So...Nate Silver was right about Hillary winning Iowa.

[Cali_Democrat]

Last edited Tue Feb 2, 2016, 03:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Hillary Clinton Declared Winner of Iowa Caucuses

DES MOINES — Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday after final vote counts showed her narrowly beating Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, according to The Associated Press and other news organizations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/us/politics/hillary-clinton-declared-winner-of-iowa-caucuses.html?_r=0

[Punkingal]

1. Geebus!

[TheBlackAdder]

58. I bet Nate was acting like that guy with the rabbit's foot in the movie, "Used Cars!" nt

[Nanjeanne]

2. OMG

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[AZ Progressive]

3. Without the maneuvering using O'Malley, Hillary would have lost

[notadmblnd]

29. She won't be able to do that again. I wonder how O'Malley feels about being used?

[roguevalley]

51. I think he knew that could happen. I like him but I don't believe he a big eyed

injenue. Whether he meant it to happen, I give him a pass. Nothing is beyond the Clinton need to be first. However, no one here is a beginner at this game.

[valerief]

52. He was getting his name out there. This won't be his last run. nt

[Cal33]

31. Yes, very likely.

[Adrahil]

39. WEll, that was considered in Nate's model.....

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

43. DNC still won't count a precinct Bernie won because they

...stopped answering the phone before the count was in late last night. Not taking the call today. Sounds like Bernie is going Gore and Kerry route, don't recount. That hasn't ever worked out for us.

[John Poet]

4. If that was a "win" for Hillary, I can't wait to see

what her defeat next week will look like.

[Nanjeanne]

8. One thing I'm sure of is

even with a real win - Bernie will be a hell of a lot more gracious than Our Lady of Experience.

[Cal33]

32. Be patient and you will enjoy your moment of ecstasy in a week.

[AZ Progressive]

5. It was enough to make him sweat. And to a supporter of the establishment, thats a good thing

[nc4bo]

6. And perhaps a pair of brown stained drawers or 2.

[reformist2]

7. By all means, please continue posting these obnoxious posts!! It's so good for Hillary's campaign.

[John Poet]

13. And, it's sure to promote future party unity

which they claim to care about.

[Adrahil]

40. Well, given the way Hillary supporters are treated here, it seems that's done anyway.

[frylock]

47. The way people call them emoprogs, and the teabaggers of the left..

claiming that they're delusional, and denizens of a fantasy world? Is that the kind of treatment you're talking about?

[Cal33]

35. How about asking some of the precious leaders not to do unfair tricks on Bernie Sanders - like

reducing Primary debates to only 6, and putting most of them on weekends and just before
holidays, so that he would get less exposure, which would be favorable to H. Clinton.

If your leadership would stop tricks like the above, these "obnoxious posts" would automatically
decrease. It takes two to tango.

[Stuckinthebush]

9. Yes. He was

But I think her win is supposed to be a loss. At least that's what I'm reading on GD-P

[pandr32]

22. I know it...definitions keep changing here

...and of course everyone, but Bernie is corrupt...the guy with the campaign that got caught with its hand in the forbidden cookie jar after a brief weakness in the firewall made it possible.

[Ned_Devine]

27. Yes, going from a 30 point lead to a 2/10ths of a percentage point finish is quite a "win"

[Stuckinthebush]

44. I'm sure he is on track to win the whole thing now

I'm sure.

[Ned_Devine]

45. I hope so!

Hillary should have won Iowa by 20+ points yet she left with a statistical tie. Now I hear and read her supporters touting the results like it was a win. I guess that's what this campaign is all about; redefining "winning". I see a lot of her supporters saying that what's most important is the Democrats "winning" in the Fall. We "won" with Obama in 2008 and 2012 on a very positive message and more often than not it was those same "scared of their shadow" democrats in the House and Senate that hamstrung the Obama administration. That being said, what exactly is "winning" if it's just more of the same? We're ready to tear the system down and return the party to its most basic progressive liberal ideals. You know, the idea that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We working folk who struggle just to get by are a huge part of that chain and we feel voiceless. A "win" for Bernie Sanders shows that our voices are being heard. So you can go ahead and pretend you're concerned that Bernie has no plan beyond NH. Meanwhile, our plan is to keep supporting the candidate that truly speaks for us. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with standing up for true progressive values?

