538 model & poll tracker thread

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1304480539676639233

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1304480539676639233

Something has to trend to the right and OR makes sense when you think about it. Biden is a poor fit for both the Progressive "woke" Portland area and cities like Eugene, but will also likely struggle in the Eastern part of the. Is OR still safe D? Yes. But the margin could definately be dissapointing. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions though until we get more polling out of OR.

[Ferguson97]

Something has to trend to the right and OR makes sense when you think about it. Biden is a poor fit for both the Progressive "woke" Portland area and cities like Eugene, but will also likely struggle in the Eastern part of the. Is OR still safe D? Yes. But the margin could definately be dissapointing. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions though until we get more polling out of OR.

Personally don't care about the margin in safe D or safe R states. Biden loses Missouri by 7 points and wins Oregon by 9 points? Oh cool. As long as he wins enough swing states.

[emailking]

I think there is less than a 1-in-40,000 chance that Biden wins in a landslide but loses any deep blue state

I don't agree with that, but obviously impossible to know either way. One way I can think that could happen is a last minute write-in campaign by someone really popular, focused in just one state, to make a point. I don't think Nate's model is predicting write-in campaigns, but I do think it sees Indiana and Utah (apparently) randomly swinging hard from one election to the next. That affects how it models the fat tail, and it should.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I think there is less than a 1-in-40,000 chance that Biden wins in a landslide but loses any deep blue state

I don't agree with that, but obviously impossible to know either way. One way I can think that could happen is a last minute write-in campaign by someone really popular, focused in just one state, to make a point. I don't think Nate's model is predicting write-in campaigns, but I do think it sees Indiana and Utah (apparently) randomly swinging hard from one election to the next. That affects how it models the fat tail, and it should.

Yeah, I should probably clarify that I don’t think these scenarios are possible with the constraints of what the model is trying to model.  It seems to only be able to model scenarios in which Biden and Trump combine to win >95% of the vote.  But there is a much greater chance that some third party or write in candidate wins a relevant vote share than in which Biden win every state except New Jersey, and yet the model.

For example, the model currently includes a 1-in-100 chance that Trump wins California by >5 points, 52.1-46.9.   I could believe there is a measurable chance that Trump wins California by 5.  But it would only happen in a scenario where Biden died or dropped out or was so tarnished by a sudden scandal that a third-party candidate won 20%+ of the vote.  I believe the 52.1-46.9 scenario is basically impossible.

[The Mikado]

Posting this here rather than the weird maps thread because I think it makes an interesting point: if Trump loses FL he's basically totally screwed even in relatively favorable situations elsewhere.

He wins MN and NH and holds onto PA and WI and still loses the election.

[The Other Castro]

https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1304852629282009088?s=21

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1304852629282009088?s=21

This makes me think their senate model will have less uncertainty than the Presidential model.

Only 11/12 of these potential pickups have greater than 10% chance of flipping: AZ, CO, NC, ME, MT, IA, KS, AK, TX, SC, GA, and GA(S).

With the exception of KS, all these states have over a 10% chance of going blue on the Presidential level (in KS, Bollier is expected to outperform Marshall so her chances should be well above 10%).

[Gass3268]

Recent positive polling for Biden in Minnesota took his win % from 69% to 82% in just under two weeks. Wisconsin also has also had a similar bounce from 66% to 77%.

[DaleCooper]

Recent positive polling for Biden in Minnesota took his win % from 69% to 82% in just under two weeks. Wisconsin also has also had a similar bounce from 66% to 77%.

Do we know if any of this is also due to the calendar slipping away from Trump? The polls have stayed quite constant, even Florida has been about +3 for a month now, so it would seem that the closer to the election, the less uncertainty there is, and Silver has admitted that the uncertainty is what is boosting Trump's chances the most.

[Smash255]

Recent positive polling for Biden in Minnesota took his win % from 69% to 82% in just under two weeks. Wisconsin also has also had a similar bounce from 66% to 77%.

Do we know if any of this is also due to the calendar slipping away from Trump? The polls have stayed quite constant, even Florida has been about +3 for a month now, so it would seem that the closer to the election, the less uncertainty there is, and Silver has admitted that the uncertainty is what is boosting Trump's chances the most.

Yeah that is part of it.  The polling average has moved slightly in Biden's direction in both states.   Also the Economics and Incumbency based projection does favor Trump, but as we get closer to the Election that makes up less of the forecast.

[Roll Roons]

Given their weird obsession with Trump winning Oregon, I really wonder if they have a bunch of scenarios where Jeff Merkley loses to his QAnon opponent.

[emailking]

There's no obsession with Trump winning Oregon. All they're doing is plugging in poll numbers and re-running the model, which, by the way, thinks a Trump win in Oregon is pretty unlikely.

[ProgressiveModerate]

There's no obsession with Trump winning Oregon. All they're doing is plugging in poll numbers and re-running the model, which, by the way, thinks a Trump win in Oregon is pretty unlikely.

There seems to be a lot of cases where Trump wins OR in a Biden landslide though

[emailking]

There seems to be a lot of cases where Trump wins OR in a Biden landslide though

A lot of example maps. He hasn't explained how those are selected but it appears to be forcing some kind of even distribution across the range of possibilities, so you get something from the tails every time. Each of these Oregon losses in a Biden landslide almost certainly has a very small chance of occurring.

