I’ve compiled this table showing the polling averages and projections for five aggregators. For the two most well known, I have also shown the margins in key states on congressional districts.

All have Biden ahead in the popular vote by between 4% and 8%. A 4% margin could see Trump win. An 8% margin almost certainly won’t.

Those who do a probability forecast have Trump at between 4% and 23% to win.

The electoral college forecasts range from 319 to 350 for Biden. You need 270.

In terms of the states Trump is ahead in Texas, Iowa and Ohio.

The aggregators disagree (different methodologies) on Georgia and North Carolina.

If Trump wins those, he also needs to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania. In that last state he is only behind by 2.5% according to RCP or 4.9% according to 538.

The two states I’ll be most interested in are Florida and Pennsylvania.

If Trump loses Florida, he almost certainly loses the election. So if we get a decisive Florida result for Biden early on, then it may be a less suspenseful night.

If Biden loses Pennsylvania, he is in trouble. He still have alternative paths to victory, but not easy ones. I’d say Trump would be the favourite (but not certain) if he wins Pennsylvania. However unlike Florida, we are unlikely to get a clear result on election day due to their rules on counting early ballots.

Also of interest will be the Senate races. Control of the Senate will be highly consequential. Unlike the House, the Senate has to confirm all senior government and judicial nominees.

The latest and almost final 538 forecast gives Trump a 10% chance of winning. Nate Silver has an excellent piece on how a 10% chance is not zero. It is around the chance of it raining on a particular day. Silver’s key points are:

• The Electoral College gives Trump a 3% to 4% advantage. Only if Biden has a greater than 5% lead in popular vote does his chances of winning the Electoral College exceed 90%
• Biden only leads by 4.7% in Pennsylvania, the most likely tipping point state
• Biden only leads by 2.1% in Florida
• There may be polling errors, as occured in 2016, despite pollsters having tried to fix them
• There may be more spoiled ballots due to greater postal voting
• Trump appears to be picking up support from Hispanic voters, who may be under-represented in some polls

This is not to say that Trump is likely to win. It is to say Trump can win.

Here’s when we should start to get results from the US elections for key swing states, as in the polls close for them:

• 12 pm – Florida, Georgia, South Carolina,
• 12.30 pm – North Carolina, Ohio
• 1 pm – Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas
• 2 pm – Minnesota, Wisconsin
• 3 pm – Iowa

Also some exit poll data will become available from around 10 am.

Almost all the experts say it is improbable we will know today who has won the election. The reason is that many of the key swing states don’t allow early processing or counting of the postal ballots, so the final results for those states could take a further one to three days – or longer.

This will mean that data on election night, for some states, will mainly reflect those who voted on the day, and not the much larger number who voted early. So it may be difficult to get a clear picture.

I’d be very wary of any claims by politicians they they are winning or have won. You don’t get to declare yourself the winner. The election authorities do. The major TV networks have said they will only project a winner in a state when they are 99.5% confident in the outcome.

A guest post by Stephen Russell:

As election day nears, observers of the US political scene probably hoped for increasing clarity about what’s happening there. What we’ve gotten is perhaps the opposite. 

Fivethirtyeight.com’s log now shows national election polls from 44 (!) different pollsters conducted in the last sixteen days of October, and some of those have produced multiple polls.  During this period, Joe Biden’s lead has fallen. Since reaching a peak of +10.3 in the Realclearpolitics.com (RCP) polling average on October 11, Biden has slipped to +6.5 though it is bouncing around quite a bit.  Biden likewise peaked in the Fivethirtyeight.com (538) average on Oct 16-19 at +10.7 and has since slipped to +8.3.  But detailed study shows several interesting points.

Firstly, the decline in Biden’s position may be partly a change of measurement rather than what is being measured. Each new pollster throwing their result into the pot changes the average. But each pollster has their own technique. They may be measuring exactly the same reality, but getting different results because of their different measuring sticks. That doesn’t mean Biden hasn’t slipped, just that the reality is less certain than it appears.

What do the repeat pollsters say? Cursory investigation shows mixed results. On the one hand, the results from USC Dornsife (which reports rolling averages) show no substantive change in opinion since the start of the month. YouGov has Biden increasing his lead from +9 to +11. On the other hand, Rasmussen has gone from reporting Biden +12 in the first week of October to Trump +1 in their October 25-27 survey (and back up to Biden +3 for Oct 27-29 then down to B+1 for Oct 28-Nov1).  IBD has gone up and down like a yo-yo. Ipsos shows no change.  SurveyMonkey shows a drop of about 2 points.      

