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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Come next Tuesday night, we’ll get a resolution (let’s hope) to a great ongoing battle of 2012: not just the Presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but the one between the pundits trying to analyze that race with their guts and a new breed of statistics gurus trying to forecast it with data.
In Election 2012 as seen by the pundits–political journalists on the trail, commentators in cable-news studios–the campaign is a jump ball. 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. ...
Bonus link: Esquire - The Enemies of Nate Silver
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I'd say that they should put that money into down ticket races, but since the money would have gone to candidates I wouldn't vote for, I'm glad they didn't.
This is silly. With coolstandings we know for a fact what the team's lead is. But with Nate's system we don't know for a fact what Obama's lead is. That's the entire problem, Andy.
The Red Sox may be up by 5 games with 7 to play and still lose, but we know for a fact that they were up by 5 games (or whatever). There is no chance that they were "only" up by 2 games, unlike with Nate's situation where there is bias in the polling data and so Obama might not really be up by this much. There is no bias in the AL standings; as Brian McNamee would say, they are what they are.
You don't know the quality of the present Red Sox roster or the quality of their opposition's roster. Nor do match-ups get considered (e.g. Verlander's starting or a LH starter is going against a LH-heavy lineup). So, yeah, you've got a real number to start with, but converting that number into something more tangible -- the percentages -- requires educated guesses and adjustments on those guesses.
He does half the work for them for free!
He has a section on the right called "Return on Investment Index". It's maximum vote power based on affecting electoral college results.
Throw in a media size/cost index, and they should be able to figure out pretty quickly where to spend the money.
I would be VERY surprised if someone in Silver's milieu doesn't make some big bucks running those numbers in 2016.
I'm not 100% sure I'm on board with this argument. If no Republicans joined Obama, aren't the Republicans the ones not being bipartisan?
Regardless of what the answer is to this, it doesn't change the fact that Obama promised to be bipartisan and wasn't.
No, there was this evanescent wormhole somewhere in the last four years that he should have taken advantage of to shortcut the process and solve all the problems.
That's only if you define "bipartisan" as "promises not to do anything to which the other side objects."
I don't think you know who or where you are, Morty Stockdale. The editorial I quoted above was from the News, not the Post. The News is not some rightwing paper; they slant left. And they endorsed Obama in 2008.
RCP has Maine Obama +11.5. Even in the poll you quote ("a poll conducted last week for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram") he's up by 7%.
But that poll most likely is not gospel - RCP has it at O+11.5.
The sea change was the endorsement of Obama, not this one of Romney.
This has vaulted to the top of most awesomely nonsensical Ray responses ever.
See, this is why I try not to pay too much attention. It's easy to get way too invested.
And my point was that the particular reason given doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Hey, a lot of people and organizations who in 2008 were sufficiently frightened by what loomed supported Obama who wouldn't have otherwise. Now it is otherwise. The question has always been whether he can retain enough of those sort of fairweather (foulweather) friends.
That still wouldn't bode that well if a lot of people think that way.
2008: Obama 58, McCain 40.
That one poll: Obama 49, Romney 42, undecided 6.
Yes, Obama dropping 9 points isn't good. But Romney only picking up 2 isn't anything to get excited about. And of course, that's just one poll.
Not really, they endorsed: Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Bush, Obama, Romney. But there's very little chance the Daily News endorsement is going to affect any votes that matter.
ME: 55-42
MN: 52-45
WA: 58-37
There hasn't been any recent polling in Maryland that I could find, but over the summer the polls were good.
As the Supreme Court once was fond of pointing out: that's a truism.
Not really, they endorsed: Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Bush, Obama, Romney.
Well I'll be damned. I stand corrected.
This is funny. "Johnny Sycophant" a.k.a. "Johnny Temporary" has spent months bashing me as a "troll" and a "poll truther" for daring to question the polls and Nate's vaunted model, and Johnny did so again in his 12:24 PM comment today (#1446). Then, just five minutes later, he predicted an election that's 78 percent closer than Nate is projecting, with Obama not even reaching 50 percent. What a clown show.
