The Economist: Forecasting the US elections

[Ferguson97]

Florida is lean Dem but Arizona is a tossup?

[Ferguson97]

Weird that they have PA as the tipping point state. Seems unlikely to me.

Probably because Biden has a slightly larger lead in Wisconsin than he does in Pennsylvania.

That feels intuitively wrong.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1273288676949266435

If you assume that each state has the exact same polling errors as 2016, then this results in a 308-230 Biden victory.

[Ferguson97]

Nate Silver doesn't need his own model to recognize The Economist's is trash.  Their model is too reliant on "fundamentals", yet because so much of the economic date is so out-of-sample (at least considering post-WW2 elections) they arbitrarily adjust it to produce what looks (to them) to be a "realistic" scenario.  That's p-hacking.

What are "fundamentals" even supposed to mean?

[Ferguson97]

Nate Silver is making himself look more and more like a jerk. If you’re not going to do your job at least let others do theirs in peace.

Silver isn't entitled to make a model for anyone technically, but it is disappointing that it hasn't been released yet since we're so used to it. As a top pundit an expert in this area, he has the right to criticize the Economist's forecast the same way any of us can; I personally think it has too little uncertainty and relies too heavily on polling personally (I.E. PA being to the right of WI, UT being >99.9%" R), but overall you do have to give them credit for making the forecasts in the first place.

I don’t understand this “he’s not entitled to make us one”, he not only promised it but it’s also literally his job

[Ferguson97]

The first map here should give the Trump campaign some heartburn:

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1318330785800257537

I have no idea what any of this means, is this indicating a huge Dem swing?