August 12, 2020

Ah! The return of the snake chart! And there's Wisconsin! The most important state of all!



Nate Silver has his prediction model running again, with excellent graphics.

ADDED: Silver writes:
Our model says there’s an 81 percent chance that Biden wins the popular vote — compared to his 71 percent chance in the Electoral College.... [O]ur projection as of Tuesday had Biden winning the popular vote by 6.3 percentage points nationally, but winning the tipping-point state, Wisconsin, by a smaller margin, 4.5 percentage points....

[A]s a rough rule-of-thumb, perhaps you can subtract 2 points from Biden’s current lead in national polls to get a sense for what his standing in the tipping point states looks like. Add it all up, and you can start to see why the model is being fairly cautious. Biden’s current roughly 8-point lead in national polls is really more like a 6-point lead in the tipping point states. And 6-point leads in August are historically not very safe....

108 comments:

tcrosse said...

The Electoral Tapeworm.

Lucid-Ideas said...

I can't wait to see that phony's hair all messed up again with drooping eyelids and a look of dread written all over his Chevy-Chase.

Jim in St Louis said...

Missouri! is shown as coral/peach?

no way, Show Me State is going big for Trump- dark Red. And Texas! He thinks Texas is a close race?

tim maguire said...

The usual failure of humility. But then, polls are Silver's bread and butter so he pretty well has to defend them, doesn't he?

Kai Akker said...

Phew!

wild chicken said...

Wyoming a good place.

I may move there.

Oso Negro said...

And the return of the snake! Nate Silver.

Unknown said...

It occurs to me that the positions of WI and AZ should be flipped for 2020.

Dave Begley said...

Biden loses PA, WI, MN, MI and OH with the cancellation of the Big Ten football season. People are very angry at this.

This is all part of the Dems' campaign of fear. Masks don't work. Lockdowns don't work. Virus going to virus.

Cato said...

How did Nate silver do in 2016?

tim in vermont said...

I will be shocked if Trump doesn’t carry Florida. I suppose anything is possible, but it *feels* like Trump country in the same way as in 2016 when I was in PA, it *felt* like Trump country. When businesses are not afraid to openly support Trump, you have to figure that the support for him is there. Here in Vermont the summer people are bringing their Black Lives Matter [TM-DNC] signs with them for their week at the camp. The Trump signs are here all year round.

rhhardin said...

#HeelsUp is getting a lot of play, Armstrong and Getty note. Our politics ought to be above this kind of thing but you can't stamp out a good line of ridicule in America, barring cancel culture action.

Leland said...

Great graphics! Lousy analysis. Guy names his site after the electoral college votes and then boldly predicts a 96% chance of Hillary winning 2016. But he has a cutesy graphic showing which way the states will go! Maybe he should quit being a statistician and become an artist?

Nichevo said...

Excellent graphics, yes. Very pretty lies. God, I wish I'd known you when you were younger. It would have been so much fun and so easy exploiting you. Actually I'm too young so I wish Crack MC had met you 50 years ago, he'd have turned you out and you'd have been his best earner.

rhhardin said...

Sinology. Biden vs Trump.

Kirk Parker said...

I would happily trade that for a site with the crappiest graphics, but a better track record.

Nonapod said...

It use to be that statistical models were weird things used for Econometrics that the vast majority of people were totally ignorant of or only dimly aware of. Now models are used to explain and justify all sorts of things. They're endlessly referenced in the media and by politicians and business people.

Mark Twain popularized the phrase "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.". And this was long before statistical models were invented. The aphorism "All models are wrong" perhaps seems more true now more than ever.

2.3 Parsimony
Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a "correct" one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary following William of Occam he should seek an economical description of natural phenomena. Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity.

2.4 Worrying Selectively
Since all models are wrong the scientist must be alert to what is importantly wrong. It is inappropriate to be concerned about mice when there are tigers abroad.

rehajm said...

I want to like Nate- he does some good work but his leftie bias infects both his model ideology and the analysis of his own data. (and he's very guilty of violating Herb Sanders' guide to scientific method, a ditto page guide handed out to every 8th grader in the local New York public school system. Chalk one up to the NYS 1980s board of regents!)