I don't expect Romney to win Maine, but today's poll is additional evidence of the nationwide shift away from Obama to Romney.
If you take away the hyper-partisan PPP poll, there have been only two or three polls of Maine since September, and Obama is underperforming 2008 by almost 10 points. The idea that Romney has made major gains from coast to coast except in Ohio is one of the great leaps of faith being made by the people banking on Nate's model.
***
On a related topic, it seems like a lot of the Nate defenders haven't posted their election predictions yet. Maybe they're just too spread out in this thread and there have been more than it seems (?).
Hey, I did mine! Although I put very little thought into it and will be surprised if I'm particularly accurate.
As someone already said, nobody anywhere, here especially, has said Obama is doing better than 2008. They're saying he's still doing better than Romney.
Somebody ask for a prediction? Here's mine: http://www.270towin.com/2012_election_predictions.php?mapid=bgcd
It'd be cool if we had an electoral college prediction thread/contest.
So you're going with your gut?
This is not true. And the race really isn't all that close. It's only close if you avoid/discredit large amounts of data.
To call a race where every national poll is within the margin of error, and most are dead heats, "not close" is just partisan foolishness.
Unlike baseball the games (polls) in April don't count as much as those in Nov., they don't count at all.
Last week:
Northeast: O +9
Midwest: O +6
South: R +9
West: tied
This week:
Northeast: O +21
Midwest: O +4
South: R +8
West: O +8
I only took a quick look, but today's seems to be a D+7 or D+8 sample. I doubt we'll see that on Tuesday.
Actually, any poll of Maine that doesn't split the congressional districts is silly, by definition. (I can see Obama leading by only 7 in ME-2.)
EDIT: I see from reading TFA that Obama does in fact lead ME-2 by 7, but also has a 7-point statewide lead. One of those figures is probably wrong; ME-2 is a lot more conservative than ME-1.
Ray, I agree with you (as I said somewhere way upthread), but mostly because that percentage chance is an unhelpful way of describing what might happen in an event that only happens once. But it's a familiar exercise: you take the World Series and you run 10,000 simulations of it, and in 83% of them the Giants win, or whatever. The single result of the actual World Series doesn't invalidate the simulation in the slightest, because there's still a die-roll chance of the 17% turning up. As Andy implies in #1489, if Nate was able to analyze 10,000 2012 Presidential elections, we'd have a good shot at seeing how often he was right, and thus to make more sense of the number. But that "percentage chance" of a unique event going one way or another is a kind of a conceptual stunt. It looks nice on the home page, but it's not very meaningful.
Put another way, let's say the betting line on Foreman beating Ali in Zaire was roughly the same as that for Obama beating Romney, in the 538 model. (It wasn't far off, actually). We don't know now whether the bettors were foolish or if Ali's victory represented his one side of the die turning up. We won't know the same Wednesday for the 538 betting line, no matter who wins. But who cares? trying to evaluate betting odds ex post facto is a game for either dreamers or professional gamblers. And there aren't enough Presidential elections to bet on to make your living by gambling on them.
I think Nate's more important contribution, by far, is the fascinating state-by-state essays he writes, and the amount of historical and demographical thought that goes into his blog. Whether the 5-1 shot or the 1-5 shot comes in, that analysis tells us something interesting. But it's not very soundbitey.
If there were no polls of individual states, it would be a dead heat. But there are polls of individual states, and ignoring them because they aren't favorable to your preferred candidate is just partisan foolishness.
The only way we can say the race is an unknown and either can win is if you assume that all the polls are wrong and there error isn't random but biased against Romney. You can't simply argue that the results are within the margin of error you have to argue that the difference between the two is small and that they are biased against Romney. Is that what you are arguing?
Joe, have you or any of the other skewed party ID folks on the right ever provided a rebuttal to this column from Gallup?
The Recurring -- and Misleading -- Focus on Party Identification
This and Romney's Mormonism sliding off them like water off a duck's back leads me to think that no matter what Obama comes up with they are going to be against it. In fact, maybe their contrariness should be tested. If Obama comes out for doing away with Social Securityand Medicare, the Republicans will probably push for higher taxes and benefits and a universal health coverage sysem a la France. They just want to win--nothing of substance means anything to them. They have no principles. Only winning matters. They are totally defined by what they view as the "Other."