[Jay 🏳️‍⚧️]

There seems to be a lot of cases where Trump wins OR in a Biden landslide though

A lot of example maps. He hasn't explained how those are selected but it appears to be forcing some kind of even distribution across the range of possibilities, so you get something from the tails every time. Each of these Oregon losses in a Biden landslide almost certainly has a very small chance of occurring.

Small yeah, but more than 1 in 40000? Biden has a 3/100 chance of winning SD and Trump a 9/100 chance of winning OR. That's already a 21 out of 10000 chance of happening, assuming state results are independent events. Once you implement some sort of correlation metric (since states results are highly correlated across similar states), I can't see how Trump winning Oregon and Biden winning South Dakota are within a 1/40000 chance

[redjohn]

Something interesting I just noticed on the 538 model is that IA is now forecasted to have Trump's best margin out of the swing states:

- Iowa: Trump+3.6
- Texas: Trump+3.5
- Georgia: Trump+2.7
- Ohio: Trump+0.9

With these numbers, Trump has literally no room for error. I have a gut feeling the GA and TX numbers are too favorable for Trump, given the swings we saw in 2016 and 2018. 538's poll average has Trump ahead by just 0.8% in TX and by 1.5% in GA. If Biden over-performs even slightly, you can say goodbye to any hopes of flipping MN/NH/NV, let alone holding the states he won by a hair in 2016. TX and GA will be gone, and there is no plausible way for Trump to make that up anywhere else.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Recent positive polling for Biden in Minnesota took his win % from 69% to 82% in just under two weeks. Wisconsin also has also had a similar bounce from 66% to 77%.

Do we know if any of this is also due to the calendar slipping away from Trump? The polls have stayed quite constant, even Florida has been about +3 for a month now, so it would seem that the closer to the election, the less uncertainty there is, and Silver has admitted that the uncertainty is what is boosting Trump's chances the most.

Yeah that is part of it.  The polling average has moved slightly in Biden's direction in both states.   Also the Economics and Incumbency based projection does favor Trump, but as we get closer to the Election that makes up less of the forecast.

One final reason thre projections moved in Biden’s favor last week is in the way the models accounts for convention bounces.  

Last week, the model believed both candidates were at that moment experiencing a convention bounce.  Where as right now, it looks like the model believes Biden’s bounce has mostly faded while Trumps should still be intact.

The exact effect of this varies from state to state, but on average it looks like the model is removing an average net of 0.8% from Trump’s polling average in each state to compensate for convention bounce.

[emailking]

There seems to be a lot of cases where Trump wins OR in a Biden landslide though

A lot of example maps. He hasn't explained how those are selected but it appears to be forcing some kind of even distribution across the range of possibilities, so you get something from the tails every time. Each of these Oregon losses in a Biden landslide almost certainly has a very small chance of occurring.

Small yeah, but more than 1 in 40000? Biden has a 3/100 chance of winning SD and Trump a 9/100 chance of winning OR. That's already a 21 out of 10000 chance of happening, assuming state results are independent events. Once you implement some sort of correlation metric (since states results are highly correlated across similar states), I can't see how Trump winning Oregon and Biden winning South Dakota are within a 1/40000 chance

yeah I don't know what the chances of those maps are, or should be. But to conclude it means they are obsessed with Trump winning Oregon is pretty hyperbolic.

[Smash255]

Today we had three national polls which showed Biden ahead by 12, 10, and 9 points.
And yet 538's aggregate remains stuck at 7.5. I don't know about you but this starts to look absurd to me.

One thing to keep in mind is 538's national polling #'s calculation combine national and state polls

[Landslide Lyndon]

Today we had three national polls which showed Biden ahead by 12, 10, and 9 points.
And yet 538's aggregate remains stuck at 7.5. I don't know about you but this starts to look absurd to me.

One thing to keep in mind is 538's national polling #'s calculation combine national and state polls

I think it's the model that takes under consideration state polls, not the national polling aggregate.

[SnowLabrador]

I really hope they release the Congressional model today.

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, this year's model really seems to be trying to over-represent disparate remote possibilities/outcomes in a way that previous cycles did not; the same projections showing Biden with a 10% chance of winning MO and Trump with a 10% chance of winning OR more or less say all that need to be said.

If I wanted to be skeptical and/or facetious, I'd say that this is built on Sweaty Nate's insecurities with 2016 outcomes and just wanting something that gives more cover to say "See? You can't be wrong with probability forecasts! We even said x-candidate had y-% chance of winning z-state! That's as often as [insert random statistical probability here]!".

[Smash255]

Today we had three national polls which showed Biden ahead by 12, 10, and 9 points.
And yet 538's aggregate remains stuck at 7.5. I don't know about you but this starts to look absurd to me.

One thing to keep in mind is 538's national polling #'s calculation combine national and state polls

I think it's the model that takes under consideration state polls, not the national polling aggregate.

From the pollster page

Polling averages are adjusted based on state and national polls, which means candidates’ averages can shift even if no new polls have been added to this page.

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1304979308822265857