# 538's %'s vs everybody else's "Tossup" rating **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 13, 2012, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637 "2012-09-13T22:37:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/21 "2012-09-14T00:07:24Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Nothing. Go to the 538 site and look at the Tipping Point States: “The probability that a state provides the decisive electoral vote.” Virginia is ranked #4. It’s a tossup. I think you’re confusing two concepts here. Imagine that you laid all the states out on a 538-unit-long number line, from the most certain Romney state at one end, to the most certain Obama state at the other end, with each state taking up as many units along the line as it has electoral votes. You don’t really _know_ what the right order is, but Nate’s saying that Virginia has a better chance than all but three other states of straddling the 269-unit mark. That doesn’t mean it’s a tossup. If Obama is expected to win by 330-208, for instance, the tossup states will be close to the 330-unit mark, counting from Obama’s end towards Romney’s. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/22 "2012-09-14T00:44:57Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I agree though that 538’s odds are a bit on the high side, as they are based on historical data and therefore do not reflect Citizens United, 2012 Voter Suppression, or the tsunami of Super Pac cash backed by special interests. 538 absolutely does reflect possible voter suppression in 2012. Nate has written extensively about how he has figured the various voter ID laws, and their effect on turnout, into his model. The bottom line is that he predicts a 1-2% advantage for Romney in certain states based on voter suppression, and has included that information in his predictions for those states. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/23 "2012-09-14T01:48:17Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I think you’re confusing two concepts here. > > Imagine that you laid all the states out on a 538-unit-long number line, from the most certain Romney state at one end, to the most certain Obama state at the other end, with each state taking up as many units along the line as it has electoral votes. Yes, I’m confusing ordinal and cardinal. Ignorance fought. In House races, “Lean” means 86% chance of victory, while Likely implies 95% chance of victory. Tossup implies 50-50 in aggregate, though if you think about it that last percentage could disguise a lot of intra-group variation. [http://cookpolitical.com/about/accuracy](http://cookpolitical.com/about/accuracy) FWIW, (86+50)/2 = 68%. I’d say 64% is closer to the “Tossup” category than the “Lean” category. **SpoilerVirgin** : Didn’t know that. I see now that Nate started incorporating voter suppression for selected states in mid July. ## I guess that still leaves Citizens United and Super PACs unaccounted for as well as other wild cards if you believe those aspects favor Romney on average. The OP: Here’s what Charlie Cook thinks about the race: [http://cookpolitical.com/story/4754](http://cookpolitical.com/story/4754) It is becoming clear that if President Obama is reelected, it will be despite the economy and because of his campaign; if Mitt Romney wins, it will be because of the economy and despite his campaign. … This is a very close race and one that still could go either way. But the odds of Romney capitalizing on this economy, and the opportunity it affords, seem lower than they were before the conventions. If Republicans and Romney supporters are growing nervous, they should be. This perspective can be compared to Nate’s after the election. Q1: Internal consistency. Does Nate’s popular vote forecast track with his electoral vote forecast? Because while both suggest “Close race”, the odds forecast does not. ## Q2: Does the Fair Model, once all the data are in (i.e. in Q2 2013), predict an Obama victory or a Romney Victory? If Romney, what percentage point advantage would Obama need? What percentage point advantage did he secure? Incidentally, while he is numerically literate, Charlie Cook has an old school perspective: he seems to think that decomposing the polling data by state is a near-pointless exercise. The national popular vote is a sufficient summary. I’m unconvinced of that, but it’s an interesting hypothesis. Charlie Cook is one of the very few horse race commentators that are worth listening to IMHO. Nate Silver is another. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/24 "2012-09-14T02:01:59Z")
How in the world did he get reliable data on voter suppression? His figures of a 1-2% loss intuitively seem about right, and that was the target of the voter suppression exercise, to trim off enough to win but leave some plausible deniability. But I’m thinking that isn’t really sufficient grounds for what he’s doing, so…where? How he know, huh? I respect his work and am inclined to take him on say-so, but I would still like to know so that the brain itch stops. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/25 "2012-09-14T02:08:01Z")
