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PoliGAF 2016 |OT15| Orange is the New Black

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Mifune

Mehmber
That hasn't really been an issue since the primaries. From what I've read on the site, Nate never makes an outright prediction and always couches everything with a million qualifiers. He seems to be almost trying too hard to not be a pundit.
l.

I'm guessing you don't follow him on Twitter.
 

Retro

Member
The-Podestas_-_Spirit-Cooking_-dinner--It_s-not-what-you-think.-It_s-blood_-sperm-and-breastmilk.-But-mostly-blood._grande.jpg

Reminds me of;

It's all Deplorable Conspiracy Nonsense, real bottom of the barrel stuff.

Podesta's got Spirit!
Yes, he do!
Got more spirit
than any (((Globalist)))!
 

Maledict

Member
Trump going up means McMullin has less of a chance of winning. McMullin winning would actually help Clinton. But even if that wasn't the case, no state is an "auto R". Even slim chances are factored into the overall estimate.

.

Actually, McMullin winning Utah does nothing for Hillary at all. Because the House of Representatives picks the winner (i.e. Trump) if no-one reaches 270, anything that takes electoral votes away from Trump but doesn't give them to HIllary doesn't change the game at all in any way. It would be very embarrassing for him no doubt, but doesn't materially affect the result.
 
There's a bit of it in this thread but a lot of in OT. It's dumb and it should stop, that's a good enough reason to talk about it.

then post a thread in OT about it. doesn't need to be this big ol' effortpost, but if you're seeing an issue with nate silver discussion over there...
 
Actually, McMullin winning Utah does nothing for Hillary at all. Because the House of Representatives picks the winner (i.e. Trump) if no-one reaches 270, anything that takes electoral votes away from Trump but doesn't give them to HIllary doesn't change the game at all in any way. It would be very embarrassing for him no doubt, but doesn't materially affect the result.

The only thing McMuffin winning Utah does is increase the likelihood that Sean Hannity loses his damn mind. So I am fine with it solely on those grounds.
 
Actually, McMullin winning Utah does nothing for Hillary at all. Because the House of Representatives picks the winner (i.e. Trump) if no-one reaches 270, anything that takes electoral votes away from Trump but doesn't give them to HIllary doesn't change the game at all in any way. It would be very embarrassing for him no doubt, but doesn't materially affect the result.

Oh, fair enough.
 
I tried looking into #DNCLEAK2, but it's all "We have proof the Clintons killed Vince Foster" and "The Podesta brothers abducted a girl" crap. And to think, these people seriously wonder why nobody pays attention to this shit
 

Maledict

Member
That hasn't really been an issue since the primaries. From what I've read on the site, Nate never makes an outright prediction and always couches everything with a million qualifiers. He seems to be almost trying too hard to not be a pundit.

But I'm curious to know more about why you guys think the model is so bad. Specifically why adjusting state polls to match national trends is such a bad idea. Real Clear Politics relies only on new polls and Hillary is actually doing worse in that model.

Because one of the biggest point of Nates work in 2008 and 2012 was about how in the American electoral system, state polls were far more important than national polls. Obamas campaign literally ignored the national polls because they were going in so hard on battlegrounds - heck, remember how badly Gallup missed the mark? They had Romney winning. But people who followed states polls knew this wasn't happening.

Nates model this time round has been tuned to be too sensitive to both national polls and 'trend setting wave polls' in other states. It's constantly looking for a shift in 'momentum' for a candidate, so if it sees an upward gain for Trump in Utah, it thinks there's a national tide and so his chances go up in California (for example). It's actually doing the *opposite* of what it should be doing - it's treating state polls in locked states as mini-national polls and changing everything everywhere based on them.

In 2008 Nate had a very good point, in that states aren't independent of each other, and that (for example) you can't win North Carolina as a democrat without already having won Virginia. So if the polls are showing you winning North Carolina but not Virginia, be suspicious of the polls. But now he's taken that too far, and everything is too interlinked and too sensitive so that slight changes on the other side of the country shift things too much.
 
