Sims. Tomi Laren of The Blaze is also part of the coverage.
Monday’s program started rough. The anchors were put on without knowing they were live. You could see the boom microphone drop into the shot. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was checking her phone. We heard the director (or someone off set) count them in from 10. Just as with the program the group produced last week on debate night, the picture is poorly lit and out of focus.
And just as with that debate show, none of those flaws matter to Trump’s core audience.
As of 9 p.m. ET, just after the program ended, it had more than 1 million views. That’s not the same as one million viewers, but it’s a respectable number for sure. It had more than 30 thousand shares and 130,000 reactions. CNN reports the stream averaged 40,000 – 60,000 viewers in its first half hour. People took notice. The program this team produced on debate night has had more than nine million views. There is an audience for these shows long after their original broadcast.
This Nov. 8, even if you manage to be registered in time and have the right identification, there is something else that could stop you from exercising your right to vote.
The ballot. Specifically, the ballot’s design.
Bad ballot design gained national attention almost 16 years ago when Americans became unwilling experts in butterflies and chads. The now-infamous Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, which interlaced candidate names along a central column of punch holes, was so confusing that many voters accidentally voted for Patrick Buchanan instead of Al Gore....
In September, Hillary Clinton released a devastating attack ad on Donald Trump, in which young girls are seen looking at themselves in the mirror while Trump's offensive remarks about women—in particular, their looks—are heard in the background.
The ad, titled "Mirrors," has gotten more than 5 million views on YouTube, and has been hailed by many as one of Clinton's strongest ads of the year.
Barack Obama's 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, told Slate last month: "I do think that Clinton will look back, particularly in suburban areas where they will be able to really drive good margins with women, that the ads helped. That ad where they show Trump's words and children listening? That stuff works!"
Now, Kathy Griffin has springboarded off the famous spot with a great parody of it. It's not subtle, but it is hilarious. Check it out below. Note: It features lots of NSFW language....
You might argue that I’m no better than Mike by filtering the stories I don’t like from sites I don’t agree with. The big difference, though, is that the only news I consume on Facebook is related to the babies, pets, and baby pets of my friends and family. If you want to discuss politics then you’ll have to buy me a drink first so we can talk face to face. See, Facebook doesn’t care about the veracity of the political news being shared just so long as people spend lots of time viewing ads while sharing it. That’s fine for cat videos, gadgets, and recipes, but surely political news requires a different set of personalization algorithms. Baseless conspiracy theories and outright lies should be downranked just as quickly as the clickbait articles Facebook demoted in August. If Google News can introduce a nonpartisan fact checking feature then surely Facebook could do the same. It would go a long way in helping Mike and I, and the nation, to become friends again....
The cover of Time’s Oct. 24th issue, hitting newsstands soon, features an image trumping its Aug. 22nd cover, literally. Both feature versions of similar illustrations by artist Edel Rodriguez -- the first featuring a single-word cover line,“Meltdown; the second featuring two words: “Total Meltdown.” The covers are striking for another reason. Time magazine usually reserves black background covers for extremely important stories.
For many Americans, elections are spectator sports. Despite the huge numbers who tuned in to this week’s presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, historical data suggests that on Nov. 8, more than 40% of eligible voters will skip the polling stations and just watch the dramatic results unfold on TV.
To address America’s consistently dismal voter turn out, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) launched a poster campaign intended to wield “the power of design to motivate the American public to register and turn out to vote.” It asked its 10,000 professional and student members to create nonpartisan posters persuading readers to vote, that would be free for anyone to print and distribute....
More than 60% of US cable TV political ad spending is coming from political action committees (PACs) and issues advertisers, according to data from Viamedia on ads served on its platform between January and August 2016. Twice as much political ad spending is coming from PACs and issues advertisers than from down-ballot campaigns, which mostly includes spending by candidates for the US House of Representatives and Senate. And more than six times as much spending is coming from PACs and issues advertisers than from presidential campaigns. TV is still the dominant destination for political ad spend, and research from Nomura Securities indicates that cable TV, which makes up the second-largest share, is estimated to see $1.10 billion this year, or 10.8% of total US political ad spend.Generally, internet users learn most about politics from TV. Indeed, a survey from YuMe revealed that 69% of US internet users find TV news to be the most effective political marketing channel. And while TV may be a significant channel for candidates to advertise on, not everyone is doing so....
Here we go again. Donald Trump’s campaign has undergone some major reshuffling in the past few weeks, and his latest staff shake-up proves that his troubles are far from over. Early this morning, the Trump campaign announced that it’s fired the man in charge of explaining what Donald Trump is to gorillas, with no official word yet on who his replacement will be. Yikes. Things are not looking good for Donald. Trump’s gorilla outreach has been a part of his campaign since day one, but the program’s fledgling results have left many wondering about the fate of its leader, longtime Trump family ally Jeff Hawkins. Hawkins’ role in the campaign was to build awareness of Donald Trump among gorillas by positioning him as a good, strong alpha male who is skilled at crushing things. But like so much of Trump’s campaign, this expensive initiative couldn’t get out of its own way....
Hillary Clinton is devouring briefing book after briefing book about Donald Trump's policy positions, personality and politics. She's watching highlight reels, taking notes and studying his style -- particularly when he's in attack mode. Trump, meanwhile, is doing his thinking out loud -- mulling over policies and strategies in rolling conversations with top campaign aides and a band of informal advisers that includes Roger Ailes and Rudy Giuliani. Less than four weeks from the first of three presidential debates -- on September 26 at Hofstra University in New York -- the candidates are preparing for an unpredictable, high-stakes night....
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The end of polling or simply the failure of humans to interpret correctly? Thoughtful reflections on polling.