Hurricane October Surprise will carry the ball for Obama, all Romney can do in the interim is look stupid.

It's over.

Well, aside the normal old guard/new guard war going on, a 77% chance is nothing close to a lock. In an all or nothing game with a single roll of the dice, a 1-in-4 chance of losing is a huge risk. It's nowhere near pack up and cede the race to Obama territory.

I think that part of the problem here is that any non-statistical pundit will look at any race where both sides have a legitimate shot at winning and call it close to 50/50, because anything more than that implies that the underdog has no shot (which isn't the case in a 77/33 race).

I think that part of the problem here is that any non-statistical pundit will look at any race where both sides have a legitimate shot at winning and call it close to 50/50, because anything more than that implies that the underdog has no shot (which isn't the case in a 77/33 race).

bhaakon loves the ladies

Hurricane October Surprise will carry the ball for Obama, all Romney can do in the interim is look stupid.

It's over.

Does low voter turnout in the states that are most affected by the Hurricane , and also happen to be all solidy Obama have any impact on Swing states like Ohio and Virginia ?

If Voter turnout is low in Ohio and Virginia, does that favor Romney ?

Honest questions.

Also, I picked up on this dynamic the author is talking about right after the first debate when Silver went on Piers Morgan, and Morgan pretty much sneered at him derisively as the interview ended and said "Nate Silver ladies and gentlemen, not nearly as confident as he was a few weeks ago". It was pretty weird and the attitude made me immediately think of the anti saber backlash.

Hurricane October Surprise will carry the ball for Obama . . .

I'm hard pressed to see how approving the states disaster area designations and helicoptering over NJ has any impact.

Speaking of New Jersey, I'm sure people of all persuasions will condemn Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for stiffing a couple of poor working girls.

Speaking of New Jersey, I'm sure people of all persuasions will condemn Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for stiffing a couple of poor working girls.

As long as it's adult women instead of young boys or farm animals. It's getting hard to work up a moral outrage these days.

As long as it's adult women instead of young boys or farm animals. It's getting hard to work up a moral outrage these days.

What about Menendez offshoring jobs that could have gone to Americans?

Seriously though, a Senator that can't get laid in Washington? Without the risk of blackmail?

I think part of the problem, in addition to the left versus right and John Henry versus machine stuff, is that most people really don't understand what a 75% probability means. I often see arguments along the lines "you don't know A will win, and you don't know B will win, so you don't know anything." Only probabilities of 0%, 50%, or 100% are allowed in the discussion.

There’s a slight lead for Mitt Romney in national polls and slight leads for Barack Obama in swing-state polls, and no good way of predicting next Tuesday’s outcome beyond flipping a coin. ...

Way to announce you have no grasp of the subject.

I think that part of the problem here is that any non-statistical pundit will look at any race where both sides have a legitimate shot at winning and call it close to 50/50, because anything more than that implies that the underdog has no shot (which isn't the case in a 77/33 race).

Good to know someone's giving 110%!

I think part of the problem, in addition to the left versus right and John Henry versus machine stuff, is that most people really don't understand what a 75% probability means. I often see arguments along the lines "you don't know A will win, and you don't know B will win, so you don't know anything." Only probabilities of 0%, 50%, or 100% are allowed in the discussion.

There's plenty of this kind of thing even on the site for the Thinking Fan. Silver's 'out on a limb' for having the audacity to say that Obama is 70% to win the election. It's pretty funny. Or sad, depending.

As a resident of Nj I have no idea of menedez's qualifications or accomplishments. I did see him quietly standing in the background while gov Christie and president Obama did their thing in jersey. Seems as a senator he could get laid if he wanted to, but as someone has said, "I don't pay them for sex, in pay them to leave afterwards."

Good to know someone's giving 110%!

That's what the PEDs are for. If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

As a resident of Nj I have no idea of menedez's qualifications or accomplishments. I did see him quietly standing in the background while gov Christie and president Obama did their thing in jersey. Seems as a senator he could get laid if he wanted to, but as someone has said, "I don't pay them for sex, in pay them to leave afterwards."

