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All of Nate Silver's State-Level Polling Predictions Proved True
kkleiner writes "For the last few months, the political pundit class has been at war with NYT/FiveThirtyEight blogger Nate Silver. Joe Scarborough of MSNBC called him a "joke," while an op-ed in the LA Times accused him of running a "numbers racket." But last night, Silver triumphed: every one of his state-level presidential predictions proved true. "
http://www.xkcd.org/1131/
As Nate Silver pointed out, many times, over the course of the campaign, predicting what will happen one day before the election is easy. Very easy. Most everyone gets that right.
Predicting what will happen in June is hard. And much more interesting.
The only ones who believed the race was a 'virtual tie' were those who had gains to be had by it being so, namely the media.
You can't really prove a probability wrong (unless it's 0% or 100%). While his most likely outcomes played out, it doesn't mean that he would have been wrong if a few of them hadn't.
This actually shows that Silver is poorly calibrated. if he were accurately calibrated, 80% of his 80%-confidence predictions would come true, 50% of his 50%-confidence predictions would come true, etc. But 100% of his >50%-confidence predictions came true. In the future, he should be more sure of his predictions.
GFA/M/S d-- s: a--- C++++ UBL++$ P+ L+++ !E- W++ N+ !o K- w--- !O !M !V PS++ PE Y+ PGP+ t+++ 5- X+ R tv@ b++ DI++++ D+ G
Another possibility is that the Founding Fathers understood just what kind of dumbshits most of "the people" are, and built in some safeguards to allow civilization to survive the inevitable popular vote to shut it down.
Why does Nate get so much attention, when other sites like electionprojection.com and electoral-vote.com do a similar service, are open on their methods and have had almost perfect results for the past two elections. This past election, those two sites only missed on Florida and that one was truly too close to be 90% confident on one way or another.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Too bad the electoral system in the USA is a joke and doesn't represent the vote of the people.
So you wanted Al Gore to be president in 2000?
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
While the possibility of that is certainly true, it is false for this recent presidential election. Not all districts have reported in, but the most recent numbers show that Obama is ahead in the popular vote by a hair under 2.9 million votes.
http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results
I wish people would stop blaming the electoral college. The system is fine. It is the method in which the individual states assign the votes that is the problem. Florida in 2000 wouldn't have been such a big deal if they had distributed the electoral votes by district, rather than winner take all.
Win California by one vote? You get all 55 electoral votes! How stupid is that?
Last minute polls on the last day of the race brought the state to 50 - 50 odds. Given the fact the state is still too close to call two days after the election, Nate seems to have called it no matter which who ultimately gets the electoral votes.
Pundits are there to draw people to a news organization, not provide accurate information. How many people would tune into the election if they said "Obama's got this one in the bag" (which we've known ever since Romney was nominated). Of course they will say you don't know who's going to win! Otherwise no one will watch their show.
There's only one President, and the guy with the most votes cast for him is there.
How is this NOT representative?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I've never seen the unskewedpolls site before, but it is funny. The take a Rasmussen poll which have consistently skewed toward Republicans in the past two elections, accuses it of liberal bias and then insists on changing the Rasmussen result by 3 points in favor of Romney. Only then can it say that Rasmussen has predicted a Romney win. This would be like the KKK having a bias in favor of black men.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
As opposed to the alternative? Jesus Fucking Christ, yes.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
It does tend to over-represent smaller states. This was somewhat intended, but as one analyst on Tuesday put it, "Should an electoral vote in Wyoming, that represents 130,000 people be equal to an electoral vote in California that represents over 600,000 people."
David Brooks gave an interesting response, he said that the electoral system forces the candidates to make an effort to play somewhat to the middle. Without the electoral system, Barack Obama would have campaigned heavily in California to get the liberal count up there. Mitt Romney would have campaigned heavily in Texas to instigate the conservative vote. The result was that they needed to go to places that weren't exactly on their side and try to convince them. They were forced to answer questions that both sides wanted to hear an answer to, rather than just their base. (I dare say most people haven't been pushing for real answers, but that's another issue altogether)
The result of the vote is that he won. The result of the electoral vote is that he won.
