538 model & poll tracker thread

[Crumpets]

I pulled together this map from 538's numbers. In states where they don't have their own average, I've just used the average of polls since the race since the candidates have been known. In states with no polling, I've just used the 2016 numbers.

[Crumpets]

Biden breaks double digits in his lead on 538. His current number (51.1%) is identical to Obama's raw vote share in 2012.

[Crumpets]

Nate on his podcast released a few hours ago said he's 98.7% done, but there will be a bit of a delay of when it is released and that he is not rushing anymore to release it.

Nor should he rush it. He doesn't have an obligation to release one at all

I mean, he does though? He runs a politics website that relies on advertising dollars, especially after it was bought by ABC. They need clicks and views and the forecast is a huge part of the website every 4 years.

He doesn't have an obligation to us. We didn't pay him. Don't go to his site if you don't want to. What obligations he has to people he's actually signed contracts with, I don't know. But there's a ton of content on the site, and I doubt he ever guaranteed anyone that he would have a formal model of the 2020 election.

I'd love to see the headline "Target pulls sponsorship of 538 citing Nate Silver broken pledge to release 2020 forecast in timely manner."

[Crumpets]

Feeling like a Millerite on October 20th, 1844.

[Crumpets]

If I could offer a counter-point to the "538 overestimates Trump" line, consider: What % probability would you give to the Trump administration pulling something out of a hat like the Comey letter in 2016? For example, Barr arresting Hunter Biden for espionage 10 days before the election (of course, only to release him later). That uncertainty would seem to model such a scenario, even if Nate claims this doesn't model election interference. The venn diagram of interference and black swan events would seem to overlap quite a bit.

[Crumpets]

[Crumpets]

LOL, this is one of the maps that showed up on the 100 randomly selected maps.

I suppose it models the random incident whereby a meteor hits the Dakotas or Canada invades between now and November and installs a puppet liberal government in areas under its control.

[Crumpets]

Here are the current swing and trend maps based on Nate's numbers:

Swing

Trend

[Crumpets]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1298812940871766017

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1298816716500336641

Lol. Nate can't stand that there's someone else at his level who can challenge him on his own terms.

[Crumpets]

Biden keeps going up in the polls but down in the projections because look at these fonts!

At the very least, Silver should recognize that certain long-anticipated events such as convention acceptance speeches will generate large headlines without leading to the same level of newly-introduced uncertainty that something like the Comey letter or Access Hollywood would generate with similar-sized headlines.

[Crumpets]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1299449209402396675

[Crumpets]

Just got this beautiful realignment map. Note that even ME-1 goes for Trump.

Biden 271
Trump 267

[Crumpets]

Hell, imagine if that's Biden's map - Michigan + Georgia

So long Rust Belt, hello Sun Belt!

It would even work without GA or MI if he wins NC, although he'd have zero room for error with faithless electors.

[Crumpets]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1301190941110341632

[Crumpets]

Biden is now at an all-time high in Arizona at 64% chance to win.

[Crumpets]

This could be the weirdest I've come across yet:

Biden/Harris 419 EV
Trump/Pence 119 EV

EDIT: Whoops, meant to post this in the weird maps thread.

[Crumpets]

Well, looks like Biden won't be taking a NYT Headlines hit today.  The NYT is more interested in super-sleuthing the Beirut footage from last month than in covering any of the major Trump stories.

https://twitter.com/DaytimeDan/status/1304020650340872192

So much for "Liberal bias"

I swear the NYT and CNN are genuinely offended by the "liberal media" label and think that if they are just nice enough to conservatives, that they'll stop calling them names and will start reading/watching in droves.

[Crumpets]

For anybody who wants a map, here's 538's current forecast using their color scheme from 2012:

[Crumpets]

SurveyMonkey shows Trump +2 in Nevada: Nevada 82% Biden -> 74% Biden
SurveyMonkey shows Biden +4 in Montana: Montana 87% Trump -> 85% Trump

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Crumpets]

I looked at the GA details and the current "now-cast" in Georgia is a Trump win of just 0.4%, while the economics-incumbency model has Trump leading by a full 9.6%. The former makes up 87% of the projected share while the latter makes up 13%. Watch for Georgia's probability numbers start to converge on 50/50 if polling stays where it's currently at.

[Crumpets]

Another fun fact from the current projection: 538 currently has Alaska as more likely to go for Biden (21%) than Wisconsin for Trump (19%).

[Crumpets]

I looked at the GA details and the current "now-cast" in Georgia is a Trump win of just 0.4%, while the economics-incumbency model has Trump leading by a full 9.6%. The former makes up 87% of the projected share while the latter makes up 13%. Watch for Georgia's probability numbers start to converge on 50/50 if polling stays where it's currently at.

How do you get the now cast?

If you go to each state page and scroll down to the "How do we get from polls to forecasted vote share?" section, there's an entry for "Today's vote share," which I believe is the same number they used for their "now cast" in the past, even if it looks like they've retired the name.

[Crumpets]

Here's an interesting tidbit from their latest write-up:

As I wrote earlier in the piece, our forecast gives Trump about a 9 percent chance of winning an election held today despite his current deficit in polls — not bad when you’re 7 points down! But it’s about equally likely that a 7-point Biden lead could translate into a 12-point Biden win, in which he’d not only carry states like Georgia and Texas, but would also have a shot in South Carolina, Alaska and Montana.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-chances-are-dwindling-that-could-make-him-dangerous/

[Crumpets]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

As of this morning, Biden now has a 79% chance.

Looks like it's up to 80 now, at least as I'm looking at it. No jaw-dropping new polls since yesterday - maybe now that the first debate is over and there wasn't a clear Trump win they have uncertainty going down?

[Crumpets]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1312023423619600386