[Art_from_Ark]

81. +1

[frylock]

48. Do you always engage in such binary thinking?

[Stuckinthebush]

65. On GD-P I do

Absolutely. 0/1

[Baitball Blogger]

10. That's some crazy math formula that guessed she would win six out of six coin tosses.

[frylock]

50. The guy has skills. Just don't use his NCAA bracket for any kind of refererence.

The guy may know the ins and outs of coin tossing, but he knows fuckall about college hoops.

[whatchamacallit]

11. Yes, he must have predicted 6 coin toss wins

[Ed Suspicious]

62. His prediction amounted to a coin toss. Bernie wins vs Hillary wins. Hillary won by the skin of

her teeth barely saving Nate's rep.

[wildeyed]

12. Obey the MATH!

BOOM!

But seriously, Silver didn't truly make a prediction, just gave the odds for a Clinton or Sanders victory. And he likes Sanders a lot for NH, those of you who thinks he is "in the tank" for any candidate.

For the true political junkie, the math giveth and the math taketh away.....

[gyroscope]

14. 80% chance of winning?

it was more like 50/50 chance, so Silver's numbers were way off.

[Lorien]

16. and only with help from a coin

and plenty of "voter irregularities".

[gyroscope]

17. Yup, and if Clinton had won by a landslide

or at least by a comfortable margin Silver's 80% figure would have been accurate.

but obviously that was not the case.

[wildeyed]

18. No.

He was not "off". Sanders could have won and he would still not be "off". It would just mean that Sanders beat the odds and won as an underdog.

He gave ODDS of a Clinton or Sanders win.

RCP gives actual point predictions with Clinton +4 in the final one. But she was still inside the MARGIN OF ERROR. Sanders could have WON and they STILL would be inside the margin and therefor not completely "wrong".

MATH MATH MATH, goddamn it.

[Lordquinton]

19. So he can never be wrong?

What a great source to have in your pocket!

[wildeyed]

23. Nothing in my pocket!

There have been PLENTY of times that I hated his predictions. But I respect his system and his track record, so I tend to believe them.

He can be wrong. His assumptions might be wrong. Garbage in, garbage out. If ALL the polls are modeling the electorate wrong, then his results will be wrong too. But his track record is pretty strong and he was not wrong this time.

He takes polls and weights them based on HISTORICAL accuracy, then averages all that occur in a certain time frame. Maybe he kicks out outliers? Can't remember. But you either accept that model as reasonable or not at the outset. Because after the model is set, it is just math. No opinions. No like or don't like the results. Just MATH. Just go read his site. I should not have to explain all of this. He does a better job anyway.

And like I said, it was just ODDS of a certain candidate winning. Google what that means if you are still confused...... Y'all take this too seriously. We still play the game for a reason.

Now go look at his odds for a Sanders win in NH and tell me if you still hate him. Seriously. Come back and tell me that you think he is in "my pocket".

[Lordquinton]

33. I don't hate him

He's just given too much creedance for what he does, which is running an elaborate betting system (without the bets) but it's still what he does.

And to mis-quote Mark Twain. "There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies and stastics."

[redgreenandblue]

46. It just goes to show that odds are tricky thing in absence of reproducibility.

Predicting the outcome of events that only happen once is hard.
His probabilities are Bayesian probabilities, not frequentist ones. In the end,
they only encode lack of knowledge, and the unknown always has the capacity
to be more unknown than expected.

[wildeyed]

70. Ah, the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld.

I see you are a fan too.

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

Odds are not tricky at all. People here just don't seem to understand what the numbers mean. Ideologues typically have trouble with uncertainty, so I guess that is part of it.

Probability seems to be hard for them too

[redgreenandblue]

79. Never read that about Rumsfeld. I think I understand probability pretty well.

There are two different definitions of probability.

One is the "frequentist" definition: Given an infinite sequence of identical experiments, the probability of an event is the fraction of times it occurs in that sequence. This definition is very clean, given that the experiment can, at least in principle, repeated an arbitrary number of times. Flipping a coin comes to mind: If you do it often enough, the fraction of tails event will converge to one half.

Frequentist probabilities are tricky when the experiment cannot be repeated. How does one assign a probability to something that only happens once. That is where the "Bayesian" definition of probability comes into play: According to it, probabilities should be understood as a "best possible guess" and in the end only encode our lack of knowledge.

