# Trump could win the election in a nowcast by FiveThirtyEight **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 25, 2016, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846 "2016-07-25T13:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![LonghornDave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@LonghornDave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonghornDave)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/61 "2016-07-25T20:03:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > According to the polls Johnson has eight percent support, no more than 15 in any state (and they’re all tiny states where he’s doing well) and the reality is most of that support will slink off and vote something else. His odds are probably ten thousand to one. If you really think his odds are 3%, I will totally give you 100-to-1 odds on him and bet any amount you care to wager. I mean I think if he gets in the debates that I think his chances are 3-5%. He’s got to get in the debates first. If he can’t get in the debates then his chances are somewhere between 0-1%. The only way for him to get in the debates is to get some major endorsements. He should be going hard after guys like Romney. I don’t think Johnson is some incredibly compelling individual. He’s in fact a pretty goofy individual. His running mate comes across as far more competent and presidential. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/62 "2016-07-25T20:04:13Z")
There are many good reasons that 538’s model isn’t especially attuned to shifts in the polls–especially around convention time. One of them is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a lot of the shift in the polls isn’t a reflection in a shift in voter intentions. It is instead a shift in who is polled. Think that’s crazy? [Read on](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/swing_voters.pdf). ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/63 "2016-07-25T20:21:30Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > There are many good reasons that 538’s model isn’t especially attuned to shifts in the polls–especially around convention time. > > One of them is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a lot of the shift in the polls isn’t a reflection in a shift in voter intentions. It is instead a shift in who is polled. Think that’s crazy? [Read on](http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/swing_voters.pdf). Eh, their main model actually tries to deal with that–note that none of their two “election day” models predict Trump will win, both give Clinton a stronger chance at winning. The Now Cast (which is introduced as more or less a “toy” for running a hypothetical, not real life) is the only one that is showing a Trump victory. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/64 "2016-07-25T20:32:26Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The handicapped probably aren’t a monolithic voting bloc. Women are certainly not–there have always been large numbers of female voters. In fact, I frequently object to referring to women as a special demographic. Women are 52% of the American voters, they aren’t a demographic, they’re half the species. While there is a margin of advantage for Democrats among women, something like 40-45% of women vote Republican every year. > > I think the answer is that if Trump hits like 65% of the white vote, he only needs a very small number of anything else to win. Romney only won 59% of the white vote (I say “only”–a similar margin won Reagan a monstrous landslide in 1984, but the population was much less white in 2012 than in 1984), but if you push that 59% to 65% then there are still enough white people in the country that starts flipping a **lot** of states, like Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, Pennsylvania. Are you deducting the white votes Trump has lost because of his campaign and managing style in that bump to 65%? For example, Rodney won 59% of the white vote. Trump, conceding the point, may bring an additional 6% of white voters who didn’t vote in 2012… but he’s not getting the entirety of the bloc which made up the original 59%: Romney voters who listen to Cruz, Bloomberg, the Bush’s… they’re not voting for Trump. Romney voters put off by open racial attacks - they’re not voting for Trump. Romney voters who are die-hard Republican’s who hate seeing what has happened to their party - they’re not voting for Trump. Romney voters who are scared of this guy with his hand on the nuclear button - they’re not voting for Trump\*. So Trump has to get a historic turnout among a group of voters who don’t vote (voting is closely correlated with income, [table 7](http://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-577.html)) while simultaneously pissing off/scaring away a not-insubstantial bloc of voters who do. That’s quite a tall order. \*Please note that I’m not arguing that all of these people are voting for Hillary. But most of them will, and all of them are still not voting for Trump. