# Hee-haw, y'all. The 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415 "2018-11-12T17:52:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 51
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1001 "2019-05-05T18:39:48Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Why do people keep analyzing Trump like he is a normal president and not an assclown of epic proportions, orders of magnitude beyond Dubya, the previous all-time recordholder? The suburbs are teeming with married, well educated white people who are doing just fine financially and would be doing fine under any president. They voted Republican all their lives and may go right back to voting that way in 2022. But they will not be voting for Trump, not even if the economy produces eleventy billion more jobs and the stock market octuples. Who did those suburban people vote for in 2016? Yes he is not normal but all that stuff he does now was known about him when he ran and he won anyway. A good chunk of the GOP would vote for Charles Manson for president if Charlie was against abortion and agreed to put anti abortion people on the Supreme court. I know people like that , they protest at the abortion clinic every single week rain or shine. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1002 "2019-05-05T18:47:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Politico Magazine: [Too Many Democrats are Running in 2020, According to Science](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/02/2020-democratic-candidates-226462?fbclid=IwAR3ePthrdkdUfj0SrHf4D0zfmyQ6f_YFDLLq79KT0JNBuGwWunmnrfRUf24) I just saw David Brooks talking about this [on PBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man_o75__68) (at minute 10). He says that he’s worried that given the large number of candidates, the media will act as gatekeepers on who is worthy of attention because there’s not enough time to focus on each one. It’s already pretty evident that the candidates with the most media attention can make others fade. Buttigieg’s rise in media attention came at Beto’s expense. Mark Shields points out that the idea of the media as gatekeepers is a “sobering and unreassuring prospect given the _great_ job we did in 2016.” Right after that, David Brooks gives his opinion that the winner should be someone who has experience in government. . . . playing the gatekeeper role again. The role of media in democracy is becoming more evident. When there were 3 major channels, no one questioned it. Today, I have to wonder about the fairness. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1003 "2019-05-05T21:52:13Z")
The media didn’t drive Buttigieg’s rise in popularity; they chased it. Media is not obligated to give every person who says they are running the same attention. If you are listening to someone in the media offering their analysis and opinions of course you are going to hear opinions. Insisting on all having the same soapbox in the name of fairness would serve us poorly. The answer to the cereal aisle effect is not to discuss every possible choice of puffs or crunch or flake equally. Flake being the most on point one for some of the 0 to 3% ones running! As happened with Buttigieg, if a candidate earns on the ground interest the media will cover, following the interest. That is as it should be. ---
**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:** [May 5, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1004 "2019-05-05T21:56:45Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > barring a big war , if the economy stays good not even Jesus would beat Trump. in recent years Carter and Bush Sr. lost due to a bad economy. Every other incumbent won, most of them easily. A “normal” incumbent would be almost assured of victory with a good eonomy, but Trump is not normal — many people realize he is a criminal doing long-term damage to the country. He will be a strong favorite to be re-elected if the economy is good, _ **but he can be beaten.** _ The election will be decided by the disillusioned workers of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Biden should do well with those voters. Also, perhaps Booker? Maybe Sanders?? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1005 "2019-05-05T22:01:06Z")
“Joe Biden” is Democrat for “Jeb Bush”. (Harry Turtledove) ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1006 "2019-05-05T23:28:53Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > barring a big war , if the economy stays good not even Jesus would beat Trump. in recent years Carter and Bush Sr. lost due to a bad economy. Every other incumbent won, most of them easily. What’s interesting in retrospect with regard to Bush is that the economy had already started growing again during the latter part of the election cycle (1992). It was the rise in unemployment that hurt Bush, but more than that, it was the perception that he was more interested in foreign policy and foreign trade than dealing with people’s economic anxieties. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1007 "2019-05-05T23:41:41Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Why do people keep analyzing Trump like he is a normal president and not an assclown of epic proportions, orders of magnitude beyond Dubya, the previous all-time recordholder? The suburbs are teeming with married, well educated white people who are doing just fine financially and would be doing fine under any president. They voted Republican all their lives and may go right back to voting that way in 2022. But they will not be voting for Trump, not even if the economy produces eleventy billion more jobs and the stock market octuples. History gives us a pretty good indication that incumbents are hard to beat - even incumbents that people don’t necessarily like or relate to. The other thing to remember is that, it’s not just Trump that voters will look at; they’ll look at Trump relative to another candidate, just like they did with Hillary Clinton. That’s one reason why Biden is a potentially risky candidate in a general election, just because there’s some material to work with, and I’m sure he’ll provide more during the campaign if he can survive it. Trump would beat Bernie pretty badly as well, IMO. I could be wrong but something tells me that Trump really fears some of the younger, more energetic candidates. As much as I hate to say it, I don’t think America’s quite ready to vote for an openly gay candidate yet, so I don’t think Buttigige (sp?) would make a good general candidate. I get the feeling that Harris, Booker, and O’Rourke are the potential dark horses here. The question I have in my mind is whether or not they have what it takes to run a national campaign in terms of staff and building an organization. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1008 "2019-05-05T23:52:34Z")
