538: Harris 55% chance of winning - basically similar to a coin toss. Why aren't we doing better?

[Doodley]

[RandySF]

1. Half the country lost their minds.

[Doodley]

7. What can be done to reach some of them?

[RandySF]

14. Wait for the next generation.

[DeepWinter]

18. Gen-Z scares me

They have the attention span of a squirrel on crack

[PhilosopherKing]

21. It is gen X that is going for Trump

My generation unfortunately.

[Chin music]

27. We aren't half and half and never were imo.

The person w the megaphone calls the tunes.
The media. And the billionaires who own them.
We hear everyday more and more gop voters from the past saying they are voting for KH. I haven't heard anyone who voted for she and Biden in 2020 say they weren't voting for her. And we outvoted them by millions of votes the first time around.
The numbers cannot be that close imo.

I hear the old horse race mantra but I believe it's something imminently darker. A pretext for J6 2.0 by touting the narrative that the minority parties ideas etc (Anti-abortion, tariffs, tax breaks for rich folk, concentration camps and executions) have gained voters. And are equally valid bc people say 'half and half'.
No.We are winning. jmho.
Roe Vs Wade ALONE has led voters for a few years. And now MJ etc. is on a few more. And Taylor Swift etc.
Imho? They are absolutely discounting the Roe vote out of hand, hoping women forget that it's so important.
It's vastly important. For Roe, and other 'privacy' cases.

Here's something else that has been sticking in my craw. The idea that Ds, not only have to win, but win by a landslide or else they will steal it from us. Um,,.....if a russan sympathizing repub won by 50 votes, they insist it was a mathematical win, and act as if. We need to prepare now to do the same. Quickly. jmho.



Thanks for the post Randy SF

[lees1975]

2. Because it's 538 and they're still trying to figure out how they screwed up the mid-terms in 2022 so bad.

If you believe that, then I've got a beach house in Arizona I'll sell you cheap. Just send me the check. I'll send the key.

[Abstractartist]

39. Because

ABC owns 538 now and Nate Silver is not involved, so when a right wing media company owns polling companies, count on slants. Also on these polls, who and how are the conducted? Are the young voters even involved in the polls? Are the cell phone or on line? So many questions to ask.

[JohnSJ]

3. Who says we aren't? How are people who don't answer calls from numbers they don't recognize factored in?

[TomCADem]

4. Because For All The Hate Directed At Traditional Media...

...the truth of the matter is that most people today do not get most of their news from newspapers or traditional journalism based news, but through social media and other outlets with no journalistic standards. This does not even count the continued existence of right wing media like Fox News, which is even pushed further to the right by competing outlets like News Max. Now, the tail wags the dog with right wing media sometimes playing catch-up to the craziness that is spread on the internet whether it be some facebook rumor about pets or the latest Russian propaganda.

[WSHazel]

5. Harris has a better than 55% chance

There are a lot of Red Wave polls in the averages. I don't think she has a 70% chance of winning though. The race could still go either way.

[Polybius]

10. A few days ago, I said she has a 60% chance of winning

I'll make a final prediction later on, but what happened in Israel might sway it, I'm just not sure which way yet.

[Silent Type]

29. The Economist Predictive Model has Harris at 60% (3 out of 5) chance of winning.

https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/prediction-model/president

[Klarkashton]

6. Ever hear those magas express their beliefs?

It's like reading a transcript from a Jessie Watters program.

Right down to wing outraged by the Harris "laugh".

It's poisoned the minds of a very substantial number.

[joshcryer]

8. Social media has created a divisiveness never before seen in our history.

Go scroll TikTok.

[RidinWithHarris]

9. Don't forget that 538 factors in the possibility of an upheaval between the current time and the election

If there are no big "October surprises" to rock the boat, and polling remains close to the same as it is now, that 55% will grow in favor of Harris the closer the election gets.

[betsuni]

11. I'm happy this sort of question isn't often answered by automatically blaming the Democratic candidate

and their campaigns anymore. The Goldilocks thing. It's finally sunk in that ANY Democratic candidate will have a close election because the country is extremely polarized and facts don't matter.

[PeaceWave]

12. People are cutting cable TV in favor of real life and death drama?

Unfortunately, I'm only half kidding.

[iemanja]

13. Because we live in a divided nation

It was always going to be close.

[Nimble_Idea]

15. Tesla drivers sure do have a hard life

[Skittles]

16. a woman who is also a POC has to be ten times as good to be considered half as good

VP Harris is up to the challenge

[JCMach1]

17. Because a significant chunk of the country no longer believes in democracy,

Or even scientific facts for that matter

[Mr. Sparkle]

19. They have a huge propaganda network

we have ...... crickets!

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. Because we live in a white supremacy. Until we reckon with and dismantle it, our systems will continue to replicate it.

[GumboYaYa]

22. This is the new polling scam learned from Nate Silver. Keep it close enough

that you can say you were right no matter who wins. Express it in a range of probabilities versus taking a real stand on outcomes.

This together with the red waving of polls makes me less inclined to look at the headline and instead spend more time looking at the internals.