Elections are a good example: If, at election day, I could look into the minds of all voters, I could predict the outcome with 100% certainty. The outcome of the election is pretty much determined already, and the act of voting only makes the information public. So how can I say candidate X will win with probability Y, when it is in principle clear that the probability of a victory of X is either one or zero, depending on the state of the minds of the voters?

Moreover, the election is a singular event. Clearly, repeating it over and over is out of the question, and even if one could do so, identical initial conditions would mean that the same candidate would win over and over.

The answer is that in this case, a sound definition of probability can only be formulated in terms of lack of information. The probability of a victory of X is understood as the "best possible guess", given the available information.

Now, it is clear that this definition of probability is somewhat trickier than the frequentist one. For one, there is a subjective element to it: The information you have might not be the same information that I have. Furthermore, there is an uncertainty in how the information should be interpreted, which usually depends on various assumptions that are made. Given the assumptions that are made, two different people may arrive at entirely different probabilities for an event.

Now lets look at a person like Nate Silver: I don't know much about his method, but I am guessing what he is doing is to look for historically similar situations, combining that with polling data etc. So his approach can be understood as frequentist only if you assume that the future will be similar to the past. This assumption is a pretty strong one and probably very problematic. In the end, his approach is much more Bayesian.

Personally, I think predicting elections is like predicting the stock market: You can sometimes detect trends, but over a long period of time those people who try to beat the market typically lose. Nate Silver might have had a streak of luck with his approach, but that does not mean in any way that it is guaranteed to continue.

So, decent enough understanding of probability for you?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. He can never be *proven* wrong. In fact, "wrong" is arguably not applicable.

When people make predictions about what will happen, in absolute terms, you can say "you were right/wrong" after the event.

But when people try and take predicting the future more seriously, they almost alwats expressing opinions about the odds of events that aren't 0%/100%.

In this case it's much harder to tell whether someone is right or wrong.

What you *can* do is score someone over a series of predictions. A good way to do this is to award each prediction a score of

1 + log_n(p)

over all predictions they make, where n is the number of possible outcomes and p is how likely they thought the thing that actually happened was.

So if, for example, I say that there's a 0.7 chance that something will happen and a 0.3 chance that it won't, and it does, I would score 1 + log_2(0.7) = 0.49, while if it does, I will score 1+ log_2(0.3) = -0.74.

The better you are at predicting things, the higher your average score will be, and so you can decide who to listen to by looking at who has scored well in the past (I'm willing to be that the folks at 538 would score better than almost anyone else predicing American politics).

This approach doesn't lend itself so well to headlines - "X was wrong!" - but it's a much better way of thinking about predictions even so.

[AZ Progressive]

28. Not to mention sending voters to O'Malley to deprive delegates from Bernie

http://time.com/4201806/hillary-clinton-martin-omalley-bernie-sanders-iowa/

The Clinton team has trained caucus chairs to shift some supporters to O’Malley if the conditions are advantageous in order to deprive Sanders of an extra delegate. Precinct campaigns are using a custom campaign app that does the caucus math for the volunteers. News of the app was first reported Saturday by BuzzFeed News, but precinct leaders have been trained for weeks in the tactic, according to Clinton campaign officials.

[ejbr]

15. I just have to figure out

how on earth did he calculate those coin tosses.

[wildeyed]

20. Sanders must have fallen for the old "Heads I win, tails you lose" trick.

It's an old oligarch trick.

[RoccoR5955]

26. Double Heads coins

Handed out before the caucus.

[John Poet]

34. Required equipment for precinct caucus chairs, I guess.

[SidDithers]

21. DU rec..nt

Sid

[SheenaR]

24. He gave Sanders

virtually little chance to win. And he lost by three tenths of one percent. He cannot be pleased with his math models at all.

He whiffed completely on the R side.

He and Selzer had a rough night re: results and expected turnout

[Ferd Berfel]

25. LOL - Strutting over .3 % - And a Coin Toss !?

Especially with the shit that occurred

Now THAT'S desperate!

and delusional

[artyteacher]

30. he actually lowered her odds...

From 80 to 60 something right before the caucus.

[Ed Suspicious]

64. Do you think bernie moved that much "right before the caucus?" I think his support has been gaining

steadily. Nate was creating narrative up until he lowered her odds.

[AgingAmerican]

37. Coin toss

[Cali_Democrat]

38. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511123143

[AgingAmerican]

82. Did Nate choose heads or tails?

[Adrahil]

41. But H.A. Goodman assured me that...

That Hillary would come in third, behind Sanders and O'Malley!