I may be guilty of same, but when I take a look at the snake chart I see a strong contradiction vs his own prediction model- a small error in his expected turnout and the snake slithers solidly into a Trump victory. Florida has been sliding right since 2018 and it drags Arizona with it and Trump comfortably across the 270 line. No need for those other swings states. Sorry, badgers, you don't get to pick...

It's the same error as 2016. Does Nate acknowledge this uncomfortable fact- maybe buried in the story below the comfort he offers to the nervous left? I doubt it...

Unknown said...

Between the snakes, the graphs, and the Meter O' Doom™, the NYT has gone overboard with pretty pictures.

rehajm said...

How did Nate silver do in 2016?

On election night I recall ABC kept going to Nate who was saying things directly contradicting the results coming in. Somewhere around 9:30 Nate had to pull the plug on his 'model'.

I attribute stupidly to that which is suspected to be malice, but write your own ending...

curt said...

Trump is going to win Florida much more easily than he did 4 years ago. Even the Dems here know that.

Wince said...

Looks like it could give you one hell of a paper cut.

"They're the worst!"

Fernandinande said...

Nate Silver has his prediction model running again, with excellent graphics.

You might as well have cutesy graphics if you can't have excellent results: Who will win the presidency?

"Chance of winning
FiveThirtyEight

Hillary Clinton 71.4%
Donald Trump 28.6%"

sunsong said...

ha ha

"Kamala Harris will be campaigning from inside Donald Trump’s head. No word on what social distancing is like in there." ~ Dan Rather

LA_Bob said...

After 2016, it's certainly reasonable to be skeptical of Nate Silver. But nothing else about 2020 is or has been certain. Donald Trump has had one of the most difficult presidencies in my lifetime. I hope you skeptics are right, because I sure don't want to see "political correctness" in all its ugliness take power next January.

AllenS said...

Dan Rather: The poster child for fake news.

Fernandinande said...

#HeelsUp is getting a lot of play,

Self-defecating humor from Joe Biden.

Fernandinande said...

#HeelsUp is getting a lot of play,

Self-defecating humor from Joe Biden.

rcocean said...

Nate Silver was wrong about 2016, right about 2012. So, he's as good as a coin toss.
Further, 538 is owned by the NYT's and follows the party line. The Lefties know that "Science" and "facts" sell things to the boobs, that's why you have all the "fact checkers" and "Stats Guys" like Silver, who always have their thumb on the scales for the D's and the Left-wing party line.

If Silver predicts a Trump win, I'll give him some credibility. Not till then.

Iman said...

Blogger sunsong said...
ha ha

"Kamala Harris will be campaigning from inside Donald Trump’s head. No word on what social distancing is like in there." ~ Dan Rather


What’s teh frequency, sunsong?

rcocean said...

Winsc, Fla, Penn, Mich, and NC will decide the election. I can't see Trump losing Florida or NC, but I have a hard time believing he can win Michigan or Pennsylvania. Those states have gone D every election from 1992 to 2012. Hillary basically blew off Penn, Winsc, and Mich, took them for granted - and still almost won - all three. Given Biden will destroy manufacturing and the energy industries with his globalist, free trade policies, love affair with China, and his vow to destroy coal and fracking, people should NOT vote Biden. But dead-head D's always vote D. Even if its economic suicide.

rcocean said...

WOuld senile lying Dan Rather just die already. He put out a fake story about Bush in 2004, and then stonewalled and lied about it. He has zero credibility, and can't say anything of interest unless he's reading a script.

Mr Wibble said...

You might as well have cutesy graphics if you can't have excellent results: Who will win the presidency?

"Chance of winning
FiveThirtyEight

Hillary Clinton 71.4%
Donald Trump 28.6%"


And? Silver was one of the few back then pointing out that Trump had a legitimate chance of winning, when everyone else was claiming it was in the bag for Hillary. Saying I have a 1/6 chance of rolling a '6' on a die isn't invalidated by rolling that six.