Secondly, we are now probably seeing a herd effect. Mostly, pollsters can say whatever they like and we’ll never know for sure if they were right. But on election day they face the acid test. This creates a great temptation for pollsters to tweak (or even suppress) their final poll results to make them closer to the apparent average. That (they hope) will minimise the chances of them looking stupid when the result is known.

Third, a significant gap has opened up between the 538 and RCP averages. Why? 538’s average has usually been a little more friendly to Joe Biden than RCP’s: typically by about half a point. But lately the difference has been larger, and at one stage hit a full three points. And why did RCP’s figure start going down while 538’s was still going up?

The reason is largely in the deluge of new polls. Many (though not all) of the new polls feeding into 538 are more Biden-friendly, and that has kept the 538 average up. RCP’s average is based on a tight group of around ten of the most recent polls. A single new poll, especially if it is an outlier, can have a big effect on the average. And some major Biden-friendly polls (eg CNN, NBC, YouGov and USC Dornsife) are excluded because they are a week old. This procedure means RCP will usually reveal a change in a candidate’s popularity well before the 538 average shows it. However, the price for that sensitivity is volatility. It jumps around a lot and the changes it shows have often proved to be statistical blips from rogue polls and the randomness of which polls come out in what sequence.

Fourthly – and this is the most curious thing of all – is the distribution of results. Nationally, we have seen results from Biden +19 to Trump +1. There are double digit  spreads in many state polls too. In just one week polls came out showing a Biden lead of +10 in Pennsylvania and a Trump lead of +3. In Florida results ranged from Biden +7 to Trump +5.  In Wisconsin the range was Biden +1 to Biden +17.

If polling were as simple as pulling a handful of jellybeans out of a jar to sample the composition within, you would expect multiple polls to produce something close to what statisticians call a “normal distribution”: a cluster of results around a point which is probably close to reality, and a tail of more wayward results either side: a bell curve.

Unfortunately, humans are not jellybeans. Many refuse to come out of the jar. Some don’t know what colour they are. Some change colour every time they eat pork chops, and some tell fibs. Pollsters have many techniques to try and compensate for the uncertainty this creates. There is much debate about how that is best done. In theory, these uncertainties should have a simple effect: increasing the standard deviation of the bell curve to make it fatter.

And here is the curious thing: when you examine the actual results pollsters are producing, what you see is not a fat bell. It is a drunken bell, leaning to one side. Or possibly a two-humped camel. While it has become closer to normal in the last few days, that may be the herd effect at work.

The October 22 (NZT) RCP polls provide an illustration. There were ten polls making up the average, and Biden had a lead of 7.6 points. They fell into two clusters: a small group (of three) giving Biden a lead of around 3% (given the tilt in the Electoral College, that would make for a knife-edge election); and a larger cluster of seven polls giving Biden a lead averaging 9.6%. There was a distinct gap between the clusters. The mean, median and mode of the results had become misaligned, with the later two measures much more favourable to Biden.

This is not normal statistical variation, and comes from a disagreement over how to measure the reality of voter opinion that mirrors the polarisation of the two camps’ political beliefs. Each group denounces members of the other as fools or frauds.

Robert Calhally of Trafalgar Group and Jim Lee of Susquehanna Research are both predicting a Trump win and have denounced other pollsters for failing to see huge numbers of shy Trump voters. Lee has called some other polls “garbage”. 

On the other hand, Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult’s chief research officer has said his company has looked hard for these voters, and couldn’t find them. Nate Silver complains “there’s no f***ing evidence for it!” He cites cross-data with party identification that he says ought to show it up if it exists, but doesn’t; and also evidence from polling and results for Trumpy politicians in other countries.

If either cluster were just a couple of outliers we could dismiss them as nuts and ignore them. But there are too many. The Trump-friendly cluster seems to include Trafalgar, Susquehanna, Rasmussen, Harvard-Harris, Spry Strategies, Zogby, Insider Advantage, CardinalGPS; and (arguably) HarrisX, IBD, and Emerson. Some on that list are new. The Biden-friendly group includes Opinium, USC Dornsife, Morning Consult, JL Partners, YouGov, Ipsos, CNN, Data for Progress, Quinnipiac, Siena/NYT, Fox News and a whole lot more with less familiar names. There are pollsters giving results in the middle, but oddly few of them, given that this is where the average lies.

