Discussion
  • Read More
    caekislove-caekingitupBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:44pm

    I’m trying to figure out how this “polls-plus” thing is any different than the “unskewed polls” thing everyone rightfully teased the Republicans about in 2012.

    I mean, we all know Nate Silver is a hack now, right? His website literally said that Donald Trump would more likely play in the NBA Championship than become the Republican nominee. Now that Nate’s doing the same horse-race narrative that CNN is doing, he becomes credible?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      BobbySeriouscaekislove-caekingitup
      7/26/16 3:47pm

      He’s not a hack, Trump is a once in a lifetime outlier.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      yousayclamato, joecaekislove-caekingitup
      7/26/16 3:51pm

      Granted, Trump got to Cleveland a couple of weeks after the NBA Finals ended. Yet he still contributed no less than Dellavedova to the Cavs victory! Think about it!

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    BobbySeriousBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:44pm

    Nate is just covering his ass after being embarrassed with his primary predictions.

    Americans haven’t even begun to pay attention yet. Half these people being polled have no clue. Many probably figure “I’ve heard Hillary is a liar (thanks liberal media!)....and this Trump guy is at least new and not a politician, so yeah I’ll vote for him!”.

    Just wait until the debates when Hillary wipes the floor with this embarrassing clown, wait until people really start paying attention and actually see who and what this guy is.

    After this convention Hillary will have a 5+% lead, and it will stay that way until the debates, when she will take a commanding lead which will lead to the eventual landslide (by modern standards).

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      caekislove-caekingitupBobbySerious
      7/26/16 3:47pm

      I wouldn’t be surprised if HRC and Trump got together and just declared that there will be no debates. They both seem confident that they have this in the bag.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      pdxwhyBobbySerious
      7/26/16 3:48pm

      Bobby, if what you say is all true, I will treat you to Champagne (the real stuff) after election. If not, I am willing to share my Panamanian passport with you.

      *offer only good if you are in the City of Portland.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    CryptidBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:55pm

    Whatever the value of the larger FiveThirtyEight.com exercise (that is, of so-called data journalism), presenting this kind of information without any context merely provides readers with an opportunity to project their fantasies, fears, and anxieties onto a set of vaguely significant numbers.

    Silver has provided context for what these numbers mean, with repeated caveats on twitter, on his site, and in their podcast that the “now-cast” numbers are over-sensitive to current polls while the other values are going to be more meaningful. He has described the now cast as somewhere between an intellectual exercise — what if the election were held today? — and a toy. When Trump went up in the Now-Cast, Silver announced the caveats yet again. If anything, 538 has anxiously over-explained the three settings of its model.

    It takes something like two clicks from 538's main page to figure out what their model actually measures and says. Are we going to shake our fingers at 538 because their numbers are being recirculated by people who have not bothered to learn what they mean (or may not care)?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      TheDrDonna, Paid Shillary Killinton SupporterCryptid
      7/26/16 4:03pm

      Thank you! People like to give FiveThirtyEight shit because of a couple outliers-and forget that Donald Trump was truly an unprecedented event, and the Michigan Democratic Primary upset all the polling numbers. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to explain their methodology, and to correct for it when something happens outside of their model, but people still act like they are pundits instead of data scientists. It’s ridiculous.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      kinja-chameleonCryptid
      7/26/16 4:06pm

      no, but gawker thinks they’re more clever than nate silver and aren’t above embarassing themselves to try and prove it.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    ReburnsABurningReturnsBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:51pm

    Knowing the odds on who would win today can be kind of helpful for determining things like “But just how big was Donald Trump’s boost”? Sure there are other ways to get at the same point, but that could be said to be true about pretty much any metric you might throw out there, and most of those other metrics will tend to scare people who don’t take a bit longer view of things as well.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      jezbannedReburnsABurningReturns
      7/26/16 4:00pm

      Yeah, but then the Now Cast is nothing more than a daily polling aggregator with weighted averages. The whole point of Silver’s models is that they are supposed to provide a long view context to current polling data. You could look at any set of polls and see that Trump got a convention bounce. And anyway, whether he got a convention bounce is only useful information if one would expect that to carry through to November (one wouldn’t). I don’t begrudge Silver the right to have a little bit of horse race entertainment thrown in among his more sober predictive models, but I think it does a disservice to treat it like anything more than a sideshow. Especially this far out.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      ReburnsABurningReturnsjezbanned
      7/26/16 4:21pm

      whether he got a convention bounce is only useful information if one would expect that to carry through to November (one wouldn’t)

      The bounce may not carry through directly, but convention bounces absolutely do matter. Trump’s long term odds are now demonstrably better than they were before the RNC.