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

42. They were getting desperate last night. They tweeted, "If it's a tie, Hillary still wins..."

Super Delegates

He also picked Cincinnati to beat Pittsburgh. Math Fail.

[riversedge]

83. Well, it was not a tie.... Hillary had a Win...

Here, let me illustrate the difference between a tie and a win, okay? #ImWithHer #IAcaucus

[uponit7771]

49. Yeap, notice the number of so called progressives who are against probability math now...

... just... sigh

[Cali_Democrat]

55. Remember in 2012 when we were so proud of ourselves for listening to people like Nate?

We mocked the GOP and laughed as they tried to unskew the polls....Obama cruised to victory.

Look what has happened to this place since then.

It's a damn shame.

[uponit7771]

60. Yeap, its emotion and not thinking. SC will show a lot... Sanders numbers in SC still suck...

... and for some reason these people think blacks, gays, Hispanics, women and the poor ... all who Hillary poll higher with... can be traded for the angry well off white men and the young... all who Sanders polls higher with.

Just not logical now...

[pinebox]

53. Sure

[ErisDiscordia]

54. You do know what a Pyrrhic Victory is, don't you?

A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way. However, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit. Another term for this would be "hollow victory".

The phrase Pyrrhic victory is named after king Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose army suffered irreplaceable casualties in defeating the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and Asculum in 279 BC during the Pyrrhic War. After the latter battle, Plutarch relates in a report by Dionysius:

The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.

— Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus

In both of Pyrrhus's victories, the Romans suffered greater casualties than Pyrrhus did. However, the Romans had a much larger supply of men from which to draw soldiers and their casualties did less damage to their war effort than Pyrrhus's casualties did to his.

The report is often quoted as

"Another such victory and I come back to Epirus alone",

or

"If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

[uponit7771]

63. How was this victory "pyrrhic" at all for Hillary? tia

[Moral Compass]

56. A statistical dead heat is always a victory...

You really want to bang this particular drum?

This was (according to the MATH you refer to) a tie.

If you have any doubts about this please refer to any Intro to Statistics textbook.

Nate Silver was not predicting this outcome and you know it.

[Gore1FL]

57. He did good predicting the coin tosses! n/t

[Cali_Democrat]

59. Already debunked:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511123143

[Gore1FL]

66. You might want to reread that thread

Precinct delegates were chosen by a coin toss.

What was debunked again?

[Cali_Democrat]

68. Hillary didn't win more pledged delegates because of the coin toss

That's what was debunked.

Your cohorts have been running around with that meme all morning only to see it taken away.

[Gore1FL]

72. Did she or did she not win coin tosses?

She won more precinct delegates because of the coin toss. Unless you are arguing that the precincts don't matter. That of course logically means that the participants don't matter, either. Is that really the argument you are going with?

[PeaceNikki]

76. So did Sanders.

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/02/465268206/coin-toss-fact-check-no-coin-flips-did-not-win-iowa-for-hillary-clinton?utm_campaign=storyshare

[Gore1FL]

78. Upon further examination, I stand corrected. n/t

[Fearless]

61. If that's your takeaway from last night you have the political prowess

Of a lamp shade.

[Fuddnik]

67. Hillary was the loser BIG TIME.

Deal with it.

40 pt. underdog a few months ago.
6-7 pts. a few days ago.

TIED!

I repeat,

TIED!

She's the loser here, no matter how hard you feel you have spin it.

[wildeyed]

71. No.

Fact: She won. By a smidge, but that is still called "winning".

Fact: Bernie was NEVER down by more than 20 in IA, and mostly it was much closer.

Appears that you are the one spinning since you are the one distorting the facts.

[Gore1FL]

74. His point was that it was Pyrrhic

2016 is not the coronation she keeps inexplicable looking for, either. Expectations and momentum is what makes these races so unpredictable. The real winner of the GOP side of the IA contests came in third place. The second place winner lost, and the 1st place winner gained some.

Once Hillary figures out she needs to win before running re-election campaigns she'll probably do better. Until then, the momentum has shifted. She could claim it back by over-performing in NH. Like Sanders in IA, she wouldn't have to win to win.

[wildeyed]

75. Y'all are so funny.

Very precise and literal with any fact you think can be used against Clinton and then you bend yourselves into pretzels to explain why up is down and losing is winning when it comes to St. Sanders.