ConradBibby said...

Way too much focus these days on political polling; way too little focus on political analysis. This is why everyone was shocked by what happened in 2016: they all just stared blankly at poll numbers rather than engaging in critical thinking about how various swaths of voters were likely to respond to the things Trump and Clinton were each talking about and promising to do, or what each of them seemed to represent in terms of the future direction of the country.

Same thing is happening in 2020. We get clever graphs from number-crunchers when what we need are thoughtful people who can honestly and without fear of reaching an unpopular conclusion compare Trump and his policies to Biden and the Dems' policies and make reasoned judgments about what this says about each candidate's chances. For example, despite all the talk about Biden's lead in the polls, I have yet to hear an explanation of why he and his platform will do better with swing-state voters than Hillary did, or what evidence exists that the electorate as a whole is significantly more leftist today than it was in 2016. If these things can't be explained, then I'd say it's very likely that Biden's supposed strength in the polls is bullshit.

Butkus51 said...

excellent graphics.......isn't that like saying they have a good personality? At least in this case.

Nonapod said...

Hillary Clinton 71.4%
Donald Trump 28.6%"


But of course this is defensible from a statistical standpoint because if you have an event that has roughly a 3 in 10 chance of occuring it's not exactly some long shot for it to actually end up happening.

The lesson here is that predicting modern US Elections is difficult. And this upcoming election may be the most difficult to understand or predict in any meaningful way. There's just far too many unknowable elements and potential weirdness. We have a pandemic and social unrest and a deeply polarized electorate. We have anger, fear, frustration, competing narratives, extremism, derrangement, mistrust, blame shifting... it's like some sort of perfect storm of human chaos.

Todd said...

Notice how the entire country has settled on D = blue and R = red? Used to be that the colors switched every 4 years because the Democrats did not like being associated with "commie" red. It hit a little too close to the mark for their liking. Then a couple of elections ago, they dropped all pretense and held the Ds to blue and branded the Rs with red.

By now you would think the Ds would want to own the "red" as they have just about all come out of the commie closet...

rehajm said...

...isn't that like saying they have a good personality?

See: All the girls love her! She makes her own clothes!

DanTheMan said...

I'll say the same thing this year as I said four years ago... Whoever wins PA and FL wins.
If they split, it's going to be a mess.

Drago said...

sunsong: "~ Dan Rather"

Dan Rather!!!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

JAORE said...

".... with excellent graphics."

Yes, but are the predictions equally excellent?

I see the "margin of error" statement.... was that on the site in 2016? Or just hindsight accuracy? 100 percent!

Ahhh, but THIS time is different....

Tommy Duncan said...

Blogger Dave Begley said...

"This is all part of the Dems' campaign of fear. Masks don't work. Lockdowns don't work. Virus going to virus."

I agree. At some point we'll realize that the virus needs to run its course. Until then we will be damaging our society, our mental health, our children's education and our economy. We are also likely to mess up the response of our individual and collective immune systems. Hiding from germs has consequences.

mezzrow said...

Have members of our little community responded to pollsters so far this campaign?

If so, did your answer reflect your planned behavior, was it grounded in misdirection, or did you refuse to participate? This might make a nice poll to help us determine what can be reasonably inferred from the polling information we survey.

This, of course, presumes a higher level of veracity on this poll than one would imply from the list of questions above as related to polling as reflected in the 538 data.

If only someone could make an internal poll for the Althouse readership...

Static Ping said...

sunsong: "Kamala Harris will be campaigning from inside Donald Trump’s head. No word on what social distancing is like in there." ~ Dan Rather

Wait, you are saying this is a real quote? I thought it was a parody. I do agree it is funny, but in the same way that, say, Plan 9 From Outer Space is funny. It is also funny in the Dan Rather trying to be taken seriously funny. COURAGE.

Michael K said...

cocean said...
WOuld senile lying Dan Rather just die already. He put out a fake story about Bush in 2004, and then stonewalled and lied about it. He has zero credibility, and can't say anything of interest unless he's reading a script.


