Oh, that Dr. Addison Sheffield. Wait, who the hell is Dr. Addison Sheffield? 
This was my first thought about DSeid’s hypothetical. A C+ is far from perfect, but would it’s weight not be adjusted relative to an older A+ poll, even by a small amount? Reading again, I think DSeid actually addressed this…
In a hypothetical world with only two pollsters? Not by much. I’d be saying that we can only reliably report data out monthly and in between we can get a hint as to whether or not an event has had some impact but only a hint. C+ is a pretty poor rating and such a house should be, by itself, mostly ignored (only worthwhile in aggregate with many others weighted lightly).
But of course the world we have is multiple polling houses reporting at different intervals with different ratings. The more heavily weighted daily tracker (with each day discounted) would be YouGov which went from 7/8-9’s of -8 to 8/27-28’s of -11. With some daily noise of course and using the RV set. (Hitting -13 some.) Net drop of 3 as the trend.
Again consistent with what 538 reported out.
Harris and Rasmussen are rated low have each little impact by themselves.
It’s not a hypothetical world in which there are only two pollsters.
I’m asking about entering hypothetical data from exactly two hypothetical pollsters into the 538 model that exists in the real world. For the sake of argument assume these two hypothetical pollsters have a perfect zero house effect.
This is almost certainly not true.
I’m not sure if you’re really asking for more information here, but the right field gate at Wrigley Field is right at the intersection of Addison and Sheffield.
“1060 West Addison… that’s Wrigley Field!”
Wow, that’s great! What other side projects do you have?
I think the following is a complete list of my Twitter-bots.
Baseball
NL West Daily Tracker
NL Central Daily Tracker
Cubs Cardinals Comparator
Cubs Brewers Comparator
Cubs Cards Brewers Three Way Race
Ian Happ News Tracker
Rockies Taco Bot
Miscellaneous
Daily Florida Man
538 Congress Tracker Tracker
Iowa Caucus Countdown/Throw Shade at Ted Cruz
For anyone interested in how the 538 model actually works (and why a C+ daily tracker is CERTAINLY of little impact to it) here is their fairly detailed explanation. While going back and forth with an individual poster is silly, some here might be interested in the weeds of their methods, and the details do inform as to the original op.
Again, of note, they handle frequently reporting houses thusly:
The maximal impact of a polling result is determined by the weight as determined by its rating. That rating also determines how quickly the weight drops off.
Each instance of a C+ house not only has little weight but its weight decays very quickly; each instance of a highly rated house not only has high weight but its weight decays slowly. Each instance of a C+ daily tracker has a small fraction of the maximum a C+ result could have and decays quickly.
From there the curve is drawn using local polynomial regression with aggressive smoothing.
Their discussion of uncertainty is the most pertinent to this thread however. Short version is that the shaded bars on their graph - those are best understood (but not really) as 90% confidence bars. Note that they go +/- roughly 4 or 5 points. In fact Trump’s numbers have been within +/- 2 of a net approval of -12 most of the time over the past year and a half. It is likely not worthwhile to read too much into movements until they are staying out of that range for more than a few days.
At any rate, the massive backlash that will propel Trump to victory in 2020 has not yet manifested? Well, that’s reassuring…
His approval ratings are already high enough for him to win. Trump’s favorability rating right before the election was 40%, same as his current approval rating.
I’ve got to ask, what exactly impresses you about a graph that shows one pollster has different movement than the average of all other pollsters? Or are you just impressed by the existence of a Twitter bot?
Nothing you have posted after this supports your level of certainty. I have read the same things that you have about how the 538 model and have come to different conclusions than you have. Can’t we simply disagree without you several times attributing to me positions I don’t hold and belligerently creating bizarre conspiracy theories that require me assuming Nate Silver is lying.
Some of what you just posted actually supports my argument. “The worse the pollster’s rating, the quicker it encounters diminishing returns in our formula.” Implies that even A+ pollsters impact on the model decays over time which is consistent with fresh C+ data having more impact on the model than four week old A+ data.
538 took steps so that a daily tracker wouldn’t dominate the model, but they didn’t reduce it to the point where it couldn’t effect the model at all, your certainty to to the contrary notwithstanding.
You are being ridiculous. Of fucking course the Rasmussen numbers have some effect or else they wouldn’t be included at all. That doesn’t remotely support your idea that they are a driving force behind the minor dip in approval rating. And right in your quote of DSeid, he says little impact not a certainty of no impact. Jesus.
The point of my last post post was that all other things being equal, they certainly could be.
The data I’ve posted in other posts does indeed support this possibility, although it doesn’t prove that Rasmussen is solely responsible.
Your data doesn’t support the possibility, it merely fails to refute it. Big difference. Your data shows nothing other than Rasmussen is different than the polling average.
Eta: and I hope to god you know that when Nate said “I’m not a polling expert like Dr. L.S.D. Snapple…” , he was joking.
And that difference is in the same direction at the same time as the events that inspired this thread. Therefore it is possible that that difference is partially responsible for those events.
It is no doubt partially responsible, just like every other pollster that moved downwards is partially responsible. It’s a meaningless truism.
You should be having this argument with DSeid. He strongly disagrees as far as I can tell.
Here’s my argument in three bullet points.
[ol]
[li]All other things held equal, Rasmussen can move the needle on the 538 tracker.[/li][li]In the time period in question I have posted evidence that Rasmussen moved in the direction of the dip that inspired this thread.[/li][li]In the time period in question I have posted evidence that all other things held equal.[/li][/ol]
I’m not sure which of those you disagree with anymore. I posted as an interesting observation and other posters also found it interesting. I guess you don’t find it interesting. Can’t you just say that once and move on?
Are you saying Rasmussen was the only pollster that moved downwards in the last 40 days?
Clearly not.