538 Model Megathread

[fldemfunds]

Anyone who understands trends in electoral history could have told you the polls were going to tighten. But if Hillary has a 60% chance pre-convention of winning, then it's going to be really difficult for Trump to close that further, barring an economic collapse of some sort.

What should worry Republicans more isn't the % likelihood of him winning, it's that most state-polls aggregate lead has Hillary up 2-5 points consistently despite having a bad week before the Republicans had their convention (double whopper against her in a row, basically). Combined with the likelihood she's going to outspend him 2 or 3 to 1, it basically means his candidacy is on life support.

[fldemfunds]

People don't seem to understand that Trump has no turnout game, which as a Republican means almost no chance. Look for an Iowa Caucus repeat.

Turnout game matters a lot less in the general than for caucuses, for obvious reasons, though it could matter on the margins.

Though there are a lot of things generally relating to the likely/registered voter distinction (ground game, the Latino vote, the undecideds, Johnson, etc.) that I'm not confident the polls will ever have a good handle on, and could prove to be a surprise in November.

In my experience, a good ground game can make about a 5% difference if operated in a vacuum, which HRC's will probably be.

[fldemfunds]

According to today's now-cast, if Trump picks up EVERY state he has a 25% or greater chance of winning, the map looks like this:

Trump 270
Clinton 168

If Clinton picks up every state she has a 25% or greater chance in, the map looks like this:

* Missouri is at 24.9% for Clinton

Clinton 384
Trump 154

Those two maps actually look really, really realistic, with the exceptions of Nevada in the first and Missouri in the second.

It would also be pretty cool if Clinton won all thirteen original colonies.

I don't think we see South Carolina flip. That seems like a bit of a stretch.