Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

2016 Postmortem

Showing Original Post only (View all)

grantcart

(53,061 posts)
Sun Nov 6, 2016, 12:25 PM Nov 2016

The "How many states do you think 538 will get wrong?" poll [View all]

The famed 538 model evolved from baseball (and then football, etc) where a regular schedule uses a steady flow of information of equal quality. It suffers during primaries where quality and quantity are at odds. The quality of polls suffers as election day draws closer as Republicans flood results from Republican pollsters who have not been active previously and appear to be aimed at raising voter turnout among Republicans in key swing states.

The state polls simply are not in line with SOME of the national polls as discussed here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512589061

You can’t have state polls showing an aggregate huge margin (i.e. NY/CA up 20 and Texas down 10, etc) and a national poll at 3 points or less. To make the state polls come in line with the national Silver makes manual adjustments which have been running 2-3 points for Trump.

FiveThirtyEight has doubled down on their logic with this article just out that argues that the early voting in NV could be wrong and their polls right because there is large numbers of Democrats voting for Trump (even though the state polls that they prefer in fact don’t show that) I don’t know how they justify Nevada going blue for the Senate but Red for the Presidential election.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/has-trump-already-lost-nevada/?ex_cid=2016-forecast

Being a registered Democrat doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to vote for Clinton. If Trump is winning more registered Democrats than Clinton is registered Republicans, the early vote data in Nevada may not mean what we think it means. Indeed, some Nevada polls (though not all) show Trump getting a higher percentage of self-identified Democrats than Clinton gets Republicans. It’s also possible that Republicans turnout in disproportionately strong numbers on Election Day, despite previous trends


With this logic, which is not based on supportable data, 538 shows Democrats winning the senate race in Nevada and Trump winning the Presidential election.

With 48 hours left 538 is showing the following states red: Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia and Arizona for the President

He is showing the following states going red for Senate:

Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana.

In these 11 states how many do you think he will get wrong?

11 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
Wrong 9 out of 11 - "I guess some polling should be done in Spanish"
0 (0%)
Wrong 8 out of 11 - "You mean Republicans publish dishonest polls?"
0 (0%)
Wrong 7 out of 11 - "You mean people were actually listening to me?"
1 (9%)
Wrong 6 out of 11 - "But the National trend line has to be close"
2 (18%)
Wrong 5 out of 11 - "So Early Voting Numbers actually count"
6 (55%)
Wrong 4 out of 11 - "But Trump fooled me in the Primaries"
0 (0%)
Wrong 3 out of 11 - "So what if Wang got em all right, I have the model"
2 (18%)
Wrong 2 out of 11 - "The model is sad"
0 (0%)
Wrong 1 out of 11 - "Well I did get the Electoral College winner right".
0 (0%)
Silver is Gold, all correct
0 (0%)
Show usernames
Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll
10 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»2016 Postmortem»The "How many states do y...»Reply #0