538 model & poll tracker thread

[Landslide Lyndon]

I’ve been predicting the NPV would be Biden +9 for three months now!

So the tipping point is 2.3 points to the right of the nation, compared with 2.9 points I believe in 2016.

Interesting that they project Biden to win CA by less than Hillary won it

Polls showed Newsom winning by 10 points or less. Democrats are always badly underestimated there.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Oh yes.
I forgot there was a grade slider (top-left corner area), to weed-out the lower-graded pollsters.
Nice. Thank you for this image.

I used it a week ago and found that out of all the polls released since the beginning of June by A+ pollsters only one or two didn't show a double digit Biden lead.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Silver had the monopoly on this kind of electoral forecasting and of course he is annoyed now that a newcomer not only is competing for a piece of the pie but also challenges him directly about the flaws of his model.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I was astonished to learn that Silver's model doesn't take into account Trump's approval rating.
This is literally the most salient number in every contest where an incumbent ran for reelection.

[Landslide Lyndon]

So they just added a bunch of those USC polls. Biden's polling lead jumped back over 9 points and Trump's at his lowest support in over a month. Yet the model didn't move in this mornings update. I really don't understand how it works anymore.

Update: The new "social desirability bias" Trafalgar poll of Michigan affected the model more than weeks worth of national polls showing Biden up in the double digits.

The model doesn't work off national polls, it is a state based model.

If the model ignores both national polls and Trump's approval ratings, then the model is sh**t.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The model now shows decimals when you toggle the popular vote.

Current popular vote prediction is Biden 52.4 - Trump 46.3

Has anyone questioned Silver why his model takes for granted that the race will tighten?
I mean there are plenty of cases where the opposite happened.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The model now shows decimals when you toggle the popular vote.

Current popular vote prediction is Biden 52.4 - Trump 46.3

Has anyone questioned Silver why his model takes for granted that the race will tighten?
I mean there are plenty of cases where the opposite happened.

It's not necessarily that he thinks the race will tighten.  He thinks the race will converge on the "fundamentals", and right now the "fundamentals" (especially I believe the stock market) predict a tossup race.

The fundamentals are hundreds of thousands of dead, record unemployment, the worst civil unrest in more than 50 years, and a chronically unpopular president whose approval is hovering around 40%. I'll believe that the race will tighten when I see it.  

[Landslide Lyndon]

Again, Silver seems to care more about covering his ass in case 2016 repeats rather than actually giving us an accurate picture of where the race stands.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The Emerson poll dropped the average *0.6 points*.

Remember the HarrisX poll that was +9 this morning? literally didn't move the average at all, not even 0.1.

How does that work?

Emerson has an A- rating

Which itself is absurd. They are one of the worst pollsters not named Zogby or McLaughlin.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The last 4 polls entered into PA: Biden +8, Biden +9, Biden +10, Biden +7

3 more back? Biden +3, Biden +7, Biden +7

The current average: Biden +4.7

This isn't even the forecast, this is just a straight up average. How

There have been 5 Georgia polls in August. Biden leads in four of them and yet their forecast shows Trump leading by about a point.

[Landslide Lyndon]

And we've gotten Biden +12, Biden +13, and Biden +9 this morning, and it's still at Biden +8.0.

Once again, for whatever reason, it's as if good Biden polls don't help all that much, but a bad one hurts way more than the good ones help.

There was two new PA polls today with Biden +9. There was also a Biden +7 poll, Nate has Biden only up  4.7 in PA.

So, in spite of some favorable polls, Biden's lead went from 5.4 on Sunday to 4.6 today, mainly due to the national lead shrinking from 8 to 6.9. Shouldn't state polls cancel that out?

Also, Nate tried to say before that national polls don't have that much weight, but they clearly do. Even so, shouldn't that effect the *forecast* though? His state averages model should literally just be *averages* without any other f**kery going on. I want an RCP aggregator but just not sh**tty.

It really sucks that Pollster.com went bankrupt. They were my go-to aggregator.

[Landslide Lyndon]

facepalm

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Landslide Lyndon]

You can clearly see that Trump’s line is above basically all the poll dots, and Biden’s below.

It's becoming more and more obvious that Silver has put his thumb on the scale. Every single Trump-friendly poll is given outsize influence, no matter how crappy or stale it is. At the same time polls that are favorable for Biden barely move the needle, even if they come from reputable firms.
This year there is barely a difference between RCP and 538 averages, and I don't think that's a coincidence.   

[Landslide Lyndon]

You can clearly see that Trump’s line is above basically all the poll dots, and Biden’s below.

It's becoming more and more obvious that Silver has put his thumb on the scale. Every single Trump-friendly poll is given outsize influence, no matter how crappy or stale it is. At the same time polls that are favorable for Biden barely move the needle, even if they come from reputable firms.
This year there is barely a difference between RCP and 538 averages, and I don't think that's a coincidence.   

When I run a weighted poll average based on 538 polls, I get Biden 51.1 - Trump 43.2 (Biden +7.9). Something's weird with their polling average, since literally EVERY SINGLE RED DOT is on or below Trump's average in recent weeks, with very few exceptions.

The Economist aggregate by Elliot Morris is also roughly Biden +8.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Today we had polls showing Biden ahead by 10, 9, and 8 points, and the needle remained stuck at 7.1. I guess Silver's model doesn't consider them as high quality as HarrisX and Rasmussen.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Today we had polls showing Biden ahead by 10, 9, and 8 points, and the needle remained stuck at 7.1. I guess Silver's model doesn't consider them as high quality as HarrisX and Rasmussen.

Today's USC Dornsife poll replaced yesterday's. +9.5 to +10, a half point change on a B/C rated pollster.

Today's Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll replaced last week's. +7 to +9, a two point change on an unrated pollster.

Today's Ipsos poll replaced last week's. +9 to +8, a one point decline on a B- rated pollster.


So three new low- to mid-grade national polls showing minor or even negative changes get fed into a trendline with dozens of other polls from dozens of other pollsters. The model did exactly what you should expect it to do.

In addition state polls feed more into the national poll averages than the national polls themselves do.

They feed the model, not the polling aggregate.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Right on the polling page it states national and state polls feed into the aggregate.

It must be a mistake. The aggregate moves only with national polls. Just watch it.
OTOH, it's very clear that his model is swayed heavily by state polls.

[Landslide Lyndon]

LOL! A single poll showing Biden +3 made Biden's lead in the poll aggregate crumble almost a point. And it's not like it is from an A+ pollster.

[Landslide Lyndon]

National polls don't affect the overall forecast much.

Not the model, the polling aggregate. It literally showed Biden +8.2 and after the IBD/TIPP poll was added it collapsed to 7.4.