Some Trump enthusiasts have claimed that good polls for Biden are part of a conspiracy to suppress Republican turnout, or provide justification for a post-election claim of fraud when Trump has won. Democrats might equally claim that pro-Trump polls are part of a conspiracy to provide justification for a post-election claim of fraud when Biden has won.  Trump himself has often claimed that the only way he can lose is by massive vote fraud.

Now it might be that the pollsters of Cluster A are right and those of Cluster B are wrong. Or the reverse. But the average of them all is a result that almost no-one is picking! Of course, it is possible that both groups are wrong in opposite directions, and each by just the right amount to make the overall average accurate. But how likely is that? 

More likely is that a big group of pollsters are allowing politics to dictate the results they are producing. Which means that there is an enhanced probability that one group or the other is going to be proven spectacularly wrong, and even the polling average wrong by a historically unusual amount.  One way or another, there is going to be a lot of egg on face. And if it proves that one group is essentially right and the other group on another planet, the losers will be positively drowning in it.

A number of readers asked me to do a ten best and worst things about Joe Biden also. So here they are. In one post, as time is running out.

The worst

1. He seems to stand for nothing. He drifts to wherever the middle of the Democratic Party is. It is hard to know what he really believes or would fight for. In 1974 he opposed Roe vs Wade and in 1981 voted for a constitutional amendment to overturn it. Today he treats it as holy writ.
2. His record on race is patchy. He delivered a eulogy for former segregationist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond and opposed school integration.
3. Biden will hike taxes by $3.3 trillion over a decade
4. He has a history of not just gaffes, but massive exaggerations and plagiarism
5. He turned a blind eye to his son Hunter obviously trading on his family name to get a $600,000 a year board appointment
6. He has not ruled out packing the Supreme Court with additional Justices
7. He’s institutionalised in Washington. He has been there 48 years.
8. There are real doubts over his mental agility as he would be the oldest person ever elected President
9. He has a history of being too handsy with women
10. He is highly likely to increase spending, driving the US debt even higher

The best

1. His history of personal tragedy has made him someone of huge empathy, who genuinely cares for others.
2. He is kind and decent, as seen by what he did for Brayden Harrington
3. He is not one of those politicians that encourages people to hate the other side. In fact he has a long record of working with Republicans, and if anyone can work across party lines, it is Biden.
4. He is instinctively far removed from the woke activists who are pushing cancel culture etc.
5. He is vastly experienced in Government, both as a Senator and VP. He may not inspire, but he will be competent.
6. He is down to earth. For 36 years he spent three hours on the train every day just so he could be at home with his boys. Even as a presidential candidate he was often on the train.
7. He believes in a rules based international system, and will have the US join the TPP and stop trying to destroy the WTO.
8. He will stand up to Russian aggression in Europe, and elsewhere
9. He is a good negotiator, skilled at the art of compromise
10. He will show the Democrats the best route to success is not extremism, but moderation.

That’s my ten worst and best. Feel free to add more in comments.

Both the best and the worst are pretty mild. For me there’s nothing particularly exciting or repelling. He’s a typical Democratic politician of his age and era.

But the one thing that does stand out is how his personal tragedies have shaped him. As the father of an almost four year old and almost one year old, I can’t even fathom how you recover from losing a one year old in a car accident. Add to that losing your wife and suddenly at age 30 being a widower and the sole parent to two young boys. And if that isn’t enough having you eldest son die of brain cancer at age 46. That is more suffering than anyone should have to endure, but it has helped shape who he is. This article today shows that.

The BBC reports:

At least one person has been killed and several more are feared dead after a shooting in central Vienna, according to the city’s police.

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said he believed the incident was an “apparent terror attack”.

A number of suspects armed with rifles launched the assault in six locations, police said. Among the injured was a police officer.

One attacker was shot dead by officers during a large-scale security incident. …

One of the locations of the shooting was reportedly on a street near a synagogue.

Jewish community leader Oskar Deutsch tweeted that it was unclear if the Vienna synagogue was targeted in the attack as it was closed at the time.

“It sounded like firecrackers, then we realised it was shots,” said one eyewitness quoted by public broadcaster ORF, according to AFP news agency.

