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The problem was the methodology to get to 28% was flawed. Its much more subjective than say the odds of a certain card coming up in blackjack. If the methodology is wrong determining the likelihood of Trump winning then its not just simply Trump being lucky. Perhaps Trump had a 55% chance of winning but the data was flawed or perhaps people lied and said the would vote for Clinton but voter for Trump instead. And unlike Blackjack where if the remaining cards are known anyone who understands the game knows the odds of busting or hitting 21. The numbers were all over the map regarding Trump's chances. There was no consensus except that all expected him to lose.
So when we get to the 2018 midterms we have the same issues as 2016. But if you think the dems have the blue wave on their side then stay home don't vote. You have it in the bag why waste you time voting.
There was nothing wrong with the methodology. It's like a weather forecast. A meteorologist will look at current conditions and see what happened with the weather historically with those same conditions, it might be that the computer model shows that 9 times out of 10 it rained during those conditions. Does that mean the methodology is wrong, or that the prediction if fake or flawed if it rains when there is only a 10% chance of that happening.
Predicting elections are even harder because people change their minds sometimes several times before actually voting. My husband and I decided that Trump would win when Comey reopened the email investigation, I'm not sure if that was the only reason Trump won but I think it had a lot of do with it.
PS don't worry about me staying home and not voting, I always vote. I'm almost 72 and I have never missed an election, local state or national so unless I die before the next election I will be voting.
They didn't pull anything - and a 28% was quite high - you have that's close to 1/3rd, like picking two numbers for a single die and having one of them come up.
Thanks for proving my point. Putting out odds on a political race when one has to account for many more variables than simply rolling the dice is meaningless. Anymore than giving odds today on who is going to win the world series. But I am not the one getting all excited and putting great importance on 538's odds on which party will control congress after the mid terms. You are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri
You obviously don't understand odds or statistics, so I may be talking to a brick wall. As you can see from 538, the Comey letter changed everything. Surely you can read that much!!!
I have been a casual sports better for years and actually do pretty well at it. But I would never stake everything on one bet. You spread around your risk. So yes I have put my money where my mouth is on odds and statistics. And when I get it wrong I go back and try to figure out why I don't put my head in the sand and say my calculations were perfect. If you look at the wildly different odds of who would win in 2016 by different media outlets you can infer that there was no consensus in how each outlet came up with the numbers. But go ahead and defend 538. Perhaps you have skin in the game with them.
So as I said before putting odds on who will control congress is like staking everyone on one big bet and impossible to predict. But it gives comfort to people like you who see odds that make them feel good.
Oh and, 538 took into account the comey letter since their final prediction was right before the election after the Comey letter went public. I know that it complicated things since many of the swing state polls were not up to date enough and did not reflect any effects of the Comey letter but that was 538's job to factor that in. Probably would have been smarter if they abstained from giving a final prediction. For example if its the 7th game of the world series and one team's starting pitcher is injured and cannot pitch that game I would probably not bet on that game. Too risky.
Thanks for proving my point. Putting out odds on a political race when one has to account for many more variables than simply rolling the dice is meaningless. Anymore than giving odds today on who is going to win the world series. But I am not the one getting all excited and putting great importance on 538's odds on which party will control congress after the mid terms. You are.
I have been a casual sports better for years and actually do pretty well at it. But I would never stake everything on one bet. You spread around your risk. So yes I have put my money where my mouth is on odds and statistics. And when I get it wrong I go back and try to figure out why I don't put my head in the sand and say my calculations were perfect. If you look at the wildly different odds of who would win in 2016 by different media outlets you can infer that there was no consensus in how each outlet came up with the numbers. But go ahead and defend 538. Perhaps you have skin in the game with them.
So as I said before putting odds on who will control congress is like staking everyone on one big bet and impossible to predict. But it gives comfort to people like you who see odds that make them feel good.