Here ya go: [Measuring the Effects of Voter Identification Laws - The New York Times](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/measuring-the-effects-of-voter-identification-laws/) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/26 "2012-09-14T03:16:34Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > 1. Silver is a Democrat, but more to the point, and the reason he gets so much respect here, he’s a big honking math nerd. He made his money working with Sabermetrics. It doesn’t get nerdier than that. > > 2. And aside from his nerd cred, Silver’s track record is impressive. It wasn’t partisan wishful thinking that caused Silver to predict 36 of 37 gubernatorial races in 2010, for example. 2 trumps 1. The reason Silver is respected is **because he was absolutely bang on in 2008.** His predictions were BY FAR the most accurate of any mainstream prediction. He nailed pretty much every state within a tiny range of error and predicted every Senate race, and that was after utterly demolishing the established talking heads in predicting primary results. He is respected because he is correct and nobody’s ever shown why he isn’t correct now. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/27 "2012-09-14T03:16:46Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Yes, I’m confusing ordinal and cardinal. Ignorance fought. Hey, that’s what we’re here for. 🙂 > [@](#): > > In House races, “Lean” means 86% chance of victory, while Likely implies 95% chance of victory. Tossup implies 50-50 in aggregate, though if you think about it that last percentage could disguise a lot of intra-group variation. [http://cookpolitical.com/about/accuracy](http://cookpolitical.com/about/accuracy) I personally think that’s terrible nomenclature. First of all, this isn’t really a field where you can use terms of art in a way that are at odds with how most people understand the words being used, because this sort of thing gets a wide audience, rather than being published only in scholarly journals. If a horse goes off as a 1-2 favorite, it’s because most bettors would say it’s likely that the horse would win. If it went off as a 1-5 favorite, people would say it was _extremely_ likely that the horse would win. That’s a 67% chance and an 83% chance of winning, respectively. _That isn’t tossup territory._ And a horse that went off as a 1-20 favorite would be regarded as all but certain to win, not just ‘likely.’ Second, even as terms of art completely divorced from normal usage, the ranges seem badly designed. Nomenclature that lumps everything from a 15% chance to win and an 85% chance to win into the same bucket is failing to make distinctions between things that are very, very different. And then it goes through _two_ categories between 85% and 96%? Sheesh. I mean, here I am, trying to decide which House races to toss some money at, but now that I know what the terms mean, I find that they’re of little use to guide me. OK, it’s good to know that ‘likely’ means ‘extremely, extremely likely’ so don’t waste your money on a race where either candidate is even ‘likely’ to win, and only toss money into a race where it ‘leans’ one way or the other if that race is quite important to you for other reasons. But then pretty much all my money is going to ‘tossups’ that are undifferentiated by this nomenclature, but in order to contribute intelligently, I really need to understand which ‘tossups’ are really tossups, which ‘tossups’ lean a bit one way or the other, and which ‘tossups’ lean pretty heavily one way or the other. But all I know is that they’re all ‘tossups,’ without knowing whether or not they’re tossups or anything close. This rant isn’t aimed at you, **MfM** , you’re just the bearer of the news. But jeez, all these years I’ve been thinking that these words meant something like what they usually mean. And now I find out that they don’t, and in a way that drastically reduces their utility. > [@](#): > > FWIW, (86+50)/2 = 68%. I’d say 64% is closer to the “Tossup” category than the “Lean” category. I don’t get the use of the 50 in ‘(86+50)/2’ but maybe you can fight **my** ignorance there. I’m thinking (86-50)\*2 gives one a width, in probability terms, to the tossup zone, but the other formula, I don’t get its meaning. At any rate, ‘tossup’ to me implies ‘your guess is as good as mine about how this will turn out,’ and even 60-40 either way seems clearly out of that zone. So I’m glad that Nate gives probabilities that I can understand. Wish Nate had a staff that was doing House race forecasts; I really want to spread some money around, but not at random. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/28 "2012-09-14T07:49:31Z")
