September 25, 2016

Washington Post Poll

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-clinton-trump-in-virtual-dead-heat-on-eve-of-first-debate/2016/09/24/b99c95de-81cb-11e6-8327-f141a7beb626_story.html

H2H: C49 T47
4way C46 T44 rest: who cares

Bad points: obviously closer than last post poll.

Good points: Clinton is near 50 in the two way. Registered voters are split evenly. That's almost certainly NOT the case. Also respondents don't expect Clinton to win the debate by that large a margin 44% expect her to in, 34$% expect Trump to win. Expectations game may be a wash.

Polls from Thurs/Friday put this at around a 6 point race. Average with this, looks like a 4-5 point race at this point. Even the write up above acknowledges other polls disagree with this one. They know they have a slightly funky sample.

September 24, 2016

Wanna build your own likely voter model

Upshot is going to help you:

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/779342214447104000

September 24, 2016

Election Model Update 9/24//2016

9/21 Update

9/22 Update

9/1/2016 update

8/16/2016 update

Update with drift included 8/6/2016

Original Model Writeup 8/3/2016

Model projections:

#############################################
# INSTANTANEOUS MODEL
#############################################

Instantaneous Probability of a Clinton Win: 72.3629756738%
Mean Electoral Votes Clinton Currently Winning: 291.8536
Median Electoral Votes Clinton Currently Winning: 293.0
Maximum Likelihood Electoral Vote Scenario for Clinto: 297

#############################################
# PROJECTING RESULTS TO NOVEMBER
#############################################

Probability of a Clinton Win if Current Trends Continue: 63.2426988922%
Mean Electoral Votes Clinton Projected to Win: 283.249
Median Electoral Votes Clinton Projected to Win: 284.0
Maximum Likelihood Projected Electoral Vote Scenario: 281

Predicted National Point Spread (Clinton = +, Trump = -) 2.45106856654

Analysis: Appears that recent solidification in polls has boosted Clinton's numbers in the intantaneous projection. The extrapolated odds at election day still look about the same.

Clinton Still Favored.

September 23, 2016

How the Trumpists are trying to game debate expecations

Lowering Expectations:

There is a conventional wisdom hardening which holds that Hillary Clinton’s most urgent task at the first debate is to bait Donald Trump into acting like the ignorant, dangerous, hateful, bigoted, temperamentally unhinged character he has periodically displayed to the nation for the last year. The corollary to this is that if Trump acts relatively controlled and projects minimal seriousness, he might “defy expectations” and emerge the winner.

I don’t buy it. While this is certainly a factor worth considering, I’m going to suggest that Clinton can win this debate — in the minds of voters, if not in the minds of pundits — even if Trump does pull off that magic transformation for ninety minutes on Monday night.

No question, Team Clinton probably would like to see Trump come unglued before an audience that could be as large as 100 million people. The New York Times reports that Team Clinton is trying to determine “how to knock Mr. Trump off balance,” in the belief that “she needs the huge television audience to see him as temperamentally unfit for the presidency, and that she has the power to unhinge him.”

And no question, Team Trump believes that avoiding that outcome is key to his hopes of prevailing. The Associated Press reports that Trump’s advisers are counseling him to avoid letting Clinton rile him up, noting, remarkably, that “some Trump aides are more concerned about Trump’s disposition on the debate stage than his command of the issues.”

A tweet/tag to retweet if you want to help remind the media to do it's job:


https://twitter.com/lambertglowbug2/status/779335252204457985
#LoweringExpectations

September 22, 2016

Election Model Update 9/22/2016

#############################################
# INSTANTANEOUS MODEL
#############################################

Instantaneous Probability of a Clinton Win: 0.684513006655
Mean Electoral Votes Clinton Currently Winning: 285.9956
Median Electoral Votes Clinton Currently Winning: 288.0
Maximum Likelihood Electoral Vote Scenario for Clinto: 287

#############################################
# PROJECTING RESULTS TO NOVEMBER
#############################################

Probability of a Clinton Win if Current Trends Continue: 0.627906976744
Mean Electoral Votes Clinton Projected to Win: 283.764
Median Electoral Votes Clinton Projected to Win: 284.0
Maximum Likelihood Projected Electoral Vote Scenario: 270
Predicted National Point Spread (Clinton = +, Trump = -) 3.03117822284

September 22, 2016

Today's polls show that the Kerry Wall has held

That is a massive advantage for Democrats in this election and going forward. If the last two weeks didn't breach that wall, I don't think that much can.

September 22, 2016

Election Model Update

Last Update
######################################
# INSTANTANEOUS MODEL
######################################

Instantaneous Probability of a Clinton Win: 0.676879661359
Mean Electoral Votes Clinton Currently Winning: 285.7502
Median Electoral Votes Clinton Currently Winning: 288.0
Maximum Likelihood Electoral Vote Scenario for Clinton: 304

######################################
#
# PROJECTING RESULTS TO NOVEMBER
######################################

Probability of a Clinton Win if Current Trends Continue: 0.632426988922
Mean Electoral Votes Clinton Projected to Win: 283.84
Median Electoral Votes Clinton Projected to Win: 285.5
Maximum Likelihood Projected Electoral Vote Scenario: 288


Estimated National Spread: +3.04, Clinton


Instantaneous Win probability has shown some decline from last update, but given a bad few weeks of polls, I think the hints of recovery today have helped a lot.

No more analysis, somehow someone will accuse me of concern trolling for posting what I think are some positive numbers.

Maybe I'll post some graphics later.

September 21, 2016

Hypothesis on the nature of this election: 1980 redux

Hackneyed pols often trot out the example of 1980 and Ronald Reagan as key to understanding the effect of debates.

In that election, RR was tied or trailing Jimmy Carter for months until the debates "showed" that RR wasn't a complete corpse on stage. It

assured the public (or so we are told) that Reagan was ready...and people fell in line to vote for him.

A lot of people have been presuming this to be the template for the current election...believing that HRC is carter and Trump is Reagan.

But what if this is wrong? Clinton's numbers are the most elastic: she passes 50% frequently in the polls, when not under press attack.

Trump NEVER does. People want to vote for her over Trump, but are concerned about the bad press she has gotten.

So maybe this means that people are waiting for a reason to get on board with Hillary. Maybe SHE is Reagan in this scenario.

Just a thought.

September 21, 2016

Trump has made essentially no progress in Wisconsin for months

Clinton has only slumped a bit. She wins this on turnout

September 21, 2016

New Hampshire Monmouth Poll

HRC 47
DJT 38
GJ 10
JS 1

Epic result.

We own the map now. Probably.