It not like a notable figure like a senator can just go cruising and expect to remain anonymous, and he's probably too busy to put in the leg work anyway. If he wants to be a world class scuzzball, high priced escorts may be his only realistic choice. The key, as you and others have said/implied, is not to leave them with a motive to talk come forward down the line.

I figure a senator can make an "arrangement" whether or not cash is exchanged is obviously an issue. I happen to know his opponent's name but I would guess I would be in the very small minority. Obviously this late into the election season it would be difficult to "prove" whether the allegations are true or not, but paying for sex isn't an automatic forced resignation (i dont think this changes whether or not he gets reelected).I also have no idea whether or not the governor or the state legislature appoints a new senator in the event that menendez is elected and then resigns, but I guess that could potentially be significant.

It's a crapshoot. What we need is a full campaign season of between 130 and 154 contests between a field of candidates, followed by best-of-7 elimination rounds.

I wonder how sophisticated our Founding Fathers were in setting up the Electoral College? That turns marginal outcomes into all-or-nothing results.

If Voter turnout is low in Ohio and Virginia, does that favor Romney ?

Historically turnout helps Democrats, probably moreso in Ohio than Virginia I would guess. Turnout tends to vary more among the young and the urban, both historically stronger democratic bases. I guesstimate a bigger effect in Ohio because it has two large cities (plus Akron and Toledo aren't small). Virginia is more suburban DC and rural areas. 2004 was a bit of an anomaly in Ohio -- the Dems got great turnout but, somewhat unexpectedly, the Republicans matched them.

But as noted, NY, NJ, etc. are all pretty heavily Obama territory so while low turnout in those states might hurt his total vote count it's unlikely to impact that much on his electoral vote count. Obviously it could be hugely problematic if the feds aren't seen as doing enough to help people.

I knew Bob Menendez early on from some youth/HS-team bowling leagues we were in...and I'm still shocked he ever got his factory-crisp white shirt and eternally pressed black slacks off long enough to have children.

Purdy sucky bowler at the time who supposedly got a lot better by practicing all the time in the single laner under the White House.

Nate Silver going after Joe Scarborough on Twitter right now...

Silver: @JoeNBC: Every bookmaker from Las Vegas to London stands with our assessment of the odds.

Silver: @JoeNBC: If you think it's a toss-up, let's bet. If Obama wins, you donate $1,000 to the American Red Cross. If Romney wins, I do. Deal?

As a longtime Primate, I obviously like to look at things from the saber perspective. But I'm not convinced Nate Silver's model is the right way to do that. As I recall, it did pretty poorly in 2010 as well, in much the same way that it's behaving this year. All year long, national polls indicated a groundswell toward the Republicans, but Silver's model didn't pick it up.

To keep the issue technical rather than partisan, I think Silver's approach is too heavily weighted toward state polls, which show a big discrepancy with the national polls this year (see Sean Trende on the subject).

Conventionally, people think of local elections as being heavily correlated with national elections. A particular state or district will tend to have a consistent offset from the national generic vote, so that if the Democratic ticket gets 50%, then say 52% of the vote in that district will go for a generic Democrat -- plus a little for good candidates, minus a little for bad.

If you take that perspective, a big shift in the national polls should dramatically affect all of the state races, just like a storm surge affects the water level in every block of a city at once rather than each block independently. Going from 2 or 3 up to 2 or 3 down should completely upend the race -- Obama should go from 80% to 20-30%, not 70%.

From what I understand of Silver's model, it is heavily weighted toward the state polls. That's consistent with having Obama as the popular vote leader, as Trende's article suggests, and it's certainly a reasonable approach. But it also leaves you vulnerable to bad data -- polls are taken less often, have smaller samples, and may have weird samples. It also leaves you vulnerable to the possibility that the entire national vote shifts in unison -- first, because the infrequent state polls won't catch it, second because 50 polls moving in unison is very unlikely if you assume that each state is independent of the others.