[Self Esteem]

23. Because every election but one in the 21st Century has been close.

A few on this site have convinced themselves that reality isn't real and that, despite winning in 2016 and nearly winning again in 2020, there is no way Trump could be so competitive this go around.

But there's plenty of proof to believe the polls are at least indicating the race is close. Every single poll across the board indicates a tight race, especially in the swing states. Even Harris' campaign believes this is going to be a very narrow election and considers it essentially a toss-up at this point.

Why? Because we are a 45/45/10 country.

45% will vote Republican no matter what or who the nominee is.

45% will vote Democratic no matter what or who the nominee is.

That means the election will come down to just 10% of the population.

They will decide who wins and for Democrats to win, they need to take this group by a sizable number.

In 2020, they won about 6%, which gave Biden a majority. Trump got about 2% and the other 2% voted third party.

In 2016, Hillary won about 3%, which was not enough, even if Trump won only 1% or so since about 6% voted third party.

2024 will be decided by that third party number. Trump isn't likely to exceed his two-points he saw four years ago, but if Harris wins a percentage that is closer to Hillary's, she will be in trouble.

And as of right now, she hasn't been able to fully separate due to either much of that 10% still being undecided or committed to voting third party.

On top of that, the electoral college favors Trump. Harris has more must-win states she's defending than Trump does.

But the reality is that in 2020, despite winning the popular vote by a larger margin than Obama did in 2012, Biden only won the electoral college by a combined 46,000 or so votes across Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. Just 46,000 votes. In 2012, Obama won it by 530,000+ votes across Florida, Ohio and Colorado.

Anyone who says this isn't about as close to a coin flip election right now is lying to you - or they're ignoring reality and hoping against hope it isn't.

[SomedayKindaLove]

28. Seems there are some Red states that are sliding closer to swing states

Before Harris was on the ticket, the exact opposite was happening.

Are these states considered “swing states”? If not, why not? Some of the latest polling I have seen:

TX Trump +5
IA Trump +4
ALaska Trump +4
Florida Trump +3
Ohio Trump +3

All within margin of error. Meanwhile VA, NH and MN have all moved to more solidly blue. The EC still going to be close, but I can’t see how the election isn’t trending in the right direction.

[Self Esteem]

35. Most those states will have similar margins to 2020.

Texas? Biden lost it by nearly five points in 2020.

Florida? Three points.

Polls this far out also indicated Biden was better positioned in both Iowa and Ohio than he actually was (similar with Hillary).

But yes, the election has become more favorable for the Democrats compared to where Biden was polling back in early July. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean much since Biden was probably losing at the time.

What isn't clear is if Harris is out-performing 2020 Biden. In fact, the opposite is probably true. Polling wise she certainly isn't out-polling him, as Biden led consistently in most swing states, including Georgia and Arizona.

But we also know the polls were off in 2020 and overestimated Biden's support. Assuming polling has corrected, Harris is probably under-performing Biden's 2020 numbers in Arizona and maybe Georgia, while meeting his numbers in the Blue Wall states.

What I know is that the Harris campaign thinks this election will be closer than four years ago and while they will fight like hell to win all the states Biden flipped in 2020, that isn't necessarily what they're expecting will happen.

It's why they're laser-focused on Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, because that still remains their most viable pathway to 270. Harris has spent about as much time campaigning in Pennsylvania alone as she has Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina combined. That isn't a coincidence. They understand that they are better positioned there than they are in the sunbelt.

So, yes. This election went from Lean Trump earlier this summer to maybe a very slight lean for Harris. But it's still very close and will likely be decided by less than 100,000 votes due to the electoral college.

Beyond that, the fundamentals of this race have remained unchanged since the convention. There's been little evidence that Harris has improved her numbers all that much over the last month and a half. It's been a stagnant race.

I know a lot of people thought Harris would start to pull away from Trump like Obama did McCain around this time (by the end of September, that election was over if we're being honest) but it hasn't happened and I suspect it won't happen.

In reality, we're looking at a repeat of 2016 if the Comey letter never dropped. I do believe Hillary would have won in that scenario but it would have been a very narrow win, likely without taking the senate. That's what this race is shaping up to be and we need to prepare ourselves for it.

Like I said, those who think this will be a route are lying or hoping against hope. It's going to be a very close election and if it comes down to Arizona and Nevada, it might be an election where we don't know the winner again for days since those states tend to take forever to count their votes (remember: Hobbs was declared the winner in Arizona back in 2022 a week after election day, so if it's that close, it could be a while).

But it feels like some here are convinced this will be a blowout. I even saw someone yesterday say Harris will win Pennsylvania by about 15 points. That would be a greater margin than Obama in 2008!

Expectations need to be recalibrated. I am fine with being confident but there's being confident and then there's ignoring reality.

[Aepps22]

30. Exactly

Elections are typically close. I don't understand why people keep lamenting this reality when it has been that way for a long time. People want guarantees of victory but nothing is guaranteed. All we can do is do the work and not get complacent.

[onandup]

24. Electoral college

Her odds of winning the popular vote are much higher, I would think.