But Hollywood made a movie called "Truth" about him and people like sunsong get their history from movies, sooo....

Left Bank of the Charles said...

So it now looks like the election will be decided by Heg’s Revenge, but who will he blame for his beheading? Would Heg still have his head if Trump wasn’t President? BLM isn’t Biden, and they helped Trump win in 2016.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Can an election be forecast accurately when roughly half the population is too afraid to display a sign or bumper sticker, or otherwise publicly support a candidate?

Original Mike said...

All these people making excuses for Silver missing 2016. A million-to-one shot can happen. So what? If I'm hiring you to tell me who's going to win I don't care about your weaselly odds. I want to know Candidate A or Candidate B so I can take action on whatever it is I need to do. Silver was wrong. He had a hard job so he doesn't deserve to be crucified, but he was wrong.

Nichevo said...

And? Silver was one of the few back then pointing out that Trump had a legitimate chance of winning, when everyone else was claiming it was in the bag for Hillary. Saying I have a 1/6 chance of rolling a '6' on a die isn't invalidated by rolling that six.


No step on snek:


https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#stateorder

Kevin said...

Biden's in good shape.

The Blue Wall is protecting him.

Birkel said...

Nate Silver is going to be spectacularly wrong, again.
GIGO

Meanwhile Trump holds all his 2016 states and adds a few more.

Democratics are liars who will lie to gain power.
Polls are one example.

Birkel said...

Follow the party registration trends, not the polls.
The polls are lies told by Leftists in pursuit of power.
The registration numbers tell you what people are thinking.

Republicans are registering more voters than Democrats in PA, MI, FL, NC, NM, NV, OH, and several others 8'm to lazy to chase down.
Watch what people are doing, not what political operatives are saying.

Qwinn said...

Anecdotally, in the suburbs surrounding Philadelphia that I live in (Center City is about half an hour away), I see TONS of American Flags, quite a few Trump signs and even a flag, and almost no Biden signs at all. If I had to put numbers on it, I'd say I've seen about 30 Trump signs and 1 Biden sign. And I know there's at least some folks favoring Trump who refuse to put up a sign because leftists are natural vandals.

Big Mike said...

Question for Michael K. and other commentators from Arizona. Silver’s analysis has Arizona as “leans Democrat.” Is that the way you see it? Have so many Californicators moved east that the whole state has moved that far left?

Big Mike said...

BTW, yes, the pollsters got it wrong in 2016. Doesn’t mean they have it wrong now! I am looking at the polls and taking them as an incentive to work harder for Trump and Dan Gade (senatorial candidate vs Mark Warner).

gilbar said...

Isn't it time, for Chuck to show up; and remind us that EVERY POLL was 100% Accurate in 2016?
(that is, assuming their announced margin of error of 85%)

gilbar said...

See: All the girls love her! She makes her own clothes!

except for Ann, and her snooty friends;
who would rather their Barbie dolls be naked, than wear homespun

mikee said...

Todd, in military training the blue forces are good guys, us and our allies, and the red forces are the opposition, the bad guys, the Rooskies or Jihadis or Chinese or Nazis or Boogaloo Bois. So Dems took blue to be the good guys, because taking red was indeed too close an identifier with communism just a few elections ago.

That said, even with mail fraud votes, Trump wins in November in a landslide of nearly Reagan v Mondale proportions. Trump's's running against one of the most corrupt state AGs ever, and a demented retiree.

Gk1 said...

Nate Silver knows which side of the bread his butter is on. Can you imagine the shitstorm if he ever shows Trump ahead? I can remember the mountains of shit Silver got for positing the idea Trump had a 30% chance of winning the 2016 election.There was some write in campaign someone was trying to start to get him kicked off the NY Times.

Otherwise its just a laugh they are trying to show SLow Joe competitive in Texas, Florida, Missouri and all the other red states.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

"Kamala Harris will be campaigning from inside Donald Trump’s head. No word on what social distancing is like in there." ~ Dan Rather

What’s teh frequency, sunsong?


She won’t even get that but I LOLed.

Danno said...