Silver’s model is pretty solidly predicting an Obama win. This election is definitely going to be a proving ground for his forecasting, because I don’t think he disagreed with the other guys so much in 2008 or 2010. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/29 "2012-09-14T08:18:43Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > First of all, this isn’t really a field where you can use terms of art in a way that are at odds with how most people understand the words being used… I’d take a more charitable view of Charlie Cook. Pundits have blovated for decades, but he was one of the first who was a) numerate and b) had the cojones to actually make some predictions. It was only years after he assembled his methodology that somebody put numbers to his predictions. It turns out that “Lean” means “Likely”, that “Likely” means “95% Safe”, and “Safe” means “Barring a dead body or a live boy”. But his framework was constructed during the 1980s for gosh sakes. It’s not surprising that the calibration was off: what is impressive is that it worked as well as it did. Nate Silver has him beat. But the more qualitative old timers have value too. And not to put a fine point on it but the Washington Press Corps is just pathetic – they are value subtractors. As an example I might take George Will who said with regards to the economy: “\*f the Republican Party cannot win in this environment, it has to get out of politics and find another business.” Snappy line. Wholly ignorant: election year economic growth seems to matter more than the level of the unemployment rate. [And the current trend isn’t too bad](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/09/11/obama_s_election_lead_it_s_because_the_economy_s_doing_well_not_despite_economic_problems_.html). In other words Charlie Cook at least has some familiarity with the basic literature. George Will was just picking superficialities out of the air. ## 2nd Cite: Ray Fair’s “Fundamentals only” model gives Obama 49.5% as of July, which is in “Too close to call” territory, not “Terrible environment”. [Vote-Share Equations: November 2010 Update](http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/vote2012/index2.htm) ## ‘(86+50)/2’ : Back of the envelope calculation: average of the two figures. Very arguable - can be improved on. **adaher** - Actually a lot of people are making probabilistic forecasts now. And most of the models currently favor Obama. **ultrafilter** has pointed out though that scoring these sorts of exercises is a scholarly topic all its own. Imagine running Romney v. Obama in 1000 universes. In ~200 of them Romney wins (if you believe Nate’s model). That’s really not too bad. Romney’s chances of being President are a lot higher than mine or yours. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/30 "2012-09-14T09:30:13Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > … t if your margin of error on that 1 to 2 % is small enough, that could be much more than a 50% chance of victory, especially if your model also predicts that the lead is not likely to diminish between now and election day. This of course is the key point. The house edge on a single baccarat bet is only 50.5 to 49.5; but the chance a given table is profitable at the end of the day is much more than 50.5% 😃 > [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Romney has fallen off a cliff on Intrade. Anybody who doubts 538 could make a boatload of cash betting on the Mittster. Wow! I clicked Intrade now and see that Democratic-Winner has indeed soared from 57% to 64% in a single week. We really need to know which of these gambler’s markets handles the most money – that’ll be the one with the most trustworthy predictions. I wonder if it’s [Betfair](http://sports.betfair.com/politics/market?id=1.21311313&origin=LHMA), mentioned in a recent thread. Clicking it I see Romney has fallen almost 2% there just in two days. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/31 "2012-09-14T09:40:30Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > … [Betfair](http://sports.betfair.com/politics/market?id=1.21311313&origin=LHMA), mentioned in a recent thread. Clicking it I see Romney has fallen [del]almost 2%[/del] there just in two days. … about 2.5%. (I can’t do simple arithmetic anymore. :eek: ) ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/32 "2012-09-14T11:34:58Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Second, even as terms of art completely divorced from normal usage, the ranges seem badly designed. Maybe they’re based on standard error? ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/33 "2012-09-14T19:45:06Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > 2 trumps 1. > > The reason Silver is respected is **because he was absolutely bang on in 2008.