“Instead, protest voting is in fact likely to harm the democratic process, potentially leading to the election of the candidate the majority of voters overall, and protest voters specifically, most dislike.”

^ THIS!

In a Presidential election, whoever gets the most votes wins.

If “Not Trump” is split between 5 candidates, and Trump gets the most votes, he wins.

Here’s a scenario:

Trump - 40%
Harris - 35%
Kennedy - 15%
Oliver - 5%
Stein - 3%
West - 2%

Trump wins. Even though 60% of the voting public don’t want him. The “Not Trump” vote failed to coalesce under one candidate enough to block him from winning.

In this scenario, why are we assuming that the 25% that are voting third party would prefer Harris over Trump?

Whether they would prefer Harris or not is irrelevant, they don’t want Trump. There is only 1 candidate who can beat the Republican candidate and it’s not an Independent/Libertarian/Green candidate.

I don’t understand your response. I asked why we are assuming these voters prefer Harris over Trump and you responded by saying that their preference for Harris is irrelevant, because they don’t want Trump.

This doesn’t make any sense.

“don’t want Trump” in this context MUST equate to a preference for Harris over Trump. And my whole question is “why are we assuming these voters hold that preference?”

I’ll try to make it simple then:

They aren’t pro-Harris, they’re anti-Trump.

Problem: “Not Trump” is not a candidate, so splitting the not Trump vote allows Trump to win.

If people really, REALLY, REALLY do not want Trump, there’s only one answer and that’s to support the Democratic candidate who happens to be Harris.

Why Harris? Because she has more support than any other “Not Trump” candidate.

I do not think this makes it simpler. It just makes the same assumption over again. That assumption being that third party voters are largely anti-Trump (or pro-Harris; take your pick, it doesn’t matter). My question remains. I’ll rephrase it:

Why are we assuming that if all third party voters were to instead vote for one of the two main candidates that Harris would take more of those votes than Trump?

Because that, in essence is what the article assumes.

Because if they were interested in voting for Trump, they’d be voting for Trump. When the choice is Trump vs. Not Trump, Not Trump wins. Even in 2016 that was true.

A poll in which “First choice is someone other than Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that “Trump” has less than 50% of the vote. The same can be said of Harris.

A poll in which “Anybody but Trump” beats “Trump” would indicate that third party voters do indeed favor Harris over Trump.

Do we have any polling of the second type? I am not able to find any. This type of polling would be exactly what i’ve been asking for in this thread.

Trump has stronger negative polling in the general population than Harris so it’s not as absurd as you’re making out. Trump is also much more strongly polarising and always has been.

I am not saying it’s absurd. I am asking for data.

You’re using an over-used debating technique where you cast doubt on others by demanding proof of any claims you don’t like but letting statements you agree with stand unchallenged.

It’s not so far away from trumps habit of calling anything that he doesn’t like fake news.

You’re painting yourself as a neutral who is just asking for information, when in fact you’re heavily partisan. It’s misleading.

You’re using an over-used debating technique where you cast doubt on others by demanding proof of any claims you don’t like but letting statements you agree with stand unchallenged.

Actually what i’m doing is pointing out a glaring logical flaw in the article that is the subject of this post. The fact that others are willing to accept the conclusions drawn by the unsupported claim of this article is worrisome. It speaks to a lack of critical thinking and a wiillingness accept illogical arguments simply because they fit with ones world view. It is fairly absurd to me that i need to spell this out.

And i have reaponded to you elsewhere with plenty of data that supports me. Unfortunately no one else in this thread has attempted to do the same in support of the article’s claim. Not one single person.

You’re painting yourself as a neutral who is just asking for information, when in fact you’re heavily partisan. It’s misleading.

I would be entertained to hear how exactly you think i am partisan. I am, in fact, one of these braindead third party voters that everyone in this thread is raging against. About as far from a partisan as one can get.

And you, and everyone else here, has had ample time and opportunity to provide any bit of data that you like to show that i am wrong. But y’all consistently turn to attacks against me or my character instead. And that right there, my friend, is a true Trump tactic.

If you are right then show the data.

Me:

You’re using an over-used debating technique where you cast doubt on others by demanding proof of any claims you don’t like but letting statements you agree with stand unchallenged.

You: condescending waffle and deflection. Also you:

If you are right then show the data.

When I point out your asymmetric proof demands you just repeat them.

I have responded in good faith to each of your criticisms. I have provided polling data when you asked. I have not once waffled… what do you think that means, exactly?

I continue to await anyones data driven response to my initial question. “Why are we assuming that all of the third party votes would go to Harris if they were forced to choose between her and Trump?”

If you have no real input to add then just stop responding.

If you are right then show the data.

When I point out your asymmetric proof demands you just repeat them.

I continue to await anyones data driven response to my initial question.

