Stumped for what to say when the 2016 US presidential election comes up in conversation? Here are five science-minded issues that may drive the outcome: CLIMATE CHANGE President Obama has framed climate change as an economic issue, always a key factor in US elections. That plus the Paris climate summit means this may be the year climate change awareness reaches average voters. TECH SAVVY Building the best data-crunching machinery is crucial to mobilising voters. The Democrats seem a nose ahead: Hillary Clinton's campaign has hired a start-up called The Groundwork to build a database and analytical system for f undraising and getting out the vote. Tech mattered last time out, so there's good reason to think the 2016 election will hinge on it too. DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS During the last election, people of colour made up 28 per cent of the electorate. If trends continue as the US Census Bureau estimates, that will be 30 per cent in 2016. This is unlikely to be kind to the Republican Party. POLLING DIFFICULTIES Polling aggregators are more accurate than ever, but their predictive power depends on many individual polls. That might suffer as fewer people have landlines; it's illegal to use robocalls to reach cellphones. One polling outlet, Gallup, has announced that it won't poll the primary elections to choose the two major candidates, and may not poll the general election. If others follow suit, aggregators may not be able to keep up their accuracy. DRUG PRICES Candidates have criticised greed in big pharma after one firm hiked a drug price by 5000 per cent. A plan to lower prices is a campaign necessity -as is an argument for why it won't stop research.
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机译：为2016年美国总统大选进行对话时该说些什么而感到困惑？以下是五个可能推动结果的科学问题：气候变化奥巴马总统将气候变化定为经济问题，这始终是美国大选的关键因素。加上巴黎气候峰会意味着今年可能是气候变化意识达到普通选民的一年。精湛的技术构建最佳的数据处理机制对于动员选民至关重要。民主党人似乎眼前一亮：希拉里·克林顿（Hillary Clinton）的竞选活动聘用了一家名为The Groundwork的初创公司，以建立数据库和分析系统，以使人们不加选择地投票。上一次科技股很重要，因此我们有充分的理由认为2016年大选也将取决于它。人口迁移在上次选举中，有色人种占选民的28％。如果趋势继续如美国人口普查局（US Census Bureau）估计的那样，则到2016年将达到30％。这对共和党来说不太可能。轮询难度轮询聚合器比以往任何时候都更准确，但是其预测能力取决于许多单独的轮询。由于拥有座机的人数减少，这可能会受到影响；使用robocall拨打手机是非法的。盖洛普（Gallup）是一个民意测验机构，已宣布不会对初选进行投票，以选择两名主要候选人，也可能不会对大选进行投票。如果其他人也效仿，则聚合器可能无法保持其准确性。药品价格在一家公司将药品价格提高了5000％之后，候选人批评了大型制药公司的贪婪。降低价格的计划是竞选活动的必要条件-也是为什么它不会停止研究的一个论点。
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