The momentum does not shift until Sanders wins in a state that does not favor his base. The Democratic Party is a coalition of age, race, class and many shades of political leanings. BIG TENT PARTY. Not the white liberal party. He needs to show he can hang with the other groups before we start talking about who has the mo.

Frankly, he HAD the mo, IMO, until he decided to say that stupid shit about PP and HRC.

[Gore1FL]

77. No, not really

I've been watching these things since 1976 and have an understanding of how they work.

Spin it any way you want. The second coronation didn't happen.

[wildeyed]

80. The "coronation" is a figment of some people's

imagination. Pretty sure everyone who was actually paying attention remembers that time in 2008 when Clinton got beat by that upstart Senator from Illinois.

Sanders needed a SOLID win out of Iowa to even hope to get any traction. He polls very poorly with black Democrats which will prove to be a huge problem in some of the upcoming states. He needed the big win to show groups other than his white liberal base that he is legit. And he didn't get it. So he has a ton of ground to make up there.

Meanwhile, Clinton has planned for a long primary battle already. So I see no evidence that she is taking this for granted.

[Gore1FL]

84. It's the figment of her campaign's imagination

Sanders raised 1,000,000 after his speech. He has traction.

Clinton certainly is the odds on favorite. She, however, took one to the chin in IA.

[wildeyed]

85. You gotta have proof,

otherwise it is just some words that you typed. She was definitely the "favorite". And she definitely won. So I don't see how that was "on the chin".

Sanders is the "favorite" in NH. I expect him to win there.

And I see no evidence that her campaign is taking anything for granted. I am getting organizing calls and emails already, and I live in NC which is a very late state. So it appears that she expects to work for the nom

[Gore1FL]

87. proof is .2 difference and money raised

I can't prove predictions. What I am saying is that she under performed and there will be a political cost to her. Likewise, there will and has been political gain for Sanders.

The evidence that she is taking things for granted might include the .2 difference in IA and the fact that she's been dissing the left every time she hammer's Sander's position. This was supposed to be an easy win for her. It has proven not to be. It has proven not to be for some of the very same reasons she was unsuccessful in 2008.

In any event. Sanders is doing far better than expected. Clinton is not.

[wildeyed]

88. Saying you disagree with tactics is not

"dissing" the left. She is the left too. You know what is "dissing" the left? Calling out PP and HRC as The Establishment and raining down heaps of abuse on their heads. Not cool.

Clinton did not underperform for anyone who watched polls for the past month. I actually thought he would win before the attacks on PP and HRC caught up with him. And he needed a solid win. And to make progress with black Democrats, which does not appear to be happening.

Either of them did +5%, this would be a different convo. If Clinton was +5, Sanders should be conceding. If Sanders did +5, then he might have some mo. He will win NH, but after that, who knows. He needs something.....

[Gore1FL]

90. Tactics like single payer? Keeping banks together? Keeping taxes at post-Reagan levels?

Yeah I think I fall on the disagree side.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz disservices to the organizations they represent through their actions.

It's fucking amazing that Sanders tied within .2 in IA against one of the most well-know people in the world.

Carter had enough momentum in 1976 and won the nomination
Hart had a lot of momentum in 1984, but did not win the nomination.
Clinton came from a 2-3% finish in IA to a 2nd place finish in NH and managed enough momentum to win the nomination in 1992.
In 2004 Kerry was the early front runner. Then he tanked. Howard Dean was the favorite until IA when mysteriously lost to Kerry and Edwards. Kerry had a lot of momentum and won the nomination.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton was the front runner. She lost IA to Obama who had a close 2nd in New Hampshire. His momentum ultimately carried him to the nomination.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton is the front runner, Sanders came from nowhere and ended up just short (1/500) of the tally short of a tie. Bernie has a lot of momentum. The rest of the story has yet to be written. I hope Sanders wins. He'd be the better president.

[Gore1FL]

73. She is losing the narrative at least.

The virtual tie will harm her politically while boosting Sanders.

I hope he pulverizes her in NH.

[uponit7771]

89. PoC went to Hillary by 25% above Sanders after 3 months of campaiging in IA... he has 3 weeks to

... make up a 70% spread in SC.

Sanders lost...

Big Time

[Bjornsdotter]

69. Yeah, it was a real mandate! n/t

[Attorney in Texas]

86. My internet and cable went down. How did Nate's prediction about Trump winning in Iowa turn out?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

91. It's debatable whether it was considered a major win