…and there it is.

Are you pretending that you and i are not engaged elsewhere in this comment section where i continue to post data and you continue to post none? Of course i continue to await your data. What else can i do?

I do this in the interest of an open discussion, despite the absurdity of a) an article giving bold directives to a group of people which are completely based an assertion made within the same article, b) the article giving zero support for this assertion, c) me asking for someone to please back up the assertion, and then d) you and others retorting with “no, you first.”

If you are right then show the data.

When I point out your asymmetric proof demands you just repeat them.

I continue to await anyones data driven response to my initial question.

…and there it is.

Of course i continue to await your data.

This actually made me chuckle. It’s like you can’t help yourself.

i continue to post data

It’s silly to boast about data that doesn’t even add up! It’s nonsense data! You claim 3.5% of the country are non-Democrat Trump haters, and conclude that they must all be Republicans because there are 8.5% of the country who are Republican Trump haters!

Each non-Democrat Trump haters is three Republican Trump haters so the third party voters can’t hate Trump?!?!

This is the data you’re so proud of quoting! It’s so obviously BS because, and I’m surprised that I have to point it out to you a third time, one people can’t be three people. Your math isn’t mathing.

I’ve addeessed this every time you’ve stated it. Rather than continue two threads i am going to link to my response from the other one where i adress it once again. lemmy.world/comment/12887849

No, you’ve repeated it every time once stated it. You require proof of statements you disagree with and are uncritical of statements you agree with. It’s called confirmation bias and it’s very, very normal.

The difference with you is that you act like you think that believe what you believe because you carefully and neutrally analysed the data and drew only logical conclusions from it. [But we saw where you concluded that 3.5% of Americans were trump hating non democrats and that since 8.5% of Americans were trump hating republicans and that number is bigger, all the trump hating non democrats must be republicans and none of them could possibly be third party, and once you finally understood that you had made a big mistake (because each of the non democrats had to be approximately three republicans), you didn’t admit that your argument was flawed, you didn’t reconsider your position, you doubled down and just edited the numbers for one and found another poll that was slightly less inconsistent because it only requires 7 non democrats to be 8 republicans which for some reason you now think is logical because, what? 7 and 8 are so close?]

So no, you’re not deciding what you believe is true from what the data tell you, you’re frantically trying to find data, any data, that looks even slightly consistent with your pre-conceived opinion, and not even applying basic critical thinking whilst doing it.

So no, I don’t respect your call for proof because your double standards on what constitutes proof are stark and no amount of data or logical thinking can ever cause you to rethink. It’s a fools errand for me to start engaging with your logic-free gish gallop.

You sound like you’re scared that you won’t be able to find any good data that supports you.

you concluded that 3.5% of Americans were trump hating non democrats and that since 8.5% of Americans were trump hating republicans and that number is bigger, all the trump hating non democrats must be republicans and none of them could possibly be third party,

This is a mischaracterization of the conclusions i made. I have made it clear that i only need to argue for it being possible that half or more of the 3% third partiers could be in favor of Trump over Harris. Of course many of them favor Harris. You find me where i said otherwise. I double dog date you. Im fact, it was the original article that made the preposterous unsupported claim that almost all third partiers are closet-aupportera of one side or the other. My argument this entire time has been that this claim is BS unless someone can provide support for it.

Since you keep skipping over all of my points in order to get to the part where you criticize me as quickly as possible i am going to ask you exactly one question this time. Please answer.

What exactly is the range of percentages for anti-Trump Republicans that you would accept to be in support of my conclusion?

Well, I’m going to ask you a question that you have been ducking for over twelve hours: can one person be three, or were your reasoning, logic, and conclusions based on misuse of inconsistent and unreliable polling data?

Your attempt to get me to take part in a rehash of the same logic with different data is futile. Your logic is nonsense.

So you’re not willing to answer my question?

I have answered all of yours and responded in good faith to each of your less than civil comments. In fact, i have already answered the very question you just re-asked.

Are you willing to answer my question, or should we let it drop?

Are you willing to admit that polling data is unreliable and that it’s nonsense to do arithmetic on results from separate pools? If not, there’s no basis for engaging with you because you’ll just repeat the same nonsense with poll after poll until you luck out on one that is less obviously misleading.

How on earth did you miss the part where i just explained in detail that making claims about what the polls show was something presented by someone on your side of the argument. I am literally here showing how the polls, whether you think they are wortheless or not, do not show what that person was claiming. If your complaint is with polls in general why are you huffing and puffing at me and not at that person. Could it be because that person just so happens to be arguing something that you’d like to be true and i am not?

Because the other person didn’t do insane arithmetic between polls in a way that counted some people as three people then defend it three times before backing down, and then refuse to admit for another 24 hours that their logic was flawed.