If you want to incorporate both state and national polls into a consistent model, I think the best way would be to view the state polls as essentially a measurement of the offset from the national polls -- Instead of measuring Obama at 52% and a generic Democrat at 55% when the national average has the generic Democrat at 50%, the poll would really be measuring Obama as three points behind the generic
Democrat in a particular district, plus the generic Democrat as doing 5 points better in that district than in the nation at large. With this method, a three point national shift away from the generic Democrat puts Obama at jeopardy in the district, even if it's been a while since the district was last polled.

If you're going to incorporate large numbers of polls, I think it's very important that either the numbers you're compiling really are independent, or else your method has a way of teasing out the correlations (like, say, a covariance matrix). Treating the states as independent of each other is in my view wrong, and wrong in a way which will likely lead to the kinds of effects Silver is seeing.

From what I understand of Silver's model, it is heavily weighted toward the state polls. That's consistent with having Obama as the popular vote leader, as Trende's article suggests, and it's certainly a reasonable approach. But it also leaves you vulnerable to bad data -- polls are taken less often, have smaller samples, and may have weird samples. It also leaves you vulnerable to the possibility that the entire national vote shifts in unison -- first, because the infrequent state polls won't catch it, second because 50 polls moving in unison is very unlikely if you assume that each state is independent of the others.

1. Nate's model doesn't assume that each state is independent of the others. That's closer to Sam Wang's model. That's why Romney has as large as a 27% or so chance to win on Tuesday.

2. Nate's recent post, discussed in the other thread, points out that state polls have historically been more accurate than national polls, which is why Nate weights them heavily.

I'm hard pressed to see how approving the states disaster area designations and helicoptering over NJ has any impact.

It reminds voters that Romney wanted to drastically scale back federal responsibility for disaster relief, and that the last time his party held the presidency we had Katrina and Brownie and got a preview of this policy in action.

Hurricane October Surprise will carry the ball for Obama . . .

I'm hard pressed to see how approving the states disaster area designations and helicoptering over NJ has any impact.

It may or may not have any direct political impact, but when you've got Obama's handling of the situation rated at 78% positive vs 8% negative (WaPo poll), that's certainly not likely to hurt him with only 5 days to go before the election.

-----------------------------------------------

But as noted, NY, NJ, etc. are all pretty heavily Obama territory so while low turnout in those states might hurt his total vote count it's unlikely to impact that much on his electoral vote count. Obviously it could be hugely problematic if the feds aren't seen as doing enough to help people.

In that same WaPo poll, the federal government's response got a 73% positive - 8% negative rating, with only 1% calling it poor. But gee, I thought "the government" was supposed to be the enemy!

As I recall, it did pretty poorly in 2010 as well, in much the same way that it's behaving this year. All year long, national polls indicated a groundswell toward the Republicans, but Silver's model didn't pick it up.

Nate's model missed the House by a bunch of seats in 2010 - though I believe he beat RCP and Pollster - but he predicted a large Republican wave in the House, just not quite as large as the wave that happened. He was pretty much spot-on in the Senate. "Didn't pick it up" is not a good description.

From what I understand of Silver's model, it is heavily weighted toward the state polls. That's consistent with having Obama as the popular vote leader, as Trende's article suggests, and it's certainly a reasonable approach. But it also leaves you vulnerable to bad data -- polls are taken less often, have smaller samples, and may have weird samples. It also leaves you vulnerable to the possibility that the entire national vote shifts in unison -- first, because the infrequent state polls won't catch it, second because 50 polls moving in unison is very unlikely if you assume that each state is independent of the others.

The reason that Nate's model weights the state polls more heavily is not that he believes the state polls are more accurate. It's that there are more of them. The samples are larger. We have had far more people polled in the last month for state polls than for national polls.

