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Trump is leading the polls: 10/28/2016 10:17:33


Remove Kebab
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^ That's why America should be Fascist
Trump is leading the polls: 10/28/2016 21:27:32


Math Wolf 
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My 5 cents on fivethirtyeight as I follow the site closely:
fivethirtyeight is not biased

I think the correct statement would be: fivethirtyeight tries to be as unbiased as possible.
We can't claim or know that they are unbiased. Just like most polling firms and data aggregation sites, they have done a lot right and made some mistakes.
They try to look at polls as scientifically and statistically rigorous as possible, but that doesn't mean it's automatically correct. They are probably the most likely to be correct, but that doesn't mean they automatically are.

It's fun to claim that they did so well in previous elections, but Nate Silver himself would be the first one to tell you that this doesn't mean much. The sample size of American elections is small and polling misses happen regularly (see the latest British elections, the Brexit was NOT a polling miss, any reasonable polling aggregator had it a very close race and it ended up being very close (the margin of error was only about 2%))

Also not that fivethirtyeight is nor was claiming that Clinton would win the elections. Last time I checked, she was pretty constant at about 85% to win. This gives Trump about 15% to win which was about the same pregame probability that San Antonio would defeat Golden State (which they did). Again, this paragraph is loosely based on something Nate Silver himself wrote.



On a more general note, the election still needs to happen. Clinton is more likely to win than Trump at this point based on the data that we have. But the range of outcomes is wide (see fivethirtyeight on this, there are multiple articles in which they explain this again and again). Trump could win if some things go right for him, including some of the claims made in this topic. Clinton could win in a landslide if some things go right for her, including some of the claims made in this topic. It is impossible to perfectly model everything that could influence the results and particularly turnout among demographic groups, the driving force behind a lot of the unknown variation. Fivethirtyeight nor most other sites are claiming Clinton will win, not even jokingly. They (correctly) claim she's the current favourite the win but that the outcome is subject to this unknown variation.

My advice for Trump supporters would be to accept that he is behind, but that the election is not lost yet. If you want him to win, you waste your time yelling on the internet about rigged polls and media. Instead, try to invigorade the base and make sure you and your fellow supporters vote.

My advice for Clinton supporters would be to accept that the election is not won (yet). If you want her to win, you should not try to argue on the internet about how Trump supporters are desillusional. You may be equally desillusional. Instead, go out and make sure that everyone who supports her actually goes out to vote.

Note, this is exactly what the Clinton campaign is actively doing the last few weeks, but the Trump campaign isn't. This is a reason why some media claim Clinton may be more likely to win than polls indicate (her likely voters would be more likely to vote according to that theory). An opposing theory would be that Trump supporters are already more riled up and ready to vote and don't need an extra push.
Trump is leading the polls: 10/29/2016 21:42:12


125ch209 
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Fivethirtyeight did have a great record on the last 2 elections, not so much on this one.
If i'm correct Nate Silver put Hillary at 99+% chance to win michigan in the primary, yet Bernie Sanders won the state in probably the greatest upset in us primaries history.

The thing is, polls don't matter as much now as it did in the past, not because they are rigged, but because the polling methods didn't follow society's evolution and are not that accurate anymore.
For example, most polls are still done over hard line phone calls. Well the demographics of people responding to hard line phone calls has shifted a lot in the recent years and is not a very good representation of the general population.

Nate silver's algorithme gives more or less weight to different polls depending on how recent it is, what methods it used , etc, wich is good but not enough. As far as i know his predictions are based only on polls, but fails to integrate other factors. With these 2 candidates, the way they run their campains, the news bombs droping every week on both candidates makes predictions very difficult. Now you can have a "chartist" approach to polls and say that all of the information is already contained in the numbers, but the versatility of the political news about this election make it so that, in reality, the numbers have a hard time catching up.

Trump is still toasted though ;)
Trump is leading the polls: 10/30/2016 06:54:43

Pulsey
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Trump will have to pull off major upsets. Not just 1 single upset in the overall vote percentage, but repeatedly in various states.

He's on track to win Iowa, Arizona, Utah, Georgia and Ohio.

He'll have to come from behind to win Nevada, North Carolina and Florida.

And thats not enough.

Then he'll have to grab a Blue State like Colorado, New Hampshire or Pennsylvania.

Whilst making sure he doesn't lose a single red. And only then will he barely scrape it, so no margin for error.

Its possible for him to get a few upsets here and there if he has a good night, but all of them together? Very hard, we'll have to see.

Edited 10/30/2016 06:55:28
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