On top of what has already been mentioned, there is legitimate criticism about what Nate decides to include in his model. They will include a PPP poll without question, unless that poll is paid for by a specific campaign, candidate, or organization. That's a completely understandable policy, even if I disagree with it. At the same time, they will happily include polls that are by questionable pollsters, such as Remington. (You could pull better numbers out of a hat). They include the LA Times Poll, but have to "adjust it" by nearly 5 points each day. At that point, why? Why bother?

They include these ultra small polls that aren't actually state polls at all, but are subets of a national tracking poll divided by state. Some of the polls had a sample size of like 100, but were weighted more heavily than other polls. Nate went on a Twitter rant about it, saying that they should be included, only to go back on that a few days later when he was corrected on them.

I understand his idea that you use every data point and just hope it works out in the end. The problem is, this year there aren't a lot of high quality polls. His model is flooded with shit level polling that is probably gunking it all up.

Also, he is a terrible pundit. He is so thin skinned, and his writing is terrible. Harry Enten is the best part of 538. He's able to walk the line between snarky and bitchy. Nate is not. A few months ago, someone asked a question as to why Nate's model was doing a specific thing, and he blew up at them on Twitter.

There are legit criticisms of Nate. Now, saying he is doing what he does to his model for clicks is wrong. Saying he writes shitty articles to get people to click on his website isn't inaccurate.
 
I'm wondering how many posts will be generated in this series of threads from now until the end of Tuesday. We gotta get to at least OT16 before all of the votes are in, right?
 

Retro

Member
He has had enough of Conway's bullshit.

That's one good thing about the election almost being over; we'll have to deal with Trump clinging onto the spotlight as long as he possibly can, but we won't have to see Kellyanne's phony smile everywhere, spinning shit from whole cloth.
 

sazzy

Member
If anyone wants to watch Fox News' reactions to Comey's latest:

Dobbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DETe_cEckVA feat rudy and kellyanne

Kelly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIvLUKl8wB4 feat gowdy and priebus, propping up RCP averages

O Reilly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcXzpRK2_nM feat. Palin, propping up RCP averages and margin of error, pinning hopes on NV and NC

Hannity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfdHFNokXzE feat Newt and lots of hot air

Skip to 19 minute mark on the Hannity video to watch him play make-believe-what-if scenarios
 

geomon

Member
That's one good thing about the election almost being over; we'll have to deal with Trump clinging onto the spotlight as long as he possibly can, but we won't have to see Kellyanne's phony smile everywhere, spinning shit from whole cloth.

There's always the chance someone else later on adds her to their campaign.
 
That hasn't really been an issue since the primaries. From what I've read on the site, Nate never makes an outright prediction and always couches everything with a million qualifiers. He seems to be almost trying too hard to not be a pundit.
@NateSilver538
Good news for Democrats: Really hard to see how that debate helped Trump.
Bad news: If it somehow did help Trump, maybe no stopping him?
tumblr_noege1Qq791u7azceo4_400.gif
tumblr_noege1Qq791u7azceo8_400.gif


But I'm curious to know more about why you guys think the model is so bad. Specifically why adjusting state polls to match national trends is such a bad idea. Real Clear Politics relies only on new polls and Hillary is actually doing worse in that model.
It is overly reactive to the point of farce. It not only includes, but overweights trash like the Google. Or partisan R polls. It treats outliers like trendzzzzsetters because momentum!

It does things like giving Clinton about half the chance of winning 160 electoral college votes as winning around 300. Which is garbage.
http://predictwise.com/blog/2016/09/poll-aggregation-fight/
And more nonsense garbage.

NB It was garbage when it swung wildly towards Clinton too.
 
Biggest problem with 538 is the quality of polls going in with the weird weighting.

Trump being +10 in Missouri helps his percentage more than Clinton bring up 2 in like Nevada.
 
Because one of the biggest point of Nates work in 2008 and 2012 was about how in the American electoral system, state polls were far more important than national polls. Obamas campaign literally ignored the national polls because they were going in so hard on battlegrounds - heck, remember how badly Gallup missed the mark? They had Romney winning. But people who followed states polls knew this wasn't happening.

