538 model & poll tracker thread

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight/status/1320796083996495873

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320792383693488128

[ultraviolet]

His analysis is getting very poor. Just because some people are dumb doesn’t mean you have to oversimplify it to the point where there’s only one factor.

[Gass3268]

That Trump +3 PA hurt the numbers here.

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320831823878987779

[Crumpets]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320801127995158529

[wbrocks67]

That Trump +3 PA hurt the numbers here.

His # should still be above +5.0 though, I feel like? We've gotten a good amount of polling at 6, 7, 8, and even 10. Yet its down to +5.0.

[Gass3268]

That Trump +3 PA hurt the numbers here.

His # should still be above +5.0 though, I feel like? We've gotten a good amount of polling at 6, 7, 8, and even 10. Yet its down to +5.0.

The problem for that one as just how big the swing was. It was Biden +3 only like 10 days ago. That said it looks like the Reuters poll almost pushed it back to where it was.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131

[Crumpets]

Georgia has flipped back to Biden and he is now at his all- time high likelihood of winning there at 52%.

[Crumpets]

Biden now has a greater chance of winning Montana (14%) than Trump has of winning the election (12%).

[American2020]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1321203338021654528

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Georgia has flipped back to Biden and he is now at his all- time high likelihood of winning there at 52%.

Iowa has now flipped back to Biden as well.  Though I'm surprised all the great state polls Biden has gotten today haven't really impacted his national win probability.

[Gustaf]

Georgia has flipped back to Biden and he is now at his all- time high likelihood of winning there at 52%.

Iowa has now flipped back to Biden as well.  Though I'm surprised all the great state polls Biden has gotten today haven't really impacted his national win probability.

Looking at recent days fluctuation I think it was on the verge of 87/88 and might have moved towards more solid 88 territory. Flipping close states from 49-51 to 51-49 also won't impact a probabilistic model that much.

[Horus]

Biden is now up to 89 in the model with the addition of the ABC WI and MI polls.

This is the highest he has been yet.

[Crumpets]

Here's a comparison of 538's map right now compared to where it was 6 days before the election in 2016:

Today



November 2, 2016



Looking back on it, it's pretty crazy that Clinton hadn't even hit a 90% chance of winning freaking Delaware at this point, which we should have taken as a huge red flag. I know my thought process was probably "yeah, but 89% is still basically certain, and Trump can't even manage an 80% chance of winning Utah, so it's not a problem."

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/adamrpearce/status/1321116988534652929

[wbrocks67]

Yep, despite YouGov jumping to +11 and Dornsife bumping up a pt in one of their models, the stupid Spry +2 poll plunged Biden's lead from +9.2 to +8.7 on their nat'l average.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

https://twitter.com/adamrpearce/status/1321116988534652929

The biggest negative correlation I could find was WA-MS. I'd struggle to think of any pair of states that are more different from one another politically.

[Crumpets]

https://twitter.com/adamrpearce/status/1321116988534652929

The biggest negative correlation I could find was WA-MS. I'd struggle to think of any pair of states that are more different from one another politically.

Yeah, to some extent this makes sense, in the random possibility that Democrats were to nominate an unreformed Dixiecrat, that candidate's over-performance in Mississippi would probably be correlated with a decrease in support from Washington Democrats. But when we already know both candidates and there's no reason to think they completely upend broad voting patterns, the only way Biden wins Mississippi is if he's already definitely winning Washington, so I'm not sure what good negative correlations do in an election like this.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

The probability of a Biden landslide had been as high as 37%, but it's now back to 29%. That isn't surprising, given the confidence interval narrowing as we approach Election Day.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1321466975302963205

Later in the thread he gives himself some wiggle room w.r.t. reversing that decision if there's a Comey Letter II.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I'm still a bit at a loss to explain how Biden has only gone from 87% to win to 88% to win in the last two weeks. 

It really seems like Biden should have improved more in the forecast than this if there hasn't been significant poll tightening, just from reduced uncertainty.  Didn't Nate say a few weeks ago that Biden would be 95% to win by election day if polls didn't tighten?

[emailking]

He said all the double digit polls from a few weeks ago were falling off, but this was balanced by the election getting closer and uncertainty going down. That's why he's been stuck in a 2% range for a few weeks. The polls this week though will count heavily toward the final prediction.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

I'm still a bit at a loss to explain how Biden has only gone from 87% to win to 88% to win in the last two weeks. 

It really seems like Biden should have improved more in the forecast than this if there hasn't been significant poll tightening, just from reduced uncertainty.  Didn't Nate say a few weeks ago that Biden would be 95% to win by election day if polls didn't tighten?

The polls have been tightening a bit. It's due to some questionable pollsters, but the model is probably conforming to the assumptions baked into the algorithm.