538 model & poll tracker thread

[Figueira]

346: the number of electoral votes Biden will get?

(I know Arizona going Republican is a little unlikely given the rest of the map, but maybe Biden underperforms with Hispanics.)

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

346: the number of electoral votes Biden will get?

(I know Arizona going Republican is a little unlikely given the rest of the map, but maybe Biden underperforms with Hispanics.)

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

[Ferguson97]

346: the number of electoral votes Biden will get?

(I know Arizona going Republican is a little unlikely given the rest of the map, but maybe Biden underperforms with Hispanics.)

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

Is he mixing him up with Nate Cohn and the NYT?

Silver/538 gave Trump like a 1 in 4 chance.

[Figueira]

346: the number of electoral votes Biden will get?

(I know Arizona going Republican is a little unlikely given the rest of the map, but maybe Biden underperforms with Hispanics.)

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

What did you think I was responding to?

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

346: the number of electoral votes Biden will get?

(I know Arizona going Republican is a little unlikely given the rest of the map, but maybe Biden underperforms with Hispanics.)

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

What did you think I was responding to?

Oof. I should read threads more carefully.

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/dandrezner/status/1305269771710144512

[GeneralMacArthur]

The only noteworthy polls today were the Fox News +5, the CBS/YouGov Minnesota +9 and Arizona +3, and the Morning Consult Wisconsin +7 (daily tracker).

The MN/WI polls are strong for Biden.  The Arizona poll is OK and a 3-point improvement from the same pollster's previous poll.  The Fox +5 just goes into the average, and national polls aren't as important as state polls anyway.  Solidifying MN/WI (and winning MI) just means that Biden has to win one of:

FL
PA
AZ (+ one of the ME/NE districts).

[GeorgiaModerate]

It's the clock ticking.  Nate posted a thread about this earlier today: https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1305145928257622016

A Fox News national poll showing Trump down 5 is one of his better results lately; keep in mind that Fox News polls hasn't had particularly good news for Trump so far this cycle. But a couple of things to keep in mind.

First, we've had very abundant polling over the past two weeks, both on the national level and also in many states. That makes any one poll less influential. If the race is tightening—or Biden's lead is expanding—the model will need to see that consistently over several polls.

Second, it's mid-September, which means the point where polls start to hone in on a more accurate result. So the mere passage of time helps Biden. This is especially so in our model since it expects the race to (slightly) tighten; so any day of non-tightening is good for Biden.

A slight complication is that we're coming out of the period where you could attribute Trump gains to a convention bounce, though we're not completely out of it yet. So if Trump has "permanently" chopped a point or so off Biden's lead (from 8/9 to 7/8) that's something for him.

Even so, Trump needs the race to tighten more quickly than that. A candidate with a 7-8 point deficit post-conventions is a heavier underdog than one with a 8-9 point deficit pre-conventions, because the reduction in uncertainty from the passage of time outweighs the small gain.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It's the clock ticking.  Nate posted a thread about this earlier today: https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1305145928257622016

A Fox News national poll showing Trump down 5 is one of his better results lately; keep in mind that Fox News polls hasn't had particularly good news for Trump so far this cycle. But a couple of things to keep in mind.

First, we've had very abundant polling over the past two weeks, both on the national level and also in many states. That makes any one poll less influential. If the race is tightening—or Biden's lead is expanding—the model will need to see that consistently over several polls.

Second, it's mid-September, which means the point where polls start to hone in on a more accurate result. So the mere passage of time helps Biden. This is especially so in our model since it expects the race to (slightly) tighten; so any day of non-tightening is good for Biden.

A slight complication is that we're coming out of the period where you could attribute Trump gains to a convention bounce, though we're not completely out of it yet. So if Trump has "permanently" chopped a point or so off Biden's lead (from 8/9 to 7/8) that's something for him.

Even so, Trump needs the race to tighten more quickly than that. A candidate with a 7-8 point deficit post-conventions is a heavier underdog than one with a 8-9 point deficit pre-conventions, because the reduction in uncertainty from the passage of time outweighs the small gain.

Trump would need the race to tighten about a point every 10 days on average to have a shot at winning. As time goes by, this seems increasingly unlikely.

[emailking]

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

So infuriating. Nate consistently had him at a 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 chance in the last month or so, and had him doing better than any other model.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I noticed in the current "cloud" figure of 100 sample elections that Biden wins >350 electoral votes about 37% of the time.  Trumps wins >350 electoral votes 1% of the time.  So many the uncertainty finally is contracting somewhat.

[The Mikado]

I noticed in the current "cloud" figure of 100 sample elections that Biden wins >350 electoral votes about 37% of the time.  Trumps wins >350 electoral votes 1% of the time.  So many the uncertainty finally is contracting somewhat.

If you create a map where Biden wins everything in their "Very likely" category (95%+ chances) and Trump wins everything else, you end up with this:

362-176 Trump. It's on the verge of plummeting to 349-189 because Virginia is RIGHT on the cutoff line of that Very Likely category.

[ultraviolet]

I noticed in the current "cloud" figure of 100 sample elections that Biden wins >350 electoral votes about 37% of the time.  Trumps wins >350 electoral votes 1% of the time.  So many the uncertainty finally is contracting somewhat.

If you create a map where Biden wins everything in their "Very likely" category (95%+ chances) and Trump wins everything else, you end up with this:

362-176 Trump. It's on the verge of plummeting to 349-189 because Virginia is RIGHT on the cutoff line of that Very Likely category.

Why is VA safer than OR?

[Tintrlvr]

I noticed in the current "cloud" figure of 100 sample elections that Biden wins >350 electoral votes about 37% of the time.  Trumps wins >350 electoral votes 1% of the time.  So many the uncertainty finally is contracting somewhat.