Nates model this time round has been tuned to be too sensitive to both national polls and 'trend setting wave polls' in other states. It's constantly looking for a shift in 'momentum' for a candidate, so if it sees an upward gain for Trump in Utah, it thinks there's a national tide and so his chances go up in California (for example). It's actually doing the *opposite* of what it should be doing - it's treating state polls in locked states as mini-national polls and changing everything everywhere based on them.

In 2008 Nate had a very good point, in that states aren't independent of each other, and that (for example) you can't win North Carolina as a democrat without already having won Virginia. So if the polls are showing you winning North Carolina but not Virginia, be suspicious of the polls. But now he's taken that too far, and everything is too interlinked and too sensitive so that slight changes on the other side of the country shift things too much.

I guess the question is how much weight trends perceived from state polls should be given versus trends from national polls. Maybe that should be based on how similarly states have voted together in the past. (For all I know the model might already do this.)

I think Silver and co would probably help themselves out a lot by providing more detail about how the adjustments are calculated. Not just generally, but also by showing what data contributed to each specific adjustment.
 

HTupolev

Member
We all good in here?
I'm not. Social media spreads ideas like wildfire, humans are prone to false positives. What if the LA Times tracker's detection of a tightening after the Spirit Cooking thing was a detection of a real shift? What if from now on, democracy is determined by who has fervent supporters coming up with and spewing the most crap? There'll likely be a very substantial FUD effort today, I hope it doesn't move the needle.

It'll be at least 48 hours before I can calm down, if ever.
 

BanGy.nz

Banned
Not quite there yet.

Nope! I'm now worried we won't win NC!....though I'm not really worried about us winning Florida....good thing I'm going to be doing Pen Testing (ethical hacking) during most of the election night to keep my mind busy.

STOP.
DOUBTING.
HILLARY.
CLINTON.


holy shit Janet Reno passed.

She had it rough during her time in the Clinton administration.
RIP.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
538's rationale doesn't seem insane to me. I feel a little alienated from the thread over it. :p
 
One more day folks. If we can survive the next 24 hours without a major terrorist attack or Wikileaks revealing Hillary's Satanic child sex rituals pizza parties, we should be good.
 

BigAl1992

Member
PoliGAF, be honest with me here; how exactly does it look like it'll play out tomorrow based on what we know has happened in Early voting and the final polls that're coming out, because I've been arguing with people lately that Clinton odds of winning are very high from all the numbers I've been seeing here from said polls and voting, but no one will fucking listen for me because of the media bullshit over here (not American BTW).
 
PoliGAF, be honest with me here; how exactly does it look like it'll play out tomorrow based on what we know has happened in Early voting and the final polls that're coming out, because I've been arguing with people lately that Clinton odds of winning are very high from all the numbers I've been seeing here from said polls and voting, but no one will fucking listen for me because of the media bullshit over here (not American BTW).


.
 
PoliGAF, be honest with me here; how exactly does it look like it'll play out tomorrow based on what we know has happened in Early voting and the final polls that're coming out, because I've been arguing with people lately that Clinton odds of winning are very high from all the numbers I've been seeing here from said polls and voting, but no one will fucking listen for me because of the media bullshit over here (not American BTW).

Just wait a day before talking about it. No point in arguing about polls when the election is one day away.
 

Wallach

Member
PoliGAF, be honest with me here; how exactly does it look like it'll play out tomorrow based on what we know has happened in Early voting and the final polls that're coming out, because I've been arguing with people lately that Clinton odds of winning are very high from all the numbers I've been seeing here from said polls and voting, but no one will fucking listen for me because of the media bullshit over here (not American BTW).

That hasn't really changed all election, it still looks like a clear Clinton victory. If she wins Florida, you can pretty much call the entire thing right there. Even if Trump wins Florida, he still basically has to sweep every reasonably close state in the union. His chances of doing that are incredibly low. It's honestly more likely that this is an unexpectedly high Clinton victory (~350+ EVs) than Trump breaking 270 EVs or having a 269 EV tie and having the House decide the election.
 
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