bedstuy
YaBB God
Posts: 4,526
Political Matrix E: -1.16, S: -4.35
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« on: February 17, 2015, 10:11:11 AM » |
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You can't have a "model" of who will win a Presidential race.
Anyone knows that campaigns, candidates and unpredictable events matter to the outcome. So, if your model doesn't account for those variables, and it can't, it's worthless.
At the same time, the data points for any model are lacking. Presidential elections only happen once every 4 years. Plus, you can't really include data points about Presidential elections that happened outside of the current paradigm. So, you're basically left with an n size of 8-10. The result is ultimately just a mix of banal truisms and conjecture. A bad economy is bad for the incumbent party... wow what a stunning insight.
Over the course of time, we've seen the best single predictor of the outcome is public polling. At this point though, it's also of limited reliability because so much can change. And, if you test Hillary Clinton vs. someone without name recognition, it's not really fair. So, there's nothing you can really say that's worth a damn about predicting the election. Hillary Clinton is obviously the favorite, but there are no guarantees.
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