538 Model Megathread

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Not flawless by any means, but certainly interesting.

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I'm still trying to wrap my head around why they have Minnesota so ridiculously close. I mean, I get it, Mason-Dixon isn't the best pollster, but they're only counting two polls from Mason-Dixon, and then massively unskewing them. Do they really think Minnesota will be a two-point race, even if Trump narrowly wins?

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Man, the now-cast map is absolutely bluetiful! And he hasn't even entered in the FL Suffolk poll.

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Happy South Dakota Farmers strike again.

Yaaaas! If Hillary wins by enough, they can pull off another surprise win for her.

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What makes AZ more Republican than its surrounding states? Doesn't it also have a strong Latino population?

The Latino population is younger than in other states (many are too young to vote,) and a lower percentage turn out than in surrounding states. Also, white voters are older and more conservative than in nearby states.

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The now cast also has Trump just barely winning MO, and TX is within three percent!

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Anyone hazard a guess if and when Clinton will finally gain another state in the polls-plus forecast?

We'd probably need to see polls showing a consistent lead for her in Arizona and Georgia, starting in September or so.

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Clinton's still consistently winning 347-191 in the polls-plus forecast, so I can't complain.

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They're putting some stock in Reuters. That somehow flipped NC back on the polls-plus map.

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LOL, Maine's going to suddenly be a bellwether and Nevada's going to suddenly trend sharply R? Cute, Nate.

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Trump isn't going to take the lead unless he, you know, actually starts leading in the polls again.

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Nate Silver actually believes that Rhode Island will be a single digit race. Wow. He's really lost it.

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My point is that he used to at least weigh "state fundamentals" to at least some degree, meaning that if a poll showed Rhode Island or Texas close, the model would not immediately follow suit. The margins would narrow somewhat in each state, but if previous elections, demographics, and other various "indicators" did not suggest the state should be close, it would take several polls, all consistently showing a similarly close race for the model to also consider it a close race, though state fundamentals would still have some impact on the margin.

I'm sick of people acting like the model is its own sentient entity. It's not. He created the model, so it represents what he thinks the polls suggest about the race. If the results of his model were absurd to him, he'd tweak it.

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I'm sick of people acting like the model is its own sentient entity. It's not. He created the model, so it represents what he thinks the polls suggest about the race. If the results of his model were absurd to him, he'd tweak it.

Predicting Trump wins California with 90% likelihood would be absurd. Predicting there's a chance Rhode Island could be within single digits is not absurd.

And I don't think he'd tweak the fundamentals of the model for this cycle at this point anyway.

He's not just predicting that there's a chance that Rhode Island could be within single digits, that the aggregate margin for all three models. According to all three models, there's also a chance (greater than 10% in all of them) that Trump could win Rhode Island. I'm saying that if his model is so sensitive to a couple of polls that suggest a result that is not at all in line with the state's demographics and voting history, the model is clearly flawed.

What I think is going on is that he was always bearish on Trump in the primaries, and the idea of Trump winning any, let alone most of them, was laughable to him. Then, because he was proven wrong, he's gone on to basically create a model that is a glorified polling map (since the polls were "right" during the primaries), with more weight on recent polls and pollsters which he deems better. Back in 2012, even when polls showed a close race in Michigan, he argued that Michigan was no in play, due to fundamentals, the fact that neither campaign was seriously looking at it, and its voting history relative to the country as a whole. I guess this year, he's decided that he can't do that, which is a shame.

I'm not saying I could create a better model, but it's clear to me that his model has some issues, even the polls plus one.

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On a side note, I'm disappointed Nate isn't doing his "Road to 270" series again this year. I always looked forward to in-depth analysis, and justification for his projections, even if I disagreed in some cases.

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After he put in those Google polls, especially the DC one, I lost all faith in this model.

The real issue is that there are a ton of really questionable polls out there, and he's including every single last one of them in the name of "more data=better"

Garbage in, garbage out.

As I've said for a while, this is basically a glorified polling map.

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Alabama becomes the first state to go to >99.9% Trump in any model

Should've been Nevada. Trump's Casinoresortmachine™ means that Latino turnout is irrelevant (who cares which language they speak, it's never been shown that native Spanish speakers are more Democratic!) He'd lose Alabama by 30 before losing Nevada.

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Nevada switched back to Clinton in the polls-only.

#Rigged
#NateTheUnskewer
#UneducatedWhiteVotesMatter

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NEVADA IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!

Crooked Nate thinks he can unskew polls and factor in demographics, huh?

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North Carolina is now blue in the polls-only model. I remember some states swinging around a bit in 2012, but the amount even his polls-plus model has swung around is pretty insane.

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My point is that I would expect a decent amount of movement in the polls-only and especially the now-cast models. I would think that the polls-plus model, however, would be a bit more static, especially in the probabilities it assigns to Trump or Clinton winning.

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God bless the freiwal! Such a beautiful freiwal, folks, like none you've ever seen. And it's going to grow BIGGER in the next few cycles, BELIEVE me.

So what are you saying ..... that the Firewall just got two feet higher ?

I think that the freiwal has gotten 35 feet higher, maybe even 50 feet higher, if you catch my drift.

Also, where's Wulfric to welcome Iowa back? lol

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God bless the freiwal! Such a beautiful freiwal, folks, like none you've ever seen. And it's going to grow BIGGER in the next few cycles, BELIEVE me.

So what are you saying ..... that the Firewall just got two feet higher ?

BUILD THAT WALL... BUILD THAT WALL!

We're gonna build a 322 EV freiwal.  AND WE'RE GONNA MAKE REINCE PRIEBUS PAY FOR IT!!

We have a winner, folks.

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For me the biggest surprise on that map is West Virginia.

That's probably because polls tend to underestimate eventual margins of victory, thus why most Safe Trump states will trend D, according to that map, and most of the trend R states are Clinton states.

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And yet, according to the same model, he still only has a 35% chance of winning at all.