[bigtree]

25. Gallup had Obama even for his reelection effort

Nearly seven months after President Obama won reelection by a margin of 4 percentage points, the Gallup Organization, the world's best-known polling firm, identified in a new report four main reasons why their 2012 surveys badly understated Obama's support.

The report, unveiled at a Tuesday morning event at the firm's headquarters in Washington, detailed the reasons why Gallup believes that its polls failed to predict Obama's victory. Gallup's final pre-election poll showed Mitt Romney leading Obama by a percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent. But in the previous survey -- conducted immediately before Hurricane Sandy disrupted pollsters' plans in the week before the election -- Romney held a 5-point lead, 51 percent to 46 percent.

But Gallup itself was a part of the reason that national poll averages were inaccurate. Gallup's polls exhibited a consistent Republican bias in 2012; meanwhile, Gallup and some other firms, like the automated pollster Rasmussen Reports, are overrepresented in averages because they conduct daily tracking polls in the months prior to the election, rather than more infrequent media pollsters that didn't skew as heavily toward the Republican candidate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/gallup-explains-how-it-messed-2012-presidential-polling/314613/

538:

Nov. 10, 2012, at 8:38 PM

Which Polls Fared Best (and Worst) in the 2012 Presidential Race

...a polling firm that had Mr. Obama ahead by two points in Colorado — a state that Mr. Obama actually won by about five points — would have had a three-point error for that state. It also would have had a three-point statistical bias toward Republicans there.

The bias calculation measures in which direction, Republican or Democratic, a firm’s polls tended to miss. If a firm’s polls overestimated Mr. Obama’s performance in some states, and Mr. Romney’s in others, it could have little overall statistical bias, since the misses came in different directions. In contrast, the estimate of the average error in the firm’s polls measures how far off the firm’s polls were in either direction, on average.



Among the more prolific polling firms, the most accurate by this measure was TIPP, which conducted a national tracking poll for Investors’ Business Daily. Relative to other national polls, their results seemed to be Democratic-leaning at the time they were published. However, it turned out that most polling firms underestimated Mr. Obama’s performance, so those that had what had seemed to be Democratic-leaning results were often closest to the final outcome.

Conversely, polls that were Republican-leaning relative to the consensus did especially poorly.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-polls-fared-best-and-worst-in-the-2012-presidential-race/

But this race isn't polling even right now...


Simon Rosenberg @SimonWDC Oct 1
Morning Consult weekly track comes in this am w/
Harris up 5, 51%-46%, a stable race. Some recent natl polls, Harris-Trump:

52-45 (+7) Echelon
52-46 (+6) ABC
50-44 (+6) Reuters/Ipsos
49-44 (+5) NBC
52-48 (+4) CBS
50-46 (+4) Yahoo
49-46 (+3) Econ/YG

[marble falls]

26. What makes you think we aren't???? Fucking 538?

[MineralMan]

31. If I could get 55% odds in coin flipping,

I'd do that all day long and make some money. In gambling, a 5% advantage in odds is huge.

[karynnj]

32. Actually ten percent better than a coin toss

However, this is not like a game with repeated iterations where we would have a 10 percent advantage.

With so much at stake, there is probably no probability where we can just relax. Consider how concerned you would be if a doctor told you that a loved one had a 95 percent chance of surviving. Though it might be initially reassuring, the unlucky 5 percent could happen.

The best response is to realize we can each make small positive efforts each in our own way. That said, I would rather be on the side with a 55 percent chance than a 45 percent chance - even remembering that HRC had a higher calculated chance.

[Funtatlaguy]

33. PA, WI, MI, OMAHA makes 270. Ballgame.

[NEOH]

34. Corporate Media nt

[-misanthroptimist]

36. It is not basically a coin toss

It is a conjecture by an unproven method.

Polling is at least as much art as science. The number of terms that are included is pretty complex. What is a "likely voter", what is the real proportion of Dems-Reps-indies, etc. Every poll on Earth guesses what the electorate will look like before they even begin the polling. If one or more or the guesses is wrong, the poll will be right only through sheer luck.

When you see a poll with a margin of error, remind yourself that that MoE is using the assumptions made by the polling firm. Reality is under no obligation to validate those assumptions.

[jcgoldie]

37. 55% is not "similar to a coin toss"

If you are going to use numbers then you can't gloss over them as if they are meaningless.

[Initech]

38. Half of this country is glued to right wing bullshit 24 hours a day.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. There's so much massaging of data

538 does a pretty good job, but at the end of the day, I wish they'd publish both their "polling average" and "raw average.

Right now their polling average is Harris +2.7. It's that because they weight certain polls. But if you grab their last 94 polls that they list on their website, the raw average is Harris +3.6. And that 3.6 I threw out one obvious outlier poll that had Harris +21.

The formula they're using is proprietary, but they give a reasonable description of it. But they're doing so much adjusting to come up with 2.7 when the mean is 3.6. 1 STD deviation from the mean is +1.5 to +5.7. So 2.7 is what they're reporting with that data. Seems fishy, qand if it wasn't fishy, then it should be just as likely that they'd report Harris +4.6. They're weighting polls in a way that slants it one way. May not be on purpose, but it's the result none the less.