Blogger curt said...Trump is going to win Florida much more easily than he did 4 years ago. Even the Dems here know that.

The recent voter registrations in Florida have made it more red than 2016. Danno (that's me) has proudly joined that cohort and would crawl over broken glass through a minefield to vote Trump.

Josephbleau said...

"Kamala Harris will be campaigning from inside Donald Trump’s head. No word on what social distancing is like in there." ~ Dan Rather"

We have all learned that the Democrats project their own actions and fears on their political opponents.

rehajm said...

But of course this is defensible from a statistical standpoint because if you have an event that has roughly a 3 in 10 chance of occuring it's not exactly some long shot for it to actually end up happening.

Probabilistic prediction models mean never having to say you were wrong...

The problem I and probably most people have with that defense is Nate advertises his shtick as an election forecast

forecast: a statement of what is judged likely to happen in the future, especially in connection with a particular situation

So is Nate predicting the future probability percentages on election day? No- and if he is- who cares? Is he predicting the probability of victory of the candidates? Maybe. Or is he trying to predict the winner - the prediction everyone wants, what Nate suggests in his analysis and the one that does anyone any good, is this last one...

IamDevo said...

I just checked the actual 538 page. It reminded me of something out of the old "Scholastic" magazine they handed out in grade school. Then I looked at the contemporary "Scholastic" on-line edition and realized it was more intellectually sophisticated than 538.

Pianoman said...

We should all listen to Nate Silver, because of his prediction accuracy in 2016.

bleh said...

By the looks of that snake chart, Trump is in a better position than I thought. I expect he'll win Florida. The selection of anti-fracking Kamala has given Trump an issue to strengthen his position in Pennsylvania. It's a gift, really, but I guess the Dems figure that Scranton Joe gets them Pennsylvania. How do Minnesota voters feel about "law & order" now?

In any event, once again it's going to be the Midwest states deciding the election. Personally, I don't think Scranton Joe does enough to win them the Midwest states. They should've picked another Midwesterner.

Rick.T. said...

And then sneak snake goes dancing
Wiggling and a-hissing
Sneaky snake goes dancing
A-giggling and a-kissing
I don't like old sneaky snake
He laughs too much you see..

Rabel said...

"Further, 538 is owned by the NYT's and follows the party line."

No. Disney owns it through ABC.

I guess that's why they have a cartoon spokesanimal, Fivey Fox.

Despite the Althouse endorsed graphics, the presentation seems terribly dumbed-down to me.

effinayright said...

. "Saying I have a 1/6 chance of rolling a '6' on a die isn't invalidated by rolling that six."
**************

Say what? Unless you BET on that six, you lost your shirt.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

So Trump just needs Arizona, Florida and one of Wisconsin, PA, or MI to win?

Biden's toast if that is true

rehajm said...

Thao was good at discovering interesting nuggets in the polling and statistical data. She claimed she was taking a break from Twitter and would be back in early July but she hasn't returned.

She was right leaning but her observations weren't propagandistic. Better than Nate is a low standard...

Greg The Class Traitor said...

rcocean said...
Winsc, Fla, Penn, Mich, and NC will decide the election. I can't see Trump losing Florida or NC, but I have a hard time believing he can win Michigan or Pennsylvania. Those states have gone D every election from 1992 to 2012. Hillary basically blew off Penn, Winsc, and Mich, took them for granted - and still almost won - all three. Given Biden will destroy manufacturing and the energy industries with his globalist, free trade policies, love affair with China, and his vow to destroy coal and fracking, people should NOT vote Biden. But dead-head D's always vote D. Even if its economic suicide.

Trump won PA in 2016 because a bunch of Democrat voters split their ticket and voted for him, and most Republicans who voted for Tomey, also vote for Trump

Tomey won re-election in 2016 because some of the Democrats who voted for Trump, also voted for Tomey, and even Republicans who voted for Hillary, also voted for Tomey.