Th Pew # is interesting and buttresses my optimism a bit. Pew also had the electorate as 52 to 30 in expecting an Obama win which is a good indication of support/enthusiasm. That said, what did you all make of the close #'s Reuters had, including Romney up in Colorado and the only 3 point spread PPP had in Wisconsin? #'s like that make me think this is going to be a nailbiter. Has Reuters/Ipsos had a lean one way or the other?
He isn't arguing. He's closing his eyes, sticking his fingers in his ears, and saying, "La la la la la!"
We can discuss polling methodology all day, but the issue boils down to one very simple question: Do you, or do you not, believe the 2012 electorate will be as Dem or more Dem than 2012?
If you do, fine. But if you don't, then there's nothing you can do but question such poll results.
...and have!
It's not really "nonsensical," insofar as it makes sense if you operate under a dumb definition of "bipartisan" (i.e., thou shalt not push through any legislation to which the other side objects in lockstep, even [or especially!] when their lockstep opposition has been telegraphed far in advance.**). It's just, well, dumb.
**The people who criticize Obama for "not being bipartisan" are typically the same people who like to point out his "squandered two-year filibuster-proof Senate/congressional majority" as a basis for arguing that Obama didn't get enough done. Of course, the first argument is BS, the second is concern-trolling (they didn't actually WANT Obama to get anything done), and the two arguments are, to put it mildly, in tension with each other.
Anyway, what's up in Missouri? Is Dr. Akin going to win?
The new Bob Woodward book seems to offer a different view that isn't funny at all.
Perhaps, but as noted elsewhere in the thread, "independent" /= "moderate" or "middle of the road." (The set of "independent" voters inclues those people but isn't defined by them.) Some "independents" label themselves thusly because they're to the right of the Republicans (or so they think). (Yes, I'm sure some indies run the other direction, to the left of the Dems, but I'm thinking they're outnumbered by "independent" tea party types. Whether Obama wins "independents" or not, fact remains a lot of those voters are Republicans in tea party drag.)
There's no evidence for this in the party affiliation studies that have been done over the past several election cycles. If anything, far more Dems have defected to the "independent" column.
He's only led in one October poll, but it's close. He's pretty much down 4. Definitely one to watch on Tuesday.
The tea party hasn't been around for "the past several election cycles."
Then they're obviously biased.
EDIT for clarity
(That's a joke btw)
" the fact that u respond to tweets shows you aren't a legit polling company. Gallup wouldn't respond to a tweet."
A PPP tweet. Ha, interns!
More worrying, they have New Hampshire as 50-48 for Obama. That seems like a tossup now considering PPP's leaning.
* - Like Arcata, CA - which, when I lived there, had the nation's only GP-majority Council.
Doesn't matter. GOP party ID has been stable for several cycles, while Dem party ID has declined.
Back in reality, from exit polls:
Year Dem Rep1992 38 35
1996 40 35
2000 39 35
2004 37 37
2008 39 32
Where is this Dem ID declining? But, remember Gallup's dismissal of the Party ID people:
I was going to say something similar to this. I would say that NH is the least important swing state (no offense to NH'ers) in that it's probably the most idiosyncratic. If Ohio shifts, that has implications for PA, MI, WI, IA. If CO moves, that could have implications for NV. But NH is just sort of its own thing. In 2004, it was the only state to shift OUT of Bush's column. That, and it's pretty small in terms of Electoral votes.
Now show us the numbers for 2010 and 2012. (I've linked them several times.)
Battleground 48-48
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/rooting-intersection-football-politics-keep-redskins-rule-mind-213658972--nfl.html
There are no exit polls for 2012, and everyone (including you) knows the electorate looks very different in midterm elections than it does in presidential elections.
I know a guy who set his fantasy football lineup as the Redskins would win, in order to get the political outcome he wanted.
Who, by the way, picked it Obama 303, Romney 235 (O 49.1, R 48.3).
He's on my list of public picks.
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