Oh and, 538 took into account the comey letter since their final prediction was right before the election after the Comey letter went public. I know that it complicated things since many of the swing state polls were not up to date enough and did not reflect any effects of the Comey letter but that was 538's job to factor that in. Probably would have been smarter if they abstained from giving a final prediction. For example if its the 7th game of the world series and one team's starting pitcher is injured and cannot pitch that game I would probably not bet on that game. Too risky.
you lost me...are you saying that Trump had a better than 28% chance of winning the election? If so, then please explain your reasoning. The 2016 polls are still available for you to go through and you can do your own modeling and tell us why 28% is wrong. the 2016 presidential election was decided by about 77,000 votes out of than 136 million ballots cast. According to the final tallies, Trump won Pennsylvania by 0.7 percentage points (44,292 votes), Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22,748 votes), Michigan by 0.2 points (10,704 votes). With that in mind I'm thinking the chance of that happening was probably less than 28%, that's like a black swan event.
you lost me...are you saying that Trump had a better than 28% chance of winning the election? If so, then please explain your reasoning. The 2016 polls are still available for you to go through and you can do your own modeling and tell us why 28% is wrong. the 2016 presidential election was decided by about 77,000 votes out of than 136 million ballots cast. According to the final tallies, Trump won Pennsylvania by 0.7 percentage points (44,292 votes), Wisconsin by 0.7 points (22,748 votes), Michigan by 0.2 points (10,704 votes). With that in mind I'm thinking the chance of that happening was probably less than 28%, that's like a black swan event.
I am saying its difficult to accurately predict a close race. I am not debating the 28%. Trump was a long shot.
I agree the race ended up coming down to 3 states and a handful of votes. But most predicted a landslide by Clinton. If she won Florida and either NC or AZ she wins. The shift in demographics in those states were suppose to help Clinton yet she lost those also.
Look at 2000 race with Florida. Look at the 1960 race. What odds ahead of time would predict the winner.
All I am saying is that the same 538 that predicted the senate would go blue in 2016 now predicts congress to go blue in 2018. And your only defense of this is the odds are eventually they will get it right. 100 elections Trump wins only 28 of them. But we had one race in 2016 and one mid term in 2018. 28% or 18% does not mean anything in two elections.
Oh and, 538 took into account the comey letter since their final prediction was right before the election after the Comey letter went public. I know that it complicated things since many of the swing state polls were not up to date enough and did not reflect any effects of the Comey letter but that was 538's job to factor that in. Probably would have been smarter if they abstained from giving a final prediction. For example if its the 7th game of the world series and one team's starting pitcher is injured and cannot pitch that game I would probably not bet on that game. Too risky.
1. 538 didn't take the letter "into account" - rather ALL polls showed that the letter turned off more voters to Hillary, therefore you see the big ski slope starting there and ending with the election.
2. If one is on the side of checks and balances as put forth in the US Constitution, then they probably don't want a one-party government. So you could say that many of us are heartened by the idea of checks and balances.
But where you go wrong is thinking that we fool ourselves that it means...EITHER a lot or nothing. We don't. The odds of Pat B. getting 3,000 votes in Palm Beach County were something like 2 in 5 BILLION - yet the US declared a POTUS based on that and we went to war(s) and a Great Recession.
The odds of what happened on Wall Street (Great Recession) were very low according to those math wizards...who, let's face it, know more than you and I about odds. Yet it happened.
You will note that most of my posts say "anything can happen". Yes, a nuclear bomb could go off the week before the election. A mass plaque could hit the world. A meteor could strike......
So hopefully we agree on that. Polling is just a sampling at the moment as to how people are thinking. It's not even as accurate as sports betting where you have a known quantity (the record of the players and teams)....people vote with their guts, not with their brains.
1. 538 didn't take the letter "into account" - rather ALL polls showed that the letter turned off more voters to Hillary, therefore you see the big ski slope starting there and ending with the election.
2. If one is on the side of checks and balances as put forth in the US Constitution, then they probably don't want a one-party government. So you could say that many of us are heartened by the idea of checks and balances.
