Don’t confuse 538’s odds, with polling percentages. 538 takes the polling percentages (primarily state polls) applies their magic formula to give each poll more or less weight, applies some other magic to project their accuracy as we approach election day, and then runs a computer model to determine the outcome of each state’s election 10 zillion times.
The number of times Hillary wins in that computer model is her “odds” of winning the election. She can be at 62% odds, without being higher than 50% in any given poll.
Certainly he’ll try to use the networks’ eagerness for ratings as leverage to try to shape the debate structure to his advantage. As has been reported, he wants to dispense with moderators–permitting him to simply talk over her the entire 90 minutes. No doubt the Trump people appreciated the way Matt Lauer asserted dominance over Clinton by repeatedly interrupting her. They don’t want any pesky moderator getting in the way of Trump putting her in her proper place in the same way.
And schedule be damned: the networks really do want to be able to charge advertisers the rates they’ll get if Trump is there, so he does have a lot of power in the negotiation. So they may give in to his demands. We may indeed get 90 minutes of Trump talking while Clinton just stands there.
This poll was conducted Sept 10-13, which was during the time of Hillary’s health scare and the deplorables remark, though there is usually a lag time between bad news and the time it registers with voters. My hunch is that a poll conducted now would probably show a race that’s practically even.
So Hillary’s losing or even in OH, FL, NV, NC, and now MI.
In an election year featuring two well-qualified and sane candidates, we’d probably have a lot of discussion of the merits of their respective policies and positions. Given that this site tends to attract fewer ideologues and more thinkers,* in a year in which the choice was less clear, you’d get more outright expressions of posters’ own reactions to campaign developments. To be fair, there would still be a lot of speculation about how Other People would be likely to react, but also we’d see a lot of disclosure of personal responses to speeches, announcements, and actions taken by the candidates.
But this is not an election year featuring two well-qualified and sane candidates.
*Self-serving, sure–but also probably largely true.
Oh my god, when the polls were up for her, you constantly posted about how they’d go down, so that now that they’re down, you’re screaming I told you so.
Is there ANY circumstance besides “Hillary +20” where you’d actually calm down? And what will you do if and when her numbers improve? Let me guess: all the gains are temporary and the vast masses of whites will remember they’re racist eventually.
This is a forum where people discuss politics and elections to include predictions and strategies. You seem to want it to consist of one thread, “Who are you voting for?” That sounds extremely boring to me.
What advertisers? Have things changed? I don’t remember commercial breaks in the past.
I would get in on that. No way Trump backs out of the debates. He will do the best anyone has ever done. He will be great. Hilary doesn’t stand a chance. At least in his mind.
You say you only want to know what posters personally feel about the election but find it boring when they speculate how events might effect others or the election as a whole. Is that an incorrect interpretation?
Gentlepersons! Your certainty spiced with scorn surely is embarrassed by such cringing odds as five to one! One would think you were trying to put one over on a naive peckerwood from Waco! A timid forest creature, foraging for nuts and berries! You’ll have to offer more bait if you want to lure me into your trap!
I think you are very smart … and also a mathtard, at least when it comes to probability. Don’t feel bad — the important 18th-century mathematician Jean le Rond d’Alembert made blunders in probability theory that most Dopers would laugh at.
One thing you’re missing is that Nate Silver audits his own work. He has a large collection of past races where he predicted the underdog had a 33% chance … and the underdog did indeed win in 33% of those races. If a casino will pay $300 on a 33% chance, you should buy the ticket if and only if it costs less than $100.
And again, anyone convinced that the 35% Trump chance being quoted at sportsbooks is way too high has an opportunity to “put their money where their mouth is.” We’ve had dozens of investment threads where the recommendation was Vanguard S&P 500 ETF. If you’re certain Trump’s chances to win in November are much less than 35%, you have a much better place for your money than any Vanguard fund.
I’ve not been watching Nate Silver; I monitor the quicker-to-read David Rothschild site. David’s Trump quote (31%) is a little below bookie’s price (35 or 36%) while Nate’s is a little higher. But overall, agreement is very close.
Nitpick about Fivethirtyeight: Nate Silver does not show New Hampshire as a key tipping state, while Rothschild’s site’s simple presentation makes it clear that New Hampshire is about as likely as Pennsylvania to decide the election!! I wonder if Silver is hung up on “the magic 270.” If Trump gets all the states where his chance is 40% or more AND New Hampshire he gets 269 evs. Since at least 27 states will have a majority GOP house delegation, that’s enough to give Trump the Oval. (Are there any GOP House delegations sane enough to reject the buffoon and vote Hillary?)
A Trump-Kaine Administration is a real possibility.
I can tell you the exact moment Clinton will lose the election if she’s going to lose it: when she falls behind. Clinton is not a comeback candidate, she’s a classic frontrunner. If Trump gets a real, solid lead on her, where Nate Silver starts putting his chances at 60% or better, stick a fork in her. There’s nothing in the Hillary playbook for situations like that.
But I’ll believe that when I see it. Trump is doing like Sanders, giving her a nice competition but she’s still favored.
I think the debates – quite possibly the first one – will tell the tale. If Donald Trump stuns Hillary Clinton with a strong debate performance – in the eyes of voters, not necessarily pundits – then it’s probably over for Clinton. I know a lot of people think that it just can’t happen, that Hillary will prepare and that Donald will be basically do nothing but talk about his poll numbers and the size of his penis, but he’s working with none other than Roger Ailes, who has prepped Reagan and others.
Hillary will have to do more than simply look like she knows what she’s talking about – that would be the fatal Al Gore mistake. She is going to have to convince voters that she has a soul, that she has convictions, and that those convictions involve defending the public against a nasty virus called right wing extremism. She will have to communicate as though she is communicating directly with voters. An example is when Marco Rubio asked voters to Google some of Trump’s businesses – that was actually a pretty good tactic, IMO, and she oughtta do the same. Tell voters to Google things like middle class wage growth, jobs growth under Obama, and the like. If she does that, I think that would be a straight right cross to Trump’s jaw. If she talks about policies and nothing else, and if she doesn’t have a simple one or two sentence sound byte response to Bengazi questions and say “You know I think the voters are tired of talking about my emails - let’s move on seriously.” If she doesn’t do that, it’s over for her.