This can best be seen at the precinct level, but unfortunately I can't find a good map of that in the little time I had to look. This gives county level view, and even it shows some of the difference: https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/senate/pennsylvania/

(This, BTW, was the story of 2016: every place the GOP Senator backed Trump, both Trump and the Senator won. NH and NV, where the GOP Senator didn't back Trump, both lost, narrowly)

Blue collar male (formerly?) Democrat voters aren't going to be voting for Biden / Harris, and if Biden drops off the ticket they absolutely won't be voting for Harris / whoever. A bunch of them made the switch in 2016, and the result was good jobs that were "gone forever", came back.

Trump's going to make the case that with Democrats in charge those jobs will go away, and really will be gone forever. And since this is in fact true, it's going to get him enough votes to win the industrial Midwest

Drago said...

gilbar: "Isn't it time, for Chuck to show up; and remind us that EVERY POLL was 100% Accurate in 2016? (that is, assuming their announced margin of error of 85%)"

Sometimes LLR-lefty Chuck gets so wrapped up in his cultish and slavish rhetorical devotions to far left democratics he forgets what the point of a thread happens to be.

D.D. Driver said...

What has Silver done to earn his reputation? Has he ever predicted surprising upsets? I first became aware of him after the '08 election when he "predicted" that Obama would beat McCain. But, betting on Obama over McCain is like betting the Globetrotters beat the Generals.

So, has he done anything else?

Yancey Ward said...

I have written it before- Silver tries to do good work on the elections, but he is hamstrung by his refusal to acknowledge that a large majority of the polls he uses in his analyses are seeking a specific result every time- the Democrat wins. Silver looks like a genius when the Democrat does win, and looks like an idiot when the Democrat doesn't win.

What is striking about Silver (I am long time follower), is that he will toss out polls that seek the other result- Republican wins- and does so on good grounds most of the time- the polls really are biased against the Democrats. However, here is the thing- if Silver had just kept those Republican biased polls the same way he keep Democrat biased polls, he would have likely seen the 2016 election as a complete toss up before election night. Indeed, if you watched Silver the last week before the election, he seemed to convey the feeling that he knew he was making a big mistake, and tried in some measure to hedge his predictions without inciting the ire of the Hillary! campaign.

Tim Maguire wrote:

"The usual failure of humility. But then, polls are Silver's bread and butter so he pretty well has to defend them, doesn't he?"

Yes, but I think Silver is now big enough that he could start trying to do his own secret polling to test out how good everyone else's polling really is. Silver's problem is GIGO at this point. Being right when Democrats win and wrong when Republicans win isn't genius at all- it tells you something about the input data.

Yancey Ward said...

"On election night I recall ABC kept going to Nate who was saying things directly contradicting the results coming in. Somewhere around 9:30 Nate had to pull the plug on his 'model'."

I watched the same thing and had the same impression- Silver held on to his prediction far beyond the point where it intellectually made sense to do so.

The hilarious thing was this- the NYTimes election meter, which directly compared precinct level results in real-time with past elections results did the most superior real time predictions that night. In fact, it was so good, I tried to disbelieve what it was showing me about Trump's chances of winning, but once I took the dive into the actual precinct results in Pennsylvania, I realized the prediction of Trump's win was perfectly reasonable. I think this was around 10:30 Eastern time that night, but will have to check with the Althouse open thread from that evening.

Original Mike said...

"Say what? Unless you BET on that six, you lost your shirt."

Exactly.

Original Mike said...

I don't see Russia in there.

bagoh20 said...

Whatever sucks in this country right now, just ask yourself who has encouraged the sucking and is responsible for it. Just a few months ago we were the envy of the world, economically, and rapidly improving the fairness of our international agreements, while avoiding wars. There was political embarrassment from the Democrats on a daily schedule, but it was not sufficient to overwhelm our incredible momentum of success under Trump. Then the Democrats and their enablers worldwide, finally found an opportunity, an excuse sufficient to allow their illegal, power grabs. What did they use that power for? Destruction, lies, fear, failure, and lost years for us all. Why did they do it. They had nothing else left. They had tried and failed with all the rest of the sedition of 3 years of refusal to accept a legal fair election.

The only job left for them now is to convince enough fools that it wasn't them that did it. I don't think there are enough fools out here.