An officer guarding the synagogue was injured, reported newspaper Kronen Zeitung.

Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Incredibly sad that they had had this terror attack.

It is especially poignant for me. I’ve been to the synagogue which may have been attacked. It was the only synagogue to surive the Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass as it was a block of buildings and can’t be burnt down without burning the entire block.

When I visited it, it was just to look for at the holocaust memorial wall. But to my delight, I discovered they had masses of genealogical records for my family, back to the 1600s and 1700s. They had my father’s birth certificate, my grandparents marriage certificate etc.

The staff there were so helpful. They were actually closed when we visited but as we were from NZ, allowed us in and the archivist showed us around. When he heard my grandmother’s maiden name was Mandl, he was very excited as it turned out the Mandls were quite famous.

So my heart broke a bit when I saw the headlines that the synagogue may have been a target. It is the strongest link I have to my family’s former life in Vienna.

The UK equivalent of the Human Rights Commission has released its report into anti-semitism in the UK Labour Party. Their conclusions:

• We have concluded that there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for which the Labour Party is responsible.
• The Party has failed to implement the recommendations made in these reports fully, or to take effective measures to stop antisemitic conduct from taking place.
• This reflects a culture that is at odds with the Labour Party’s commitment to zero tolerance of antisemitism
• Antisemitism within the Labour Party could have been tackled more effectively if the leadership had chosen to do so
• We found evidence of political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints throughout the period of the investigation. We have concluded that this practice of political interference was unlawful. The evidence shows that staff from the Leader of the Opposition’s Office (LOTO) were able to influence decisions on complaints

Jeremy Corbyn then came out and said the complaints were all exagreated and a device by his political opponents. This is despite the report explicitly saying:

Our investigation found that the Labour Party breached the Equality Act 2010 by committing unlawful harassment through the acts of its agents in two of the complaints we investigated. These included using antisemitic tropes and suggesting that complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears.

So Corbyn went out and did the exact thing the Commission found was unlawful – dismissing the complaints as fake. And he was then suspended for that. He is now trying to portray himself as the victim.

Andrew Rawnsley points out:

The victim of this hideous chapter in Labour’s history is not Jeremy Corbyn. The victims are those who were scared and scarred by the vile antisemitism that occurred when he was in charge. The victims are all those who needed an electable challenger to the Tories, not the toxic and sectarian party that Labour became under Mr Corbyn. The victims are the many millions of people who depend on having a Labour party capable of commanding the confidence of the public so that it can effectively represent those it exists to champion. Jeremy Corbyn is no martyr. He is a victim only of his own arrogantly self-pitying, self-denying delusions.

Sir Keir Starmer comes out of this looking strong and principled and UK Labour is 5% ahead in the latest polls. Sir Keir could well be the next PM.

An interesting poll from YouGov on the net favourability for members of the royal family. In order, they are:

1. The Queen +71%
2. Prince William +65%
3. Duchess of Cambridge +62%
4. Princess Anne +50%
5. Prince Charles +24%
6. Prince Philip +28%
7. Prince Edward +9%
8. Duchess of Cornwall +1%
9. Prince Harry +1%
10. Duchess of Sussex -26%
11. Prince Andrew -73%

No huge surprises there. The only member more unpopular than the Duchess of Sussex is the guy the FBI wants to talk to about sex with under age girls.

The Queen, William, Kate and Anne all in a hugely popular tier. Charles and Philip reasonably popular. Edward, Camila and Harry all a bit blah.

Of perhaps more interest is how they have changed since March 2018. The changes in net favourability are:

1. Prince Charles +15%
2. Duchess of Cornwall +10%
3. The Queen +8%
4. Duchess of Cambridge +6%
5. Prince William +0%
6. Prince Philip +0%
7. Prince Harry -62%
8. Duchess of Sussex -65%

So Charles and Camilla on the way up. Harry and Meghan have managed to inflict the biggest own goal in history. I mean that is a staggering change.

On Patreon I have done a fuller analysis of the new Ministry. This may surprise some, but overall I am very positive. My summary:

Overall this is a very smart Ministry decision by Ardern. They do still have a number of weaker ministers, but the important portfolios have gone to competent Ministers. The critical ones for the next term are:

* Finance – Robertson
* Housing – Woods
* Education – Hipkins
* Health – Little
* Attorney-General – Parker
* Justice – Faafoi
* Transport – Wood

If they manage to deliver and/or manage competently in those areas, they will be well placed in 2023.