Your argument seems based on the presumption that the national polls constitute a larger n, when in fact they constitute a much smaller sample size.

EDIT: And as has been pointed out, Nate model explicitly treats the states as interdependent based on a presumption of relatively uniform swing.

Nate's recent post, discussed in the other thread, points out that state polls have historically been more accurate than national polls, which is why Nate weights them heavily.

He didn't say that, actually. His model gives equal weight (adjusting for pollster and such) to state and national polls. The state polls only get more weight in the aggregate because there are so many more of them.

(He did say that the state polls have usually been more accurate as predictors of the national popular vote, but he didn't say that's incorporated into his model.)

It reminds voters that Romney wanted to drastically scale back federal responsibility for disaster relief, and that the last time his party held the presidency we had Katrina and Brownie and got a preview of this policy in action.

The beauty is that this particularly loopy part of Romney's agenda was almost certainly forced on him by the Tea Party crazies. It's hard to believe that anyone with Romney's undoubted overall intelligence would ever come to such a position independently, but this is what you get when the most vocal part of your party's base is absolutely deranged.

He didn't say that, actually. His model gives equal weight (adjusting for pollster and such) to state and national polls. The state polls only get more weight in the aggregate because there are so many more of them.

I didn't say he weights them more heavily than national polls.

Speaking of Brownie, he seem to be a legitimate political idiot for having the balls to come out on even remark on the subject, let along taking shots at the current administration while doing so.

The national polls no longer say Romney is leading so there is no longer as big of a disconnect between state and national polls. That is an old news narrative.

As for turnout I doubt it effects Ohio but if it did it would probably favor Obama this time around. The early votes have already been cast and they are solidly for Obama. The day of votes in Ohio went to McCain solidly in 2008 so if there is low voter turnout on the day of the election it would probably mean more to Romney than Obama. But again I doubt the storm will cause lower turnout in any state where turnout would be important to the race for either candidate.

I didn't say he weights them more heavily than national polls.

True, my bad.

To quibble, you did that the historically greater accuracy of state polls is why he weights them heavily, and he didn't say that. He weights all the polls evenly as a methodological thing, as a poll aggregator.

I should say, in response to Zach, that 2010 shows at a minimum the extent to which it's possible for a model/aggregator like 538 (or Pollster or RCP) to be wrong, and if the polls and the aggregation of the polls are off this year by as much as they were in 2010, that could easily lead to a solid Romney victory. Silver's model is giving Romney something like a 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 shot, and those are things that happen all the time. That's the Royals beating the Yankees, that's Omar Infante getting a hit off of Jake Westbrook, that's any number of things that wouldn't surprise us terribly at all if they came to pass in the baseball season.

Obama up 6 in nbc iowa poll...

I know Romney supporters herr are confident, but at some pojnt dont you want to see Romney up in some battleground polls somewhere outside of Florida and Nirth Carolina?

I'm on Team Gay Stats Wizard, but shouldn't Nate be giving Scarborough odds on a Romney victory? Making a straight up bet reinforces the false impression that his spreadsheet thinks Obama is a sure thing.

EDIT: the more I think about it, I think offering this bet was a bad idea by Nate. It's unprofessional, it doesn't reflect the current impression of the 538 formula, and it dilutes the perception that Nate is objective about the election's ultimate result.

Winner: doesn't matter
Losers: American people, and lots of people in the Middle East

To quibble, you did that the historically greater accuracy of state polls is why he weights them heavily, and he didn't say that. He weights all the polls evenly as a methodological thing, as a poll aggregator.

Right. He weights them heavily. 50% is a heavy weight. He also doesn't weight all the polls evenly -- those with a better track record get greater weight. He also has variables reflecting things like economic fundamentals. Silver is more than simply a poll aggregator.

1. Nate's model doesn't assume that each state is independent of the others. That's closer to Sam Wang's model. That's why Romney has as large as a 27% or so chance to win on Tuesday.