DavidUW said...

A better rule of thumb would be to ask yourself for every poll that reads out more than a 5 point difference between parties, is there something about this election that makes it different from the past 20 years where all the candidates were within 5 points of each other. Or is your pill just crap.

Qwinn said...

"But, betting on Obama over McCain is like betting the Globetrotters beat the Generals."

I actually withdrew money from a 401k (paying the 10% penalty) in order to bet on McCain. Not that I liked McCain, I just already knew Obama was a Marxist and figured if McCain wins, I multiply my money by around 10, and if Obama wins, he'd be coming for my 401k soon anyway. He decided to destroy healthcare instead, oh well. I am frankly stunned that Democrats haven't tried to raid 401ks/IRAs yet. I once again fully expect it the next time they gain power.

JPS said...

D.D. Driver, 1:11:

"What has Silver done to earn his reputation?"

Correctly predicted how all 50 states would vote in 2012, leading to my favorite tweet imagining Drunk Nate Silver:

"Drunk Nate Silver counting out exactly five hundred and thirty-eight french fries at McDonalds, then slowly dipping 206 of them in ketchup"

Birkel said...

States where Republicans have registered more new voters than have Democrats, since 2016:
Florida
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
New Mexico
Minnesota

Can anybody add others of interest?

Iman said...

The hilarious thing was this- the NYTimes election meter, which directly compared precinct level results in real-time with past elections results did the most superior real time predictions that night. In fact, it was so good, I tried to disbelieve what it was showing me about Trump's chances of winning, but once I took the dive into the actual precinct results in Pennsylvania, I realized the prediction of Trump's win was perfectly reasonable. I think this was around 10:30 Eastern time that night, but will have to check with the Althouse open thread from that evening.

Funny! What I remember on 2016 election night was Hillary!'s campaign guy (can't recall young dolt's name) being interviewed on Fox News... it was around 7PM Pacific and the look on that guy's face... I turned to my wife and said "does that look like a confident man? He looks like he's just seen a ghost".

And now I'm reminded just how spectacular that night was... tearful commentators and hysterical Felonia von Pantload supporters.

Amadeus 48 said...

Biden crossing Wisconsin: "Nice tits on those cows. I always say you got to watch out for the well-endowed ones. They try to distract you."

Soup's on!

Dave Begley said...

Why does anyone believe Nate Silver after 2016?

Dave Begley said...

Has Nate plugged into his model the cancellation of Big Ten football?

When the SEC, ACC and Big 12 have a successful season, the Big Ten is going to look foolish and the fans will be even madder.

RobinGoodfellow said...

“... but I have a hard time believing he can win Michigan or Pennsylvania ...”

Dude! He already won MI and PA in 2016. Why wouldn’t he win them again?

n.n said...

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall... Pennsylvania is also teetering.

doctrev said...

Minnesota is further away for Biden than Michigan? That's what they're going with? Get fucked, cucky. If the Democrats are actually seeing that, then this election is going to be a Trumpslide.

At first I thought Donald Trump's spectacular trade successes were going to be the main campaign issue, which guaranteed keeping Michigan and Pennsylvania, but now the Democrats expect us to believe that jogger rioting and China flu are going to win the election for them?

LOLGF.

tim in vermont said...

My favorite part of the election coverage was when they were in such deep denial about PA that they were waiting for results from tiny little hamlets who that would have had to have gone 500% for Biden. I guess they thought that those little towns between W VA and Ohio voted just like Philadelphia.

The risk to Trump in Florida is all of those people braying how the vulnerable should just die already. You guys do know that vulnerable people vote, right? Sure, you don’t say it in so many words, but the implications are clear enough. What was it today? “Virus gonna virus."

I will vote for Trump in my state of > 50% time, which is Florida. The Democrats are too crazy and violent for me to not vote for Trump, but I am a lot more aware than most people, many of them oldsters in Florida who just hear “Sweden did everything perfect!” and the like from Trumpers and then think about what that means for them personally, which is an unacceptable risk of serious illness and death.

narciso said...

