538 model & poll tracker thread

[GeorgiaModerate]

In the absence of much new polling, Trump's chances will steadily decrease toward Election Day as the incumbent/economy factor gets less weight.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

In the absence of much new polling, Trump's chances will steadily decrease toward Election Day as the incumbent/economy factor gets less weight.

Especially considering how few undecideds there are. That was the big difference between 2012 and 2016. The 2012 forecast gave Obama over a 90% chance of winning, despite his national lead over Romney being smaller than Hillary's over Trump. The range of uncertainty was much smaller.

As we get closer to Election Day, the range of likely outcomes will definitely narrow.

[ultraviolet]

In the absence of much new polling, Trump's chances will steadily decrease toward Election Day as the incumbent/economy factor gets less weight.

Especially considering how few undecideds there are. That was the big difference between 2012 and 2016. The 2012 forecast gave Obama over a 90% chance of winning, despite his national lead over Romney being smaller than Hillary's over Trump. The range of uncertainty was much smaller.

As we get closer to Election Day, the range of likely outcomes will definitely narrow.

Also, the EC advantage. In 2012 the race seemed pretty close nationally but the EC was stacked hard against Romney, since he would have to win states Obama won by up to 9 to win.

[emailking]

The forecast is actually moving all over the place all day if you look at the decimals. It rounds off to the whole number on the forecast page, maybe to hide this somewhat, but it gives the impression it's static. They update it basically within minutes of each poll release.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Meanwhile, gamblers on PredictIt has gone full MAGA and flipped Florida red.

If you're looking for a buying opportunity, now's the time.

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/5544

[soundchaser]

Meanwhile, gamblers on PredictIt has gone full MAGA and flipped Florida red.

If you're looking for a buying opportunity, now's the time.

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/5544

This makes sense if you ignore literally every district-level poll we've gotten outside of Miami-Dade. Further proof that betting markets are ridiculous!

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Meanwhile, gamblers on PredictIt has gone full MAGA and flipped Florida red.

If you're looking for a buying opportunity, now's the time.

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/5544

This makes sense if you ignore literally every district-level poll we've gotten outside of Miami-Dade. Further proof that betting markets are ridiculous!

I have no ethical qualms about separating delusional MAGAs from their money.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Georgia sits at a tie (49.6 all, though it's red on the snake-chart); ME-02 has flipped blue (Biden 49.4-49.0). 

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

538 has started to remove the SurveyMonkey rolling averages that overlap from their poll trackers but their forecast pages still use these removed polls.

I'm pretty sure this is screwing with their model as their average's "X most important polls" for specific states now have up to 4 of the most surveymonkey polls despite the fact that their samples overlap.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Bump: they only started removing these overlapping SurveyMonkey polls recently and it seems that whenever they add a new poll for a given state, that state loses its overlapping SurveyMonkey polls problem. That's happened with MN and NV today.

[woodley park]

Trump continues to hover around 12%-13% on their model. I would have thought that it would have started to drop by now, given that early voting is surging and time is running out.

[Crumpets]

Trump continues to hover around 12%-13% on their model. I would have thought that it would have started to drop by now, given that early voting is surging and time is running out.

I think the 538 model doesn't factor in the early vote except to the extent that pollsters use it to determine likely voters.

[Horus]

Trump continues to hover around 12%-13% on their model. I would have thought that it would have started to drop by now, given that early voting is surging and time is running out.

He has improved by maybe a point this past week so the forecast is steady.

[woodley park]

Trump continues to hover around 12%-13% on their model. I would have thought that it would have started to drop by now, given that early voting is surging and time is running out.

He has improved by maybe a point this past week so the forecast is steady.

What good does one point do when he's behind by almost ten points nationally though?

I don't think 538 should try and speculate who is winning based on the early vote, but the fact that it is happening is significant, because it underscores how little time remains for Trump. Since they factor in weird things like newspaper headlines, you'd think they'd factor this in too.

[Horus]

Trump continues to hover around 12%-13% on their model. I would have thought that it would have started to drop by now, given that early voting is surging and time is running out.

He has improved by maybe a point this past week so the forecast is steady.

What good does one point do when he's behind by almost ten points nationally though?

I don't think 538 should try and speculate who is winning based on the early vote, but the fact that it is happening is significant, because it underscores how little time remains for Trump. Since they factor in weird things like newspaper headlines, you'd think they'd factor this in too.

A point can mean a lot, and I don't think Trump is down ten. The shy Trump vote is real. And it's probably not factored in because outside of NV the EV really just tells us about enthusiasm and little else.

[ShamDam]

Trump continues to hover around 12%-13% on their model. I would have thought that it would have started to drop by now, given that early voting is surging and time is running out.

He has improved by maybe a point this past week so the forecast is steady.

What good does one point do when he's behind by almost ten points nationally though?

Because if Biden is up by 10 nationally, but only 6 in the tipping point state, and loses 1 point per week for the next two weeks, suddenly he's within a plausible polling error of losing the election. There's no guarantee that will happen, but it's conceivable -- hence 13%. If Biden drops another point, then the odds will probably remain steady. If Biden stays where he is now through the election, he'll probably creep up to like a 93% chance or so.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1319787685758861313

[GeneralMacArthur]

Thank you, professional statistician, for "everything is a 50/50 chance tbh" A+ take

[ꙮ]

Thank you, professional statistician, for "everything is a 50/50 chance tbh" A+ take

Everything is 50/50 either it happens or it doesn’t. EZ.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1319787685758861313

So this means he has no chance to win if polls don’t move in his favor?

[emailking]

Thank you, professional statistician, for "everything is a 50/50 chance tbh" A+ take

He's saying those are approximately the odds of those scenarios as predicted by the model at the moment, not that diametric alternatives are always equally likely.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1319787685758861313

So this means he has no chance to win if polls don’t move in his favor?

About 1/16 I think.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Thank you, professional statistician, for "everything is a 50/50 chance tbh" A+ take

He's saying those are approximately the odds of those scenarios as predicted by the model at the moment, not that diametric alternatives are always equally likely.

Right.  His tweet was a clumsy way of expressing that there's a combination of factors that will affect Trump's overall chances.  At the moment, Trump has well below a 50-50 chance to win.  But *if* the polls move sufficiently in his favor, and *if* there's a polling error similar to 2016's, it would get Trump to a position where he's 50-50 (i.e. losing the PV by 2-3 points).  Silver is assigning 50% chances to both of the first two factors.  If the probabilities are different for either or both of the first two, then Trump's chance will be greater or less than 50% as a result.  Considered together, they create a continuous range of probabilities rather than a set of discrete events (e.g. it's not like flipping three coins, and Trump only wins if they all come up heads).

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

The TX forecast is closing fast. It's now at Trump 63-37, the closest its been thus far. They also have a .1% margin in the polling averages and a 1.8% in the projected vote share.

For how long it was stuck hovering at Trump 69-70%, I'm honestly stunned it's closing as fast as it is. Must be the UT-Tyler poll + uncertainty/economics caveat fading away.

Though I'm expecting the NYT/Siena poll to have Trump up by like +4 (With 10%+ undecideds) and bring it back to 68-70% Trump.

[redjohn]

Giving Trump a 12% chance of winning is extremely generous with the brewing landslide defeat we're seeing reflected in polls and public opinion. His chance right now is far worse than it ever was in 2016.