If you create a map where Biden wins everything in their "Very likely" category (95%+ chances) and Trump wins everything else, you end up with this:

362-176 Trump. It's on the verge of plummeting to 349-189 because Virginia is RIGHT on the cutoff line of that Very Likely category.

Why is VA safer than OR?

More polls, probably.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I noticed in the current "cloud" figure of 100 sample elections that Biden wins >350 electoral votes about 37% of the time.  Trumps wins >350 electoral votes 1% of the time.  So many the uncertainty finally is contracting somewhat.

If you create a map where Biden wins everything in their "Very likely" category (95%+ chances) and Trump wins everything else, you end up with this:

362-176 Trump. It's on the verge of plummeting to 349-189 because Virginia is RIGHT on the cutoff line of that Very Likely category.

Why is VA safer than OR?

More polls, probably.

The more polls you have, the narrower the range of outcomes is. Simillar things happen in my model where states with little to no polling have a wider range of outcomes than the states with polling.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Idk if this is just me but I feel like ever since the conventions, the majority of blue bubbles are above Biden's actual % in the tracker and most the the red bubbles are below Trumps %. It kinda seems like there tracker is more reactive to polls that show "good news" for Trump, even if they aren't the most reputable pollsters. If you take out the lines and just look at the bubbles you would think Biden would be at more like 51.5% and Trump would be 42%.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Idk if this is just me but I feel like ever since the conventions, the majority of blue bubbles are above Biden's actual % in the tracker and most the the red bubbles are below Trumps %. It kinda seems like there tracker is more reactive to polls that show "good news" for Trump, even if they aren't the most reputable pollsters. If you take out the lines and just look at the bubbles you would think Biden would be at more like 51.5% and Trump would be 42%.

It's probably due to poll weighting.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I think I found the single most implausible result from the model:



0.1% is about 300 votes.  Surely Trump wins a lot more than that just from political appointees in his own administration.  This is implying that Trump loses 97% of his existing support in DC, which was already extremely small and pretty inelastic to being with.   

(Remember this isn't trying to model a scenario where Trump drops out. The worst result the "cloud" is showing in California is 25%.)

[Horus]

Idk if this is just me but I feel like ever since the conventions, the majority of blue bubbles are above Biden's actual % in the tracker and most the the red bubbles are below Trumps %. It kinda seems like there tracker is more reactive to polls that show "good news" for Trump, even if they aren't the most reputable pollsters. If you take out the lines and just look at the bubbles you would think Biden would be at more like 51.5% and Trump would be 42%.

Better quality polls are showing a closer race and once again, Silver adjusts for shy Trump voters.

[Dr. Arch]

Idk if this is just me but I feel like ever since the conventions, the majority of blue bubbles are above Biden's actual % in the tracker and most the the red bubbles are below Trumps %. It kinda seems like there tracker is more reactive to polls that show "good news" for Trump, even if they aren't the most reputable pollsters. If you take out the lines and just look at the bubbles you would think Biden would be at more like 51.5% and Trump would be 42%.

Better quality polls are showing a closer race and once again, Silver adjusts for shy Trump voters.

Closer race once again? +7.0? It was +7 on Sept.1, and it's just moved at noise levels since even before then.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Better quality polls are showing a closer race and once again, Silver adjusts for shy Trump voters.

I have a feeling the Biden +5 Fox News poll is being given a lot of weight right now, as it is the only A-grade national poll to be released in the last four days.

I don't think Nate adjusts for "shy Trump voters", though he does adjust for house effect.
FoxNews actually has a D+1.4 house effect, so I believe it treats Biden +5 in that poll more like Biden +3.6.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Idk if this is just me but I feel like ever since the conventions, the majority of blue bubbles are above Biden's actual % in the tracker and most the the red bubbles are below Trumps %. It kinda seems like there tracker is more reactive to polls that show "good news" for Trump, even if they aren't the most reputable pollsters. If you take out the lines and just look at the bubbles you would think Biden would be at more like 51.5% and Trump would be 42%.

Better quality polls are showing a closer race and once again, Silver adjusts for shy Trump voters.

Really the only high quality national polls we've gotten that show a "close" race are Fox News and Emerson.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Idk if this is just me but I feel like ever since the conventions, the majority of blue bubbles are above Biden's actual % in the tracker and most the the red bubbles are below Trumps %. It kinda seems like there tracker is more reactive to polls that show "good news" for Trump, even if they aren't the most reputable pollsters. If you take out the lines and just look at the bubbles you would think Biden would be at more like 51.5% and Trump would be 42%.

As I said elsewhere Silver's model/aggregate has become ridiculous. For days we had polls showing Biden leads from anywhere between 8 and 12 points and yet it remained stuck at +7.5.
But an Ipsos poll from two weeks ago showing Biden +4 is released today and his lead shrinks by 0,2. I'm convinced by now that Silver is just too scared to let his model show anything radically different than the RCP average in case we have a 2016 redux.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I think I found the single most implausible result from the model:

(Trump wins 0.1% of the PV in DC.)

0.1% is about 300 votes.  Surely Trump wins a lot more than that just from political appointees in his own administration.  This is implying that Trump loses 97% of his existing support in DC, which was already extremely small and pretty inelastic to being with.   

(Remember this isn't trying to model a scenario where Trump drops out. The worst result the "cloud" is showing in California is 25%.)

It's not completely implausible.  I'll be most of those political appointees live in suburban Maryland or Virginia rather than in the District itself.

[DaleCooper]

Biden's average lead in WI decreased in the poll tracker after his +10 CNN poll got added. Not sure what the deal is with that, just kind of funny.