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/10/new_arizona_poll_shows_trump_inching_ahead_of_biden_143927.html

Rt41Rebel said...

FL has at least one more R voter and MD has at least one less since 2016.

Rt41Rebel said...

Make that 2, actually...

Kate said...

@Big Mike - Out here in farm country AZ we see a lot of Trump flags. Our Rep, Paul Gosar, is a solid MAGA and he wins reelection easily.

In the city, though, I don't think it looks good. McSally is a dud and Mark Kelly has Dems energized to vote her out. It's a competitive race with a very good chance to flip a Senate seat.

Narayanan said...

rcocean said...
538 is owned by the NYT's and follows the party line. ...
... If Silver predicts a Trump win, I'll give him some credibility. Not till then.
-------------===============
thanks for the ownership info.

even with coin tosses unusual string of H or T teaches people to learn to detect funny discs spinning in the air

stevew said...

Did this fella predict Trump in 2016? Graphs are pretty.

rcocean said...

"So Trump just needs Arizona, Florida and one of Wisconsin, PA, or MI to win?"

Trump can repeat his 2016 election win in 2020 *IF* he wins all the states he won before and:

Wins: Michigan - loses Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (Trump 276)
Wins: Pennsylvania - loses Wisconsin and Michigan (Trump 280)
Wins: Wisconsin - Loses Michigan and Pennsylvania (Trump 270)

Gk1 said...

I am witnessing a different reaction to polls showing Biden so far ahead that the leftist here don't really believe them either. I had one of my favorite debate partners confide "Spiritually I don't want to ever get blindsided again, like 2016. I don't think I can bear it this year"

They then went on to speculate there are a lot of "closet racists who won't identify who they are going to vote for now" to which I gently chided them with "Why would a Trump voter self identify and subject themselves to harassment, vandalism and all the other violence you feel is perfectly justified? Of course they are going to keep quiet but vote in the privacy of a voting booth" Things got rather testy after that. :-P

DavidUW said...

The best prediction is 60/40 anything.

it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, there's enough chance either way people will still think you know something. but you're not mailing in a cheap 50/50.

Michael K said...

Dave Begley said...
Has Nate plugged into his model the cancellation of Big Ten football?

When the SEC, ACC and Big 12 have a successful season, the Big Ten is going to look foolish and the fans will be even madder.


The problems with these cultural issues, which football is, is that the far left hates football. "Toxic Masculinity" plus CTE. The question is the percent of Democrats that are still sane. Who knows ?

Stu Grimshaw said...

Rumor was Silver was fed the Obama internals in 2008 and 2012 and used them as the basis for his models. In 2016 he didn’t get Hilary’s internals and had to rely more on the public polls for his model. Like most other public pollsters he assumed 2016 would have Obama-style turnout: motivated Dems and dispirited GOP. Oops.
I’m guessing most public pollsters (and Silver) are treating 2016 as an outlier and are modeling the electorate on a combination of 2012 and the 2018 midterms, which is idiotic. But hey, the narrative ain’t gonna push itself.

Stu Grimshaw said...

Saw this nugget a while ago: no president has (ever?) won re-election with a lower share of the vote vs. their first election. Except one: Obama in 2012 got a lower share of the vote than in 2008.

Thanks, Mitt!

Unknown said...

Did he fix the model since the last screw up?

Where are the release notes?

What level of VOTER FRAUD is assumed?

Rusty said...

"What level of VOTER FRAUD is assumed?"
It is going to be massive. Mail in voting is an aldermans dream come true. The vote for Biden in every Chicago and county ward is going to exceed the number of registered voters.

rehajm said...

Since Nate is at it again it's worth a revisit on the damage he causes to our political system...

psehological pseudoscience

Michael K said...

In the city, though, I don't think it looks good. McSally is a dud and Mark Kelly has Dems energized to vote her out. It's a competitive race with a very good chance to flip a Senate seat.

I also am concerned but this time she is going to debate him. Why she declined to debate Sinema is a mystery but he has a China problem and she could do well.

McCackie said...

Looks like intestines.