This is pretty much the textbook definition of whining about something that doesn't matter in the slightest.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The Electoral College system was never meant to represent "the will of the people". The House of Representatives is supposed to represent the will of the people. The presidency and the Senate had entirely different purposes and mandates.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This could be framed another way; that is, "swing states" are the only ones the candidates care about. The rest of us are taken for granted.
Yes! Given what a disaster Little Bush turned out to be it Al Gore would probably have been a significant improvement.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
You're just rationalizing. The reason only landowners could vote was an artifact of the historical evolution of political power in England. When the Normans invaded England, they handed out perpetual land tenures to their supporters. This directly led to the Magna Carta, which locked in the landed gentry's rights when the dynasty tried too hard to centralize power. This resulted in a devolution of political power, somewhat unique in Europe.
This notion that only landed white men could hold political power wasn't something that was thought through. It just _was_, like the idea that only opposite-sex couples could marry. Only when society changed and challenged the convention did people _invent_ rationales for keeping or changing the status quo.
Also, women were able to hold and own property in their own right long before the American Revolution. Likewise for blacks. As far as I can tell, the idea that women were only fit ruling the household, while men ruled in the community can at least be traced back to Athens. The Athenians used to make fun of the Spartans, who let their women cavort outside the household, and participate in all sorts of "manly" things.
Not stupid at all. The USA is a federation of states. Each state decides which candidate it supports for the federal Chief Executive.
It's as stupid as going with votes by district.
Win each district by one vote? You get all the votes, and hence all the states and the election! How stupid is that?
This needs to be stated as clearly as possible, because it is one side of the greatest flaw in first-to-the-finish voting.
The more districts where the votes are aggregated, the less of the popular vote you need to win.
The more (plausible) options there are on a vote, the less of the popular vote you need to win.
Take a second and read that again. Now I'll explain
First, a district example.
Let's say you have only 1 district, two candidates, and a million people in this imaginary nation. You get 500,001 votes, you're the new president. It's pretty straightforward, and you clearly have the popular vote, if only barely.
Now, let's say we still have 1 million people and two candidates, but we have 10 districts of 100,000 each. To win a district, you need 50,001 votes. To become president, you need 6 districts. Do the math and you only need 300,006 votes to win. While you may have the popular vote, it's not necessary to win.
Now, the candidate example.
Let's say you have only 1 district, two candidates, and a million people in this imaginary nation. You get 500,001 votes, you're the new president. It's pretty straightforward, and you clearly have the popular vote, if only barely. (Yes, it's exactly the same as above.)
Now, let's ay we still have 1 district and one million people, but we have 10 candidates. Given an unrealistically tight race, you could win with only 100,001 votes. Practically, you'd need more than that. How much more? Well, that depends on how close the candidates are in popularity.
So there you have it. If you think popular vote is the most reasonable way to choose the president (which is NOT the model the US uses), you want fewer districts and candidates, or you want to stop using first-to-the-finish voting.
Also, if you combine the two elements above, many districts and many candidates, the percentage of the popular vote required to become president becomes even lower. For a handy real-world example, see Canada.
For the conspiracy theory lovers out there, a nation in the state listed above with a lax immigration policy is a ripe target for a peaceful invasion. Immigrate enough people to become a third of the population in a third of the districts, wait until they have voting rights, have them vote for who they want to be in charge, and the government is yours. This may be easier if you make a new party for this purpose as it dilutes the voter power of those who aren't voting in concert to overthrow the current government. That's right, 4 million people, good planning, dedication, and 5 to 10 years, and a nation the size of Canada could have a peaceful revolution. Conspiracists, you may start to spin your tinfoil hats!
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
I applaud Nate's effort to use mathematics to effectively make fools of all the talking head "pundits" in the media. I have followed him since 2008 and am looking forward to many more years of his work. I hope he continues to be successful in the future.
The electoral system causes presidential candidates to entirely ignore EIGHTY PERCENT of the population. Does that sound right to you? I think it is perfectly reasonable for a candidate to spend a lot of time in California, Texas, New York, and Florida. Because that's where most of the constituents are.
It doesn't ignore eighty percent of the population. It does precisely what it was intended to do -- ignore the entire population.
