Election Forecasts

[Gulo Blue]

538's election forecast is out
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/


They've got Trump at 28% right now.

 

[Mitchrapp]

I still remember when they said Hilary was going to win. Anyway, does anyone think Biden is sick? I mean dementia/Alzheimer sick?

 

[Gulo Blue]

I still remember when they said Hilary was going to win. Anyway, does anyone think Biden is sick? I mean dementia/Alzheimer sick?

Not 538, they had Trump somewhere around 30% last time too.


28.6%
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

 

[sggatecl]

I still remember when they said Hilary was going to win. Anyway, does anyone think Biden is sick? I mean dementia/Alzheimer sick?

Also from 538

If these numbers give you a sense of deja vu, it may be because they?re very similar to our final forecast in 2016 ? when Trump also had a 29 percent chance of winning! (And Hillary Clinton had a 71 percent chance.) So if you?re not taking a 29 percent chance as a serious possibility, I?m not sure there?s much we can say at this point, although there?s a Zoom poker game that I?d be happy to invite you to.

One last parallel to 2016 ? when some models gave Clinton as high as a 99 percent chance of winning ? is that FiveThirtyEight?s forecast tends to be more conservative than others. (For a more complete description of our model, including how it is handling some complications related to COVID-19, please see our methodology guide.)

With that said, one shouldn?t get too carried away with the comparisons to four years ago. In 2016, the reason Trump had a pretty decent chance in our final forecast was mostly just because the polls were fairly close (despite the media narrative to the contrary), close enough that even a modest-sized polling error in the right group of states could be enough to give Trump a victory in the Electoral College.

The uncertainty in our current 2020 forecast, conversely, stems mostly from the fact that there?s still a long way to go until the election. Take what happens if we lie to our model and tell it that the election is going to be held today. It spits out that Biden has a 93 percent chance of winning. In other words, a Trump victory would require a much bigger polling error than what we saw in 2016.

 

[Gulo Blue]

The uncertainty in our current 2020 forecast, conversely, stems mostly from the fact that there?s still a long way to go until the election. Take what happens if we lie to our model and tell it that the election is going to be held today. It spits out that Biden has a 93 percent chance of winning. In other words, a Trump victory would require a much bigger polling error than what we saw in 2016.

This might be what the Economist is doing. I have a generally favorable interpretation of the Economist, but their forecast has Trump at 11%.



https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president

 

[Mitchrapp]

Its seems both were very similar and they were dead wrong last time. So who knows.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Its seems both were very similar and they were dead wrong last time. So who knows.

It's not dead wrong; it's not asserting a high degree of certainty. 0% would be absolute certainty and 50% would be absolutely no idea who's winning. 30% is closer to no idea than certainty.


There were other forecasters making claims of 99% and reporters speaking with certainty last time; they were dead wrong. But I think 538s forecast has a good record.

 

[Mitchrapp]

It's not dead wrong; it's not asserting a high degree of certainty. 0% would be absolute certainty and 50% would be absolutely no idea who's winning. 30% is closer to no idea than certainty.

I think 30 is more "he getting whooped but there's still a chance." Like the Lions have a chance to win a Super Bowl but in reality it isn't happening.

 

[Gulo Blue]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/


They have a pretty good track record. You look at the over 3,000 things they said had a 30% chance of happening and 23% of those things happened. 74% of the 70% odds happened. I guess 3% were ties.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I think 30 is more "he getting whooped but there's still a chance." Like the Lions have a chance to win a Super Bowl but in reality it isn't happening.

In NFL terms, I think a 30% chance is close to being a 7 point underdog.

 

[Mitchrapp]

I'm not dissing their record. Just noting that 30% doesn't look very good. At least when talking about the Presidency most consider 30% a fail.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Anyway, does anyone think Biden is sick? I mean dementia/Alzheimer sick?

Maybe. He doesn't seem energetic and mentally speedy, but he's not getting things wrong the way Trump does yet (that we know of - I'm not sure what to make of his gaffes. How does someone mostly 'hiding in a bunker' with a curated media presence get caught saying so many stupid things?) They did release a video of him riding a bike which is probably meant to address this.