But even with reasonably competent Ministers, some of those areas will be very challenging. Housing is looking to be a nightmare with the waiting list skyrocketing even faster than house prices. Repealing Three Strikes could be very unpopular and restructuring health is always dangerous, especially at a time of great funding stress.

The biggest losers are Phil Twyford who drops 18 places to outside Cabinet and Salesa who is dumped from the ministry entirely.

Poto Williams gains the most, up 12 spots. Jackson and Henare also promoted to Cabinet.

New Cabinet Ministers are Jan Tinetti, Michael Wood, Kiri Allan and Ayesha Verrall. Radhakrishnan becomes a Minister outside.

Full list is here.

Unlike most readers here, I have had a strong relationship with the US Republican Party. While of course I can’t vote in US elections, I have followed them since I was 13. In 1980 I wanted Reagan to win. In 1984 even more so. In 1998 was a Bush fan and in 1992. Thought Dole would be better than Clinton in 1996. Big fan of W in 2004 and 2004. Would have loved McCain to win in 2008, and still think he would have been far better than Obama. Same with Romney in 2012.

But I’ve not just observed from afar. Though both the IDU and the IYDU I’ve been fortunate enough to be hosted by the Republican Party on multiple occasions. I even got to attend a party leaders and presidents meeting hosted by the RNC in DC. I’ve met RNC Chairs, white house staff, governors, congressmen. Have been good friends of many Chairs of the College Republicans. Have attended campaign schools in the US, and also have been hosted by prominent conservative organisations such as Heritage, Cato and ATR. So trust me when I say I have a strong emotional and political attachment to the Republican Party, and have many friends who have held high office in the party.

It will surprise no-one that I want Trump to lose. I have made that clear over many years.

But I also want the Republican Party to lose the Senate and remain in the minority in the House. I say this, even though I will detest many of the policies a Biden Presidency could push through a Congress they control. And don’t even start me on the Judges.

But I believe the GOP can only regain its previous greatness by realising how grievous an error they made in tolerating the worst excesses of Trump. Not one GOP House representative voted to impeach him and the only honourable Senator was Mitt Romney who voted in convict him.

Trump is a clear and present danger to the founding principles of the republic. He is everything the founding fathers were worried about. What he tried to do with Ukraine was ten times worse than anything Nixon did. His public demands that his FBI Director and Attorney-General go after his political opponents are intolerable. And the vast majority of Republican legislators know deep down Trump is unfit to hold any elective office. Yet they sold out their principles through either cowardice or putting power first.

If Trump is defeated, I have little doubt he will end up convicted in at least state courts of multiple crimes. He may become the first former President to go to prison.

The Republican Party needs to suffer such a horrible defeat, that they will say no to the next Trump like figure who comes along (Trump of course is not really a Republican – he was a liberal Democrat for many years. He has just used the GOP). Only if the outcome in 2020 results in stuff GOP officeholders and activists hate, will they learn the lesson. A Supreme Court packed with liberal judges. A huge tax hike. Democrat controlled state legislatures deciding congressional boundaries etc. The more it hurts, the more likely they will turn their back on Trump.

I fully expect and hope that in 2024 I’ll be morally supporting the GOP, especially if it is Nikki Haley. Maybe even in 2022.

Now again I am not and never will be a US citizen. It is not my country. But the reason I care is that I believe (unlike many on the left) that the US has been a wonderful force for good in the world. They were pretty much the first modern democratic republic. They gave us the form of government, which is the most common in the world today. In the 1700s they debated freedom and rights. They gave us Washington and Adams and Jefferson. If the American Revolution had never occured, the world would be a far worst place today.

I never thought much of the policies or ideas of Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama or H Clinton. But I never doubted they were basically good people who would act in what they saw as the best interest of the United States and its people. The same with Reagan, Bush GHW, Dole, Bush GW, McCain and Romney.

Trump is different. He has demonstrated that on multiple occasions. His undermining of fair and free elections will especially do lasting damage. No amount of tax cuts or conservative judges makes up for that, and the GOP needs to realise that. I certainly hope they do, and they rebuild.