don’t see any way a fossil like Biden or Sanders beats Trump. I don’t see how a guy like Biden who spent his entire career as a politician and never worked a “regular job” is supposed to get the votes of blue collar people who are out of work. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1009 "2019-05-05T23:55:38Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > I just saw David Brooks talking about this [on PBS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man_o75__68) (at minute 10). He says that he’s worried that given the large number of candidates, the media will act as gatekeepers on who is worthy of attention because there’s not enough time to focus on each one. > > It’s already pretty evident that the candidates with the most media attention can make others fade. Buttigieg’s rise in media attention came at Beto’s expense. > > Mark Shields points out that the idea of the media as gatekeepers is a “sobering and unreassuring prospect given the _great_ job we did in 2016.” > > Right after that, David Brooks gives his opinion that the winner should be someone who has experience in government. . . . playing the gatekeeper role again. > > The role of media in democracy is becoming more evident. When there were 3 major channels, no one questioned it. Today, I have to wonder about the fairness. Actually, in some ways, a decentralized media can work to the advantage of campaigns that are savvy enough to use the new technologies. I don’t anticipate Andrew Yang having much of an impact on the race, but even a few years ago, nobody would have even breathed his name. But he’s actually done a pretty good job of using podcasts, YouTube, and other media to at least get noticed. The challenge early on for most of the field will be the same challenge that Bernie Sanders, Tom O’Malley, and Jim Webb had in 2016, which is getting noticed. Bernie was able to do it because he had a radically different posture and he occupied a unique space, and he built a following with the help of some pretty media-savvy people. In any case, if the 2016 GOP primaries are any indication, probably 1/3 of the candidates will run out of money well before the first primary and effectively be removed from the debates and further discussion. Another 30-45% of the contenders will be out within the first few weeks of primary season, though in reality they will have been long since considered finished before that point. By January, we’ll mostly be talking about the top 3 to 5 candidates, which is how it usually works. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2019, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1010 "2019-05-05T23:57:16Z")
I agree that we ideally need a younger and more dynamic candidate. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1011 "2019-05-06T00:38:16Z")
As a bit of side question, has the Bernie camp developed a hate-on for 538/Silver? I was talking to a friend who is, I must admit, kind of a Bernie Bro. He talked about how Silver totally miscalled Sanders’ Michigan primary win and did some shameful apologetics for some recent NYT poll. Thus, Silver is written off as an establishment shill. Is this a common feeling? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1012 "2019-05-06T01:39:36Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > don’t see any way a fossil like Biden or Sanders beats Trump. > > I don’t see how a guy like Biden who spent his entire career as a politician and never worked a “regular job” is supposed to get the votes of blue collar people who are out of work. Trump is 72 and Biden is 76. So Trump is also a “fossil”. And what regular job did trump ever work? He inherited millions. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1013 "2019-05-06T02:03:19Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > As a bit of side question, has the Bernie camp developed a hate-on for 538/Silver? I was talking to a friend who is, I must admit, kind of a Bernie Bro. He talked about how Silver totally miscalled Sanders’ Michigan primary win and did some shameful apologetics for some recent NYT poll. Thus, Silver is written off as an establishment shill. Is this a common feeling? Yes. The only places I see any respect for Nate Silver is here and on MSM. The other day, someone asked Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks if Nate Silver had ever been on TYT. He said no, Nate didn’t want to defend himself. Some people feel that Silver pretends that his opinions are evidence based because it’s based on polls, but it’s still largely biased. I looked up Nate Silver on Reddit and found some major hate in the r/chapotraphouse sub. He gets mentions in other places if he says something favorable to that person, but I don’t see much talk about him anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1014 "2019-05-06T02:30:51Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > Yes. The only places I see any respect for Nate Silver is here and on MSM. The other day, someone asked Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks if Nate Silver had ever been on TYT. He said no, Nate didn’t want to defend himself. Some people feel that Silver pretends that his opinions are evidence based because it’s based on