** His predictions were BY FAR the most accurate of any mainstream prediction. He nailed pretty much every state within a tiny range of error and predicted every Senate race, and that was after utterly demolishing the established talking heads in predicting primary results. He is respected because he is correct and nobody’s ever shown why he isn’t correct now. If anything, you understated how he did in 2008. He picked 49 of the 50 states in the electoral college and went 35 for 35 in Senate races. Read bias into his predictions at your own peril, people. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/34 "2012-09-14T20:21:01Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Silver’s model is pretty solidly predicting an Obama win. This election is definitely going to be a proving ground for his forecasting, because I don’t think he disagreed with the other guys so much in 2008 or 2010. What I find more interesting is that intrade lagged behind Nate Silver’s big move by more than a couple of days. If they are both shown to predict the electoral outcome pretty well and Nate Silver precedes intrade, then that implies that his views are superior to the conventional betting wisdom.\* Or that some of Romney’s minions have their thumb on the scale and that the saavy can take advantage of that. Or both. - What’s even more impressive is that intrade _did_ move contemporaneously with 538, albeit to a less than one-to-one extent. In other words, intrade was aware of 538, but has weighted it less than optimally. So they had to play catch up. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/35 "2012-09-14T20:25:05Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > [Obama leads in Virginia 49-44.](http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/13/13848313-polls-obama-holds-the-edge-in-florida-ohio-and-virginia?lite) > > Mittens is starting to circle the drain. This is one poll. Silver has Obama ahead in Virginia by just under two points. If Silver says one thing and NBC says another, NBC is almost certainly wrong. It’s a close race in Virginia. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/36 "2012-09-14T20:51:27Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > This is one poll. > > Silver has Obama ahead in Virginia by just under two points. If Silver says one thing and NBC says another, NBC is almost certainly wrong. It’s a close race in Virginia. Silver aggregates polls. He doesn’t say any one is right or wrong. And without the original polls he has nothing at all. ---
**Author:** ![twhitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@twhitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twhitt)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/37 "2012-09-14T20:57:26Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > This is one poll. > > Silver has Obama ahead in Virginia by just under two points. If Silver says one thing and NBC says another, NBC is almost certainly wrong. It’s a close race in Virginia. It’s too much to say that this poll is wrong. The poll is accurate to within its margin of error if it shows a 5 point lead and the ‘real’ spread is 2 points. There’s no use overstating the case. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/38 "2012-09-14T22:02:01Z")
> [@Andiethewestie](#): > > The reason Nate Silver is so well respected is he’s accurate, he just doesn’t look a polls but he also looks at trends, tipping points, outliers, and just today we see this > > [On one issue, most Americans agree: They think President Obama will win - CSMonitor.com](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/0913/On-one-issue-most-Americans-agree-They-think-President-Obama-will-win-video) Off topic, but I just had to note this paragraph from your cite: > [@](#): > > According to a new Yahoo/Esquire poll, 57 percent of Americans believe Obama will be the winner, versus just 30 percent who think Romney will win. (The same poll also found that 58 percent believe Obama would beat Romney “in a fistfight,” but that’s fodder for another time…) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/39 "2012-09-15T00:39:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It varies from site to site, but generally speaking when the average of recent poll results are within 4 percentage points of 50% they indicate a toss-up and 4 to 8 points indicate leaning. Are you sure? It seems like tossup should indicate that the prediction is within the margin of error for the poll. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2012, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637/40 "2012-09-15T02:07:04Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Are you sure? It seems like tossup should indicate that the prediction is within the margin of error for the poll. The state of a state is made on the basis of the average of all recent polls. Any individual poll’s margin of error is irrelevant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/538s-s-vs-everybody-elses-tossup-rating/634637.md?page=3)