Electing the president, in the US, is done by the electors associated with the states, not by the people. That's just like how a Prime Minister is elected by the MPs in the UK, or most other elected officials. Why? Because the population is a bunch of morons who aren't qualified to pick a leader.
The fact that you can vote for anything other than positions associated with your state is a tradition the states created, but was *not* the intent of the founders of the US. Go read the 12th amendment -- you may be surprised what it contains, if you haven't. There is absolutely nothing about the people voting for the President, and there was no intention for that to be the case.
The US was founded under the belief that voters needed to be educated, and best understood their local issues, and the people elected in the states had the job of understanding the broader issues. But no one seems to actually learn about the structure of the US government or the reasons why it was carefully structured as it was anymore.
The thing that is messed up in the US isn't that a handful of voters in swing states are picking the president, its that the teeming masses of mouth breathers no matter where they live have any say in it. We've cut out the layers of indirection that were put in place explicitly to keep a more stable central government.
He was way too liberal. Kept talking about helping the poor and ran on a very anti-war platform.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
David Brooks gave an interesting response, he said that the electoral system forces the candidates to make an effort to play somewhat to the middle.
David Brooks is completely wrong about this. For instance, I'm in Ohio, the swing state that everyone was focused on for months. Here are some of the appeals I got in my mailbox and on billboards:
- Obama is actually the son of a convicted drug dealer and a porn actress, not a Kenyan. And he's been lying about his name the whole time.
- Voter fraud is a felony (but only in neighborhoods that are mostly poor and black).
- Any kind of increase in taxes will cause the economy to collapse.
- Social Security should be abolished.
Tell me exactly how that forces candidates to appeal to the center.
I am officially gone from
That's half a million voters whose votes basically did not count, and THAT is why the electoral college system is a problem.
Nowhere in the constitution or the intentions of the founders of the US is there anything saying the opinion of the voters SHOULD count towards who is President. In fact, they explicitly set it up to ensure they *didn't*.
The president is the CEO of the US, and the states are the board of directors. You don't see employees of corporations voting for their CEO. Why? Because the vast majority of employees aren't qualified to determine who would make a good CEO.
I'm saying your suggestion has the exact same flaws as the current system...
Current system: California gives all 55 EVs to Obama despite nearly 40% of the state/districts wanting Romney.
District system: California give rougly 35 EVs to Obama and 20 EVs to Romney, which is roughly in line with how the electorate voted.
You use this phrase 'exact same', but I'm not sure you understand what it means.
...and won't make people feel any less disenfranchised.
I think those people that voted for Romney who now see their vote having some effect on the outcome of the election would strongly disagree with you.
Side A wins 51% of the (states/districts/electoral votes) by 1 percent.
Side B wins 49% of the same category by a landslide.
Now do you see the problem? This kind of bullshit is why Gerrymandering exists; you district your populations so that the districts you can't possibly win (less than, say, 45% support in the last election) lose all of your supporters, and move those supporters over to other (adjacent) districts that your party actually has a chance at (say, 49% support before). Now, assume everybody votes the same way they did before. The first district still ends up with the same winner-take-all result, but by 80% instead of 55%. The second through nth districts change from one side winning by a little to the other side winning by a little... resuling in a landslide victory (by winner-take-all district) for your party, even though the popular vote is *still* against you.
The only differences at the presidential levels are A) you can't Gerrymander states (not practically), and B) low-population states receive disproportionate votes.
A) is dealt with by focusing on appealing to one swing state (very close to an even split) at a time, until you're polling at just over 50% there, and then moving to the next. You don't have to win them all, and you don't have to win them by much at all.
B) is the only reason the candidates bother to compaign in the "flyover" states at all, not that which way Colorado or Montana or Idaho were going to break actually impacted anything in this particular election. It sure did in 2000, though. I understand small states have a disproportionate vote, but I still think it's stupid.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Note that a consequence of this is that district-level gerrymandering, which already produces disproportionate congressional delegations, would then also produce disproportional EVs from state. That is, Ohio, a 51/49 state, would have had something like 14 Repub. EVs and then Dems would have had 4.