The Economist: Forecasting the US elections

[wbrocks67]

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.

The lead for PA might be off, though - remember the other week we had those junk polls that had Trump UP in PA but down like 9 in Wisconsin?

[wbrocks67]

It appears G. elliott got flack from Dave Wasserman and others and ended up reworking his model. Now he's claiming that Trump had a better week last week (not true, according to the polls), and Biden dropped a whole 2% in his model.

These people need to stop letting other people affect how they do their work

[wbrocks67]

It appears G. elliott got flack from Dave Wasserman and others and ended up reworking his model. Now he's claiming that Trump had a better week last week (not true, according to the polls), and Biden dropped a whole 2% in his model.

These people need to stop letting other people affect how they do their work

I don't agree with the last part.  This isn't an exact science.  It's perfectly reasonable for other experts in the subject to offer constructive criticism, and I think that's the spirit in which it's been offered and received.  I think it's a good thing if it results in improvements in the model.  The Economist's model is out there before the 538 or NYT models, so it's going to be the first target of such criticism (and the Economist team deserves a ton of credit for being the first ones to publish!)

Yeah, but if you're changing your model just because of criticism, that doesn't give me too much confidence in it. He should want to make it the best it can be, but he withered under literally one person making criticisms.

[wbrocks67]

A) Nate hasn't even posted his model yet so he has no right to be offering any critiques at this moment in time
B) How is Eliott's model that bad? Biden literally has over a 90% chance of winning right now. I don't see the problem?
C) Eliott, however, is giving in again- saying that the popular vote, which shows, what Biden, +8/9, is still too high? When that's *literally* what the poll averages are showing right now?

It's almost as if 2016 screwed everyone so much in the heads that they just will refuse to believe that Biden could possibly be ahead this much, even though all the data and evidence is pointing to that.

[wbrocks67]

Interesting:

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1290339003070324738

Rasmussen has Trump's approval at like 40% among black voters. That in and of itself is enough to make their stuff completely irrelevant.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1290857816786382849

See. This is what I'm talking about. I'm all for making things better and more accurate, but it's funny how every time there is a "change" among these people, it comes after some type of criticism, and somehow comes at the cost of Biden/Ds? 2016 really did a number on these people. They refuse to believe Biden could actually be up as much as the fundamentals and polls say he is.

[wbrocks67]

Weird that 538 still has Emerson rated A-.

yeah, that caught my eye the other day too

[wbrocks67]

Is there a reason why Trump gains 1% in the "election day" vote compared to the current day vote?

[wbrocks67]

Yeah, it's bonkers to me how we can get Trump +5 in SC, Trump +7 in KY, and Trump +7 in KS results and pundits like the Nates and Harry really can even *try* and say "oh this is tightening!!!"

[wbrocks67]

Is anyone else shipping Nate Silver and G. Elliot Morris? I know Morris has a wife, but I’ve watched enough romantic dramas during quarantine to know that his wife will be heartbroken in 4 months when Silver and Morris inevitably elope

Morris has a wife? Not that people can't get married earlier, but isn't he like in his early 20s?