Could you repost it here? I couldn't find a good explanation on his site.

2. Nate's recent post, discussed in the other thread, points out that state polls have historically been more accurate than national polls, which is why Nate weights them heavily.

Historical accuracy is an unsophisticated way to think about this issue. There are only a few points to look at, and the methods and circumstances of polling change regularly.

The general problem of consolidating several different polls is tricky. Technically, you shouldn't even try to "weight polls" -- you should create a new "poll" that combines the different samples. In principle, if you're consolidating the state polls correctly, you should agree with the national result. If you want to do it right, you're probably going to have to spend some time talking to real statisticians, or else work it out as a pure math problem. Trying to weight different polls or to apply fudge factors based on limited histories is asking for trouble.

I don't think the storm matter much either way for the election. Especially once Dick Morris weighed in.

Regarding polls and Nate's method, I suspect that his model works better for Presidential elections than House elections, largely because there is much more data (many house races are only sparsly polled.

I really like that Nate is going in on his model. Good for him to stick up for it, I think you should be willing to risk a bit of pride if you believe in something.

Every bookmaker from Las Vegas to London stands with our assessment of the odds.

There are no bookmakers in Las Vegas giving odds on the presidential election. Well, at least no legal ones. Taking bets on the outcome of elections is illegal in all of the United States.

In principle, if you're consolidating the state polls correctly, you should agree with the national result.

No. In principle, you should treat state and national polls as evidence of the state of the national race and project the result based on the aggregate. There is no good reason to dismiss the evidence of the state polls if the state and national polling diverge.

Could you repost it here? I couldn't find a good explanation on his site.

The archiving at the NYTimes site really sucks. This is from the FAQ on Nate's old site:

Fourthly, we simulate the election 10,000 times for each site update in order to provide a probabilistic assessment of electoral outcomes based on a historical analysis of polling data since 1952. The simulation further accounts for the fact that similar states are likely to move together, e.g. future polling movement in states like Michigan and Ohio, or North and South Carolina, is likely to be in the same direction.

at some point dont you want to see Romney up in some battleground polls somewhere outside of Florida and North Carolina?

He's not up in North Carolina by much, if at all; the recent polls have been showing the race as a statistical tie, more or less. Obama's team has been working the state really, really hard the past couple of weeks. Obama's actually being helped, in a somewhat perverse way, by the fact that Pat McCrory has a huge lead in the governor's race; that's likely to depress Republican turnout.

Early voting always favors the Democrats, because (a) they push their base to vote early and (b) a larger portion of their base falls into the category of people likely to be working on Election Day and thus with a larger interest in voting early. This year - at least in NC - their advantage is smaller than it was four years ago.

We are seeing two things happening, neither of which I like: (1) more aggressive campaigning at the polls, including an increase in voter challenges and (2) more misinformation being spread about the voting process. Apart from the usual tactics (Republicans vote on Tuesday, Democrats on Wednesday), we're starting to see a trend of people being told that they have to have ID if they want to vote early (only true if you are not already registered), that you can register and vote on Election Day (incorrect, that's true only during early voting), that they can vote anywhere in the state on Election Day (true, but they'll have to cast a provisional ballot if they are outside of their home precinct - a process which tends to irritate registered voters when they've been told they can just go ahead and vote anywhere), and so forth.

As an election judge, my advice to registered voters is that if you aren't sure what to do, ask one of us. That's why we are there.

-- MWE

I'm on Team Gay Stats Wizard...

Winner!

I am surprised that this article doesn't mention the Rasmussen Polls. They had been nearly all in the Romney column. Rasmussen called 2004 & 2008 extremely well. I would say there's an element of zero-sum between Silver & Rasmussen in this election as well.

According to Rasmussen 16% of white democrats now support Romney.

Rasmussen called 2004 & 2008 extremely well.