      Understanding numbers like these also helps to sift through the anecdote based narratives people are running with to see which one fits the facts.

      For example, to read it on Gawker, the RNC was a complete and total disaster. But to look at the numbers, it appears the RNC did what most conventions do, which is to provide a modest little bounce in the polls. To be clear, I’m not happy that this is true, but the fact that I’m not happy that it is true doesn’t mean that I won’t also acknowledge that reality.

      Given that, it is now more imperative than it probably was a week ago for Hillary & the Democrats to make sure they follow through on their swing well enough at the DNC to make sure they get a similar bounce.

      Now that Trump is moving more into general election mode, the Republican Party is moving more and more to control his messaging. He hasn’t ventured off script into the territory that made it so easy to target him as much as he used to lately. Counting on a reversion to the mean in the polling numbers because “Trump is Trump” may not necessarily be reasonable. At the very least the Democrats have to make sure they are as competent as they have been in the last two general elections. I’m not so sure that this was the general sentiment prior to the RNC.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    gilbertkittensBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:43pm

    So does this mean Trump is going to win or not?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      ╰(　´◔　ω　◔ `)╯< Woke and Bokegilbertkittens
      7/26/16 3:44pm

      No, it means Hillary has lost our confidence, our loyalty, and, most importantly, our emails.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      yousayclamato, joegilbertkittens
      7/26/16 3:47pm

      No, it means the hog is hedging and the fox remains foxy as fuck.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Sobchak SecurityBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:44pm

    Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      caekislove-caekingitupSobchak Security
      7/26/16 3:48pm

      “Stupid people in large numbers” is actually a pretty good general description of the American electorate.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Sobchak Securitycaekislove-caekingitup
      7/26/16 3:50pm

      “Stupid people in large numbers” is actually a pretty good general description of the American electorate.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    jezbannedBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:42pm

    Interesting analysis. I will call you to discuss in about 5 mins.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      BobbySeriousjezbanned
      7/26/16 3:47pm

      Haaaaa

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    pre-emptive sighBrendan O'Connor
    7/26/16 3:53pm

    That’s what I tried to tell people here yesterday and I was called an idiot. If Hillary doesn’t get the progressive vote, she will lose. Keep calling them ‘Berniebros’, ‘stupid’, ‘selfish’ and you’re actually hurting Hillary’s chances to win in November.

    Don’t defend what the DNC did, there is no excuse/rationale that makes its acceptable to Bernie people. The DNC was wrong, and trying to justify it as ok because ‘Bernie was never a real democrat anyway’ or ‘Bernie was going to lose no matter what’ is like covering up the crime. It actually just makes it worse.

    Hillary won the primary, be a good winner because being a sore winner could actually end up costing Hillary the general.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      oh-hell-noBrendan O'Connor
      7/26/16 3:51pm

      Close to half of the people in America believe in creationism... of course they are stupid enough to elect the Trump/Pence dynamic duo.

      Reply
      <
      • Read More
        det-devil-ailsoh-hell-no
        7/26/16 4:24pm

        They’ll vote for Trump “just to piss off the libs.”

        Reply
        <
      • Read More
        Crown_Jewdet-devil-ails
        7/26/16 4:34pm

        I JUST got your screen name. Thought you should know.

        Reply
        <
    • Read More
      reggieinatlBrendan O'Connor
      7/26/16 3:43pm

      Glass half full: At least one progressive issue will be dealt with if Trump wins. Hell freezing over (the point at which many believed Trump would win) will all but eliminate global warming.

      Reply
      <