I mean his latest is falsely claiming the main reason the US has such a high Covid-19 death toll is because doctors are paid $2,000 more if they record someone dying from Covid-19. He’s the President, and he is blatantly lying about the entire medical profession to try and distract from his own failings. Has a single GOP Senator condemned him for this?

If he was in New Zealand, he’s be the co-leader of Advance NZ!

A really insightful article by Henry Cooke on why the yes vote failed to win the cannabis referendum. The TLDR version is:

• The PM refused to spend a cent of political capital on it. Only 55% of Labour voters voted for it. She could have easily got that over 60%.
• They should have gone for decriminalisation, not legalisation
• They should have done what euthanasia did and passed the law in advance, conditional on a referendum endorsement, so people knew exactly what a yes vote would entail
• The yes campaign was terrible, and failed to focus on human stories, as the euthanasia campaign did
• The yes campaign was designed more to make yes voters feel good, than persuade more conservative voters to vote yes

Stuff reports:

A maximum four-year parliamentary term, lowering the five per cent threshold and abolishing the coat-tail rule could be on the way as part of the Labour-Greens cooperation agreement.

A four year term is a great idea but must be decided by referendum, not MPs.

There is a case to lower the 5% threshold, but this should only be done if there is consensus amongst the parties.

Abolishing the one electorate threshold is a bad idea. It makes Parliament less proportional as it makes it harder for parties to qualify for List MPs.

It is arguably anti-Maori Party also.

They have provisionally won Waiariki. They also got 1.0% of the party vote. If they had got 1.2% then under the current law they would get a List MP. Labour and Greens want to deny the Maori Party the opportunity to get List MPs.

Here we see where politicians who push hate speech laws want to take us.

The Times reports:

Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said.

Journalists and theatre directors should also face the courts if their work is deemed to deliberately stoke up prejudice, Humza Yousaf said.

This has of course been done before. I think it was in East Germany.

The Public Order Act 1986, which currently outlaws threatening, abusive or insulting words and behaviour, includes a “dwelling defence” that states threatening language cannot be prosecuted if spoken at home.

The new bill will be based on that act, but Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has made clear his hope that a “dwelling defence” will not be included.

Just imagine this. You have a debate over dinner about whether transgender athletes should compete in the Olympics according to their biological sex or their gender identity. Someone can then complaint to the Police that you incited hatred towards trans people and the Police come knocking to interview you about your dinner conversation.

The Greens have accepted the paltry offering from Labour, because it is basically better than nothing. But it is pretty minor. The key aspects are:

• Greens will vote for or abstain on confidence and supply
• Greens will vote with Labour on procedural motions in the House and select committees, except urgency
• Marama Davidson is made Minister for the prevention of Family and Sexual Violence
• James Shaw is Minister of Climate Change
• Green MPs get to chair one select committee and deputy chair another
• Co-Leaders get to meet Jacinda once every six weeks

So there is nothing specific on policy. The two ministerial portfolios are ones with basically no power. They have no agency that they can direct. All they can do is co-ordinate.

Chairing a select committee is of slight use. Being a deputy chair is of no use. Deputy Chairs have no power.

As an undecided voter right up until the day of the election on whether or not to vote in favour of legalising cannabis, the “yes” campaign needed me. 

Their job should have been to convince people like me – someone who didn’t have a strong opinion either way but wanted to be informed before making a choice – that the legalisation of recreational cannabis was the right thing to do for society. The campaign couldn’t have done a worse job if it tried. 

The most detrimental aspect of the “yes” campaign was that they were trying to persuade those who had likely already decided to vote in favour. Their messaging was not framed in a way that targeted the centre-right or more conservative Labour voters, and in some cases, ostracised them completely. 

Advertisements like “To put it bluntly, if you vote no we can’t be friends” from the Make It Legal campaign while accusing such voters of being complicit in organised crime and gang activity wasn’t the best way to get them on side. The tactic certainly didn’t work on me. 

The “yes” campaign also minimised and dismissed a number of my concerns, including stoned drivers on the roads, the impact of cannabis use on a person’s mental health, its addictive nature, its conflict with New Zealand’s supposed goal of smoke-free 2025, and much more. I was either told the evidence didn’t support my concerns, or that it didn’t matter because “everyone” was consuming cannabis anyway. I was left more unsettled by the end of the campaign than when it started. 