polls, but it’s still largely biased. > > I looked up Nate Silver on Reddit and found some major hate in the r/chapotraphouse sub. > > He gets mentions in other places if he says something favorable to that person, but I don’t see much talk about him anywhere else. Nate Silver has the best track record in terms of election prediction models. I don’t think it’s even close when it comes to data driven election predictions. That doesn’t mean everything he says is golden - he’s made plenty of mistakes when going from data driven analysis to data free talking head punditry. But in terms of data driven election prediction models, he’s head and shoulders above everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1015 "2019-05-06T04:48:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Nate Silver has the best track record in terms of election prediction models. I don’t think it’s even close when it comes to data driven election predictions. That doesn’t mean everything he says is golden - he’s made plenty of mistakes when going from data driven analysis to data free talking head punditry. But in terms of data driven election prediction models, he’s head and shoulders above everyone else. Could I get a source for this? I went searching. I found that he was right about a lot of states in two general elections. He was wrong about Trump, but who wasn’t? I found that he signed an agreement with Obama for exclusive access to his internal polls in 2008. I found that he bases his predictions on a statistical model based on an aggregate of polls that he shares up to a point. That gives me the idea that if the polls aren’t right, he won’t be right either. For instance, the polling was way off for AOC’s primary election. It would have been interesting to see if he would have predicted that. I found this on his [wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver) > [@](#): > > At the conclusion of that day, when Mitt Romney had conceded to Barack Obama, Silver’s model had correctly predicted the winner of every one of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.[79][80] Silver, along with at least three[81] academic-based analysts—Drew Linzer,[82] Simon Jackman,[83] and Josh Putnam[84]—who also aggregated polls from multiple pollsters—thus was not only broadly correct about the election outcome, but also specifically predicted the outcomes for the nine swing states.[85] In contrast, individual pollsters were less successful. For example, Rasmussen Reports “missed on six of its nine swing-state polls” That just gave me the idea that aggregated polls worked better than individual polls, which would make sense. It didn’t give me the sense that everyone else was wrong, and he was right. From that quote, it reads to me like 3 academic analysts got it right as well. I’m not doubting that some people got it way wrong. But a model is only as good as what you put in it. I also [found](https://www.wired.com/2016/11/2016s-election-data-hero-isnt-nate-silver-sam-wang/) that he was twitter feuding with Ryan Grim who is now a reporter with TYT. That could explain at least a piece of the animosity. > [@](#): > > The Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim has been in a very public feud with Silver in recent days over precisely this question of “noisy data.” Grim accused Silver of deliberately skewing his own data at FiveThirtyEight with what amounts to political punditry. Silver fired back on social media with some ugly language. Grim stands by the HuffPost election model. “There’s room to debate where and whether forecasting belongs in our politics and our campaigns,” Grim told me. “But if you’re gonna do it, then you shouldn’t shrink from what the numbers tell you. I’m glad that our team didn’t, even if it scared me along the way.” ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1016 "2019-05-06T06:30:51Z")
You say that as if “aggregated polls” isn’t something that is crafted individually - like they are all the same. But each aggregator chooses weights to assign to different polls when making their scores. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1017 "2019-05-06T09:30:06Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > Could I get a source for this? I went searching. I found that he was right about a lot of states in two general elections. He was wrong about Trump, but who wasn’t? I found that he signed an agreement with Obama for exclusive access to his internal polls in 2008. I found that he bases his predictions on a statistical model based on an aggregate of polls that he shares up to a point. That gives me the idea that if the polls aren’t right, he won’t be right either. For instance, the polling was way off for AOC’s primary election. It would have been interesting to see if he would have predicted that. > > I found this on his [wiki:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver) > > That just gave me the idea that aggregated polls worked better than individual polls, which would make sense. It didn’t give me the sense that everyone else was wrong, and he was right. From that quote, it reads to me like 3 academic analysts got it right as well. > > I’m not doubting that some people got it way wrong. But a model is only as good as what you put in it. > > I also [found](https://www.wired.com/2016/11/2016s-election-data-hero-isnt-nate-silver-sam-wang/) that he was twitter feuding with Ryan Grim who is now a reporter with TYT. That could explain at least a piece of the animosity. He was the only major 2016 model-predictor, IIRC, who gave Trump a significant chance of victory (about a 33% chance, I believe). I don’t have a cite for his track record – I’ve just been following him for over a decade. There are many models that use aggregated polls, but based on the record of these various models, Nate’s is by far the best. This is just my opinion from following him for years. You’re free to disagree. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1018 "2019-05-06T10:04:38Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Nate Silver has the best track record in terms of election prediction models. I don’t think it’s even close when it comes to data driven election predictions. **That doesn’t mean everything he says is golden** - he’s made plenty of mistakes when going from data driven analysis to data free talking head punditry. But in terms of data driven election prediction models, he’s head and shoulders above everyone else. But Nate Silver owns up to it, and he was careful in 2016 to point out that there was a lot of uncertainty in the polls when Sam Wang and his fanboys were making bold predictions. So besides having good data, Silver is also capable of saying “I can’t be completely sure, I am only 60-70% sure” which drives people nuts, but it’s the most credible approach. Silver is, IMO, the most reliable and credible forecaster. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1019 "2019-05-06T10:18:35Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > Could I get a source for this? I went searching. I found that he was right about a lot of states in two general elections. He was wrong about Trump, but who wasn’t? Many of the major polls were actually correct in terms of polling the percentage of the overall popular vote that would go to Clinton. Where they erred, and where Silver was careful to be cautious in his predictions, was in trying to guess how individual states would go. A lot of states had only a handful of polls and it wasn’t clear how accurate they were, which made forecasting extremely difficult in terms of predicting an electoral college delegate total. He was saying pretty much right up until the end that Clinton would probably win, but that there was enough uncertainty in the polling data that made a Trump victory possible. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > I found that he bases his predictions on a statistical model based on an aggregate of polls that he shares up to a point. That gives me the idea that if the polls aren’t right, he won’t be right either. For instance, the polling was way off for AOC’s primary election. It would have been interesting to see if he would have predicted that. He uses polling data and voting history. > [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#): > > I also [found](https://www.wired.com/2016/11/2016s-election-data-hero-isnt-nate-silver-sam-wang/) that he was twitter feuding with Ryan Grim who is now a reporter with TYT. That could explain at least a piece of the animosity. IIRC, Ryan Grim was working with the left-leaning Huffington Post and without any evidence whatsoever attacked Silver for, as he put it, “putting the thumb on the scales” for suggesting that Trump had a 1 in 3 chance of winning. He made an ass of himself and was forced to admit it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415/1020 "2019-05-06T12:25:31Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > … Silver is also capable of saying “I can’t be completely sure, I am only 60-70% sure” which drives people nuts, but it’s the most credible approach… That’s the part that many fail to understand, the [probabilistic nature of the model](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/)and what that means. If a probabilistic model says that there is a 60 to 70% chance of X occurring and X occurs 100% of the time then the model is _not_ very good. The model is excellent if X occurs about 60 to 70% of the time and does _not_ occur 30 to 40% of the time. That’s the “calibration” aspect. The link has a drop down to look at results by sorts of races if interested. He was not wrong about Trump. He was among the few who was highlighting the uncertainty and giving Trump a good chance of winning, noting that the possibility of a Clinton popular vote win and electoral college loss was significant, even though the more probable outcome was a Clinton win. And for those who want to geek out, [here’s](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-fivethirtyeights-2018-midterm-forecasts-did/) Silver critically discussing the model’s mid-terms performance, noting exactly the flaw that while it was accurate it was not calibrated so very well. > [@](#): > > I want to remind you that our forecasts are probabilistic. Not only are our forecasts for individual races probabilistic, but our model assumes that the errors in the forecasts are correlated across races — that is, if one party’s chances were overrated in one race, they’d likely be overrated in many or all races. Because errors are correlated, we’re going to have better years and worse ones in terms of “calling” races correctly. This year was one of the better years — maybe the best we’ve ever had — but it’s still just one year. In the long run, we want our forecasts to be accurate, but we also want our probabilities to be well-calibrated, meaning that, for instance, 80 percent favorites win about 80 percent of the time. > > I say that because we’ve frequently argued that our 2016 forecasts did a good job because they gave President Trump a considerably higher chance than the conventional wisdom did and because our probabilities were well-calibrated. But Trump did win several key states (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) in which he was an underdog, and he was an underdog in the Electoral College overall. So 2016 was good from a calibration perspective but middling from an accuracy (calling races correctly) perspective. This year was sort of the opposite: terrific from an accuracy perspective, but actually somewhat problematic from a calibration perspective because not enough underdogs won. The thing is to keep the model (very good and which factors in that the polls could be wrong and when wrong may be correlated with each other in their errors) and his talking head punditry (not anything special) in different buckets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415.md?page=50) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hee-haw-yall-the-2020-democratic-presidential-primary/824415.md?page=52)