But where you go wrong is thinking that we fool ourselves that it means...EITHER a lot or nothing. We don't. The odds of Pat B. getting 3,000 votes in Palm Beach County were something like 2 in 5 BILLION - yet the US declared a POTUS based on that and we went to war(s) and a Great Recession.
The odds of what happened on Wall Street (Great Recession) were very low according to those math wizards...who, let's face it, know more than you and I about odds. Yet it happened.
You will note that most of my posts say "anything can happen". Yes, a nuclear bomb could go off the week before the election. A mass plaque could hit the world. A meteor could strike......
So hopefully we agree on that. Polling is just a sampling at the moment as to how people are thinking. It's not even as accurate as sports betting where you have a known quantity (the record of the players and teams)....people vote with their guts, not with their brains.
With all the things that have gone wrong regarding elections and the democrat party and all the high expectations unfulfilled it just puzzles me that there is this unbridled optimism about the midterms. I know the hate towards Trump will pull his party down. That was also the 2016 expectation and turned out to be untrue.
It seems like nothing has been learned from the past and lots of people who should vote will probably not bother since the democrats are riding a blue wave. But another bad election cycle and the dems might be relegated to 2nd class party status.
I am a libertarian I know how the midterms are going to go for my party. I have no delusions of grandeur. Best scenario for me is the dems continue to tumble and other parties move up in their place to eventually push both current parties into oblivion.
I don't think you understand probability. Pollsters predict that a given event will occur x number of times out of 100. In other words, if Trump had a 28% chance of winning and the election was held 100 times he would win 28 times, they weren't inaccurate, he got lucky and beat the odds.
Not exactly...
If a poll determines that x number of people will vote for Trump out of 100, this gives you an idea whether Trump has the necessary votes or whether the contest will be close. When close, the question becomes how many of those "on the fence" will go either way. (Also careful to confuse approval ratings with election models).
IOWs, it isn't like the odds a 7 will be rolled on the craps table and just a matter of those odds, one out of six rolls or 16.7% probability...
— So long as President Trump is on the ballot in 2020, history suggests he will benefit from incumbency.
— While Trump’s approval rating is only in the low 40s, some election models suggest that he would still have 50-50 or better odds to win reelection if that’s his approval level in 2020.
With all the things that have gone wrong regarding elections and the democrat party and all the high expectations unfulfilled it just puzzles me that there is this unbridled optimism about the midterms. I know the hate towards Trump will pull his party down. That was also the 2016 expectation and turned out to be untrue.
It seems like nothing has been learned from the past and lots of people who should vote will probably not bother since the democrats are riding a blue wave. But another bad election cycle and the dems might be relegated to 2nd class party status.
I am a libertarian I know how the midterms are going to go for my party. I have no delusions of grandeur. Best scenario for me is the dems continue to tumble and other parties move up in their place to eventually push both current parties into oblivion.
I think you are wrong about people not voting. There will be an extremely large turnout for the midterms - probably on both sides--a lot is at stake. I also think that just like 2016 when rural voters who don't usually vote came out for Trump--you will see minorities, younger people and other motivated groups who sat out 2016 come out in droves in November. People who voted for Trump may very well vote for the Dem. These are local and personal elections--they'll vote for the candidate they like.
And, yes, Trump will drag them down. He's already turning people off, and he could do any number of things to turn people off further before November. He could pardon more cronies, fire Mueller, keep insulting Obama at his rallies, start a war, attempt to take away constitutional rights or just keep flapping his big mouth.
Gotta love how we Americans think and feel about most things, and the polls that tell us so...
"Now in its 30th year, the poll attempts to measure brand health over time across a variety of consumer fields. To do so they judge on three criteria: familiarity, quality and purchase consideration. This year, they say, 77,000 US consumers rated 3,000 brands to crown a winner in each category. The results range from predictable, to surprising, to downright weird.
Many of the food categories are all over the map. Favorite coffee shop goes to Krispy Kreme, who apparently serve coffee, while the nation’s favorite Mexican goes to Taco Bell, who apparently serve Mexican food."
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