Bringing out what seemed to be only centre-left advocates for legalisation (such as Helen Clark) also wasn’t going to convince traditional National or conservative voters to vote in favour. Where were the centre-right advocates? Not one proponent of legalising cannabis use with whom I share values fronted the “yes” campaign – and not because there aren’t any. 

Optics aside, the arguments put forward in favour of legalisation just weren’t convincing. I don’t care about the tax revenue, or that people use cannabis regardless. I do care that its possession can result in convictions, and that Police spend far too many hours on cannabis related crime. 

However, I work with children and teenagers every day, and their wellbeing and future is central to every value that I hold. Ultimately, the evidence put forward in favour of legislation did not convince me enough – or at all – that young people would be better off with cannabis legalised. Why we would experiment on a generation that is already struggling with mental health is beyond comprehension to me. 

The vast majority of the country would agree that our current drug laws aren’t fit for purpose; the status quo is clearly not working. Upon weighing up the positives and negatives of both outcomes, however, this was not a strong enough argument in favour of legalisation either for me. I would have, without any hesitation, voted in favour of decriminalisation, however. 

I understand some of the arguments around why the option of decriminalisation wasn’t considered and I know it’s not the perfect solution. However, it’s almost certain that a referendum of this nature would have passed. We are now left in a position where, instead of a stepping stone that would have addressed some of the concerns surrounding police time and cannabis convictions, nothing will happen at all. 

Despite the frustrations I had with the “yes” campaign, this wasn’t an easy choice to make, even though I did my research. In fact, I only decided the night before I voted, which was accompanied by a moment of pause in the polling both before ticking “no”. The situation we remain in is not ideal but, whichever way I voted, I knew there would be negative consequences as a result. 

I would be a fierce supporter of the decriminalisation of cannabis and I hope this becomes a reality in the very near future. This time round, however, legalisation was simply one step too far.

Monique Poirier has a Masters degree in Political Studies, and is a small business owner and former Parliamentary staffer. She is the Campaigns Manager for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance.

Stuff reports:

A 13-year-old girl is “absolutely gutted” to be sidelined from a Wellington rugby league tournament because rules state her grade is for boys only.

Pacific Youth Cup organisers told her team, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, if they play Aayla Toman on Saturday, refs will not allow the game to go ahead and the team will be withdrawn.

Previously, the team said they would risk disqualification and forfeit their points and play Aayla.

New Zealand Rugby League rules state the maximum age for males and females to play in mixed gender full-contact rugby league is 12 years of age.

It seems to me the rules are too restrictive and a rule designed to protect girls is harming them.

Absolutely there should be a girls only section, that is restricted to girls. That protects them.

But if a girl wants to play in a mixed team, and is willing to accept the greater risk of injury, they should be allowed to.

Basically what I would do is have a girls section and an open section.

The margin between yes and no was -7% in the provisional results. This may change in the final results, but we can do a quick compare with the six companies that did a public pre-election poll. I’ve calculated for each what they had as the margin between yes and no, once you remove undecideds.

1. Colmar Brunton -11% (4% difference)
2. Green Party +3% (10% difference)
3. UMR +4% (11% difference)
4. Reid Research -18% (11% difference)
5. Horizon +5% (12% difference)
6. Research NZ +7% (14% difference)

So only two companies correctly forecast no would win. However one of them (RR) had a loss by 18%, when it was only 7%. Both the Green Party internal poll and UMR were closer to the correct margin.

I will do a revised post when we have final results as that will probably change things.

Stuff reports:

New Zealanders in the United States are being warned to be cautious in the lead up to its election.

The 59th US presidential election is set to take place on Wednesday, New Zealand time.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) Safe Travel website said political activity, including rallies and protests, could be expected in the lead-up to the election and the presidential inauguration.

Since early this year, there have been widespread protests and demonstrations, with some resulting in violence, looting and civil unrest.

“Even protests or political rallies which are intended to be peaceful can result in violence,” it said.

“A strong police and/or National Guard presence can be expected at any further protests. Police measures have, at times, included the use of rubber bullets and/or pepper spray to disperse crowds.”

MFAT said New Zealanders should avoid areas where political rallies or protest activity may occur.

This is incredibly sad. Who would have ever thought the NZ Government would have to warn NZers that it might be unsafe to be in the United States during the election period.

No matter who wins, I really hope it is a large margin and beyond dispute, so that the outcome is accepted.