Rasmussen did well both years, but it was only after 2008 that Rasmussen's results started to diverge from the national consensus. In 2010, their divergence led them to be among the least accurate pollsters in the country. They could be right this year, of course, but in the only recent election where Rasmussen diverged from the national consensus, he called things quite wrong.

According to Rasmussen 16% of white democrats now support Romney.

That sounds perfectly in the range of correct to me. There are always some crossover voters, and on top of that, lots of Southern whites still identify as "Democrats" but were never going to vote for Obama.

Rasmussen tends to overstate Republican support, just as PPP tends to lean the other way.

-- MWE

No. In principle, you should treat state and national polls as evidence of the state of the national race and project the result based on the aggregate. There is no good reason to dismiss the evidence of the state polls if the state and national polling diverge.

If your only interest is in the bottom line result, you can certainly do this. But you will find yourself exposed to all sorts of nasty surprises when your assumptions turn out to be overly optimistic.

Comparing the aggregate state results to the national results is a way of testing your aggregation process. It helps you make sure that you're doing the aggregation right. Then, once you're sure you're doing it right, you find the aggregate.

It's like debugging a computer program. If you have two measurements of the same quantity, you test to make sure they agree with each other. If they don't agree, that helps you figure out how to do it better next time.

Speaking of New Jersey, I'm sure people of all persuasions will condemn Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for stiffing a couple of poor working girls.

Sounds like the guy who was hosting and/or touting for Melendez might have been the one who actually slipped out from under the bill. It amounts to the same thing for the ladies, of course. Cheating hookers is bad karma, and really stupid to boot if you're a public figure.

I don't really care about the prostitution itself because a) it's legal in the DR as long as you don't work through a pimp and b) Melendez is divorced and not really a "family values" candidate, so there isn't an obvious hypocrisy angle. I think it's skeevy and sort of off-putting to think about someone like him having sex with anyone under any circumstances, but that's not really his fault.

I guess he might be in trouble for accepting improper benefits. I'm not sure what the law is on that, re: personal services.

In a world where David Vitter remains a heartthrob among "family values" voters and taxpayers foot the bill for Callista Gingrich's healthcare, who cares about Melendez?

EDIT: the more I think about it, I think offering this bet was a bad idea by Nate. It's unprofessional, it doesn't reflect the current impression of the 538 formula, and it dilutes the perception that Nate is objective about the election's ultimate result.

Agreed on this and your odds comment (if he 'must' do it).

As an election judge, my advice to registered voters is that if you aren't sure what to do, ask one of us.

What does that entail? I've thought about volunteering to help w/ my local elections board but have yet to do so.
Anyway, I'd be very surprised if Romney didn't carry NC.

Rassmussen is historically and consistently right-leaning in its polling, and has been all year.

There are no bookmakers in Las Vegas giving odds on the presidential election. Well, at least no legal ones. Taking bets on the outcome of elections is illegal in all of the United States.

I guess that's why the law abiding Romney is always putting his money offshore.

It's like debugging a computer program. If you have two measurements of the same quantity, you test to make sure they agree with each other. If they don't agree, that helps you figure out how to do it better next time.

You're treating a social science problem as a math problem, I think. Measuring public opinion is fraught with errors. Measuring public opinion and then weighting this opinion based on likelihood of voting is even harder. There's no reason to expect in public opinion polling, even with extremely large n's, that two measurements of the same quantity will perfectly converge. It's not necessarily a bug in the program if you get divergence. That's the nature of complex human events.

It could simply be that the two measurements aren't the same. There's no way to know, in advance of the election, which measure is right. (In the past, the state measurement has been somewhat more accurate, but not by a large amount and we're only looking at a small number of very different and differently polled elections.) Given that we don't and can't know which measurement is correct, the best choice is to aggregate the two via the best available methods.

In a world where David Vitter remains a heartthrob among "family values" voters and taxpayers foot the bill for Callista Gingrich's healthcare, who cares about Melendez?

Real Americans. And they are appalled!