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/65 "2016-07-25T20:37:17Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > The handicapped probably aren’t a monolithic voting bloc. Women are certainly not–there have always been large numbers of female voters. In fact, I frequently object to referring to women as a special demographic. Women are 52% of the American voters, they aren’t a demographic, they’re half the species. While there is a margin of advantage for Democrats among women, something like 40-45% of women vote Republican every year. > > I think the answer is that if Trump hits like 65% of the white vote, he only needs a very small number of anything else to win. Romney only won 59% of the white vote (I say “only”–a similar margin won Reagan a monstrous landslide in 1984, but the population was much less white in 2012 than in 1984), but if you push that 59% to 65% then there are still enough white people in the country that starts flipping a **lot** of states, like Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, Pennsylvania. > > Trump is likely to get some minority votes, a few % of blacks, maybe 15% of Hispanics. > > So to answer your question, if Trump wins it’ll be because of a historic win among whites. > > Also to your specific question “what kind of poll could this be?”, this isn’t a poll, this is 538’s Nowcast. It’s based on a lot of polls state-by-state being aggregated and it’s also based on the premise the election is held _today_ (their long run poll brings in other factors and shows Trump as “only” having around a 42% chance of winning–I put 42% in quotes because that’s still closing in on coin-flip territory.) So it might seem that non donald voters are concentrated into urban areas and being electorally redundant. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/66 "2016-07-25T20:43:31Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Eh, their main model actually tries to deal with that–note that none of their two “election day” models predict Trump will win, both give Clinton a stronger chance at winning. The Now Cast (which is introduced as more or less a “toy” for running a hypothetical, not real life) is the only one that is showing a Trump victory. You seem to think you’re contradicting my post, but you’re not. The point of my post was to amplify upon the reasons that the main model filters and modifies the polls, including ignoring the anticipated convention bounce. Some people mistakenly believe that a shift in the polls means some voters are changing their minds about who they will vote for. In fact, many such shifts do not reflect any changes in voter intent but instead transitory shifts in polling bias, which is why a model that ignores short-term shifts is better. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/67 "2016-07-25T20:53:19Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > A post convention bump is expected, I don’t know how much that plays into that prediction. Hillary should get a similar bump this week returning the polls back to where they were a week ago. It’s been clear that a Trump win is possible because it is a tight race just like almost all presidential elections with undecided voters able to swing it one way or the other. But undecideds never all go for one candidate, it gets down to the nitty-gritty details of precincts and districts and state electoral totals. > > **It isn’t even August yet, there’s no way, especially this year, to make a solid prediction.** This is not like any election I know of with two candidates with very high negatives and division within both parties. But I still expect it to look like most elections as November approaches, a tight race, with key swing states leaning towards the winner. Well, there WOULDN’T be, if I hadn’t issued my decree that no Republican shall ever win a Presidential election. As matters stand, the Republican candidate is destined to lose the election. You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/68 "2016-07-25T21:18:45Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Are you deducting the white votes Trump has lost because of his campaign and managing style in that bump to 65%? > > For example, Rodney won 59% of the white vote. Trump, conceding the point, may bring an additional 6% of white voters who didn’t vote in 2012… but he’s not getting the entirety of the bloc which made up the original 59%: Romney voters who listen to Cruz, Bloomberg, the Bush’s… they’re not voting for Trump. Romney voters put off by open racial attacks - they’re not voting for Trump. Romney voters who are die-hard Republican’s who hate seeing what has happened to their party - they’re not voting for Trump. Romney voters who are scared of this guy with his hand on the nuclear button - they’re not voting for Trump\*. > > So Trump has to get a historic turnout among a group of voters who don’t vote (voting is closely correlated with income, [table 7](http://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-577.html)) while simultaneously pissing off/scaring away a not-insubstantial bloc of voters who do. > > That’s quite a tall order. > > \*Please note that I’m not arguing that all of these people are voting for Hillary. But most of them will, and all of them are still not voting for Trump. I’m not–I have no idea how Trump is polling even with Hillary (such that a hypothetical election held today might see him win), my _assumption_ is he must be getting historic support from whites since I cannot imagine he’s getting meaningful support from blacks or Hispanics. But I haven’t seen the full “polling results” for all these polls–typically when a poll is ran they release a document that is several pages long that drill a lot deeper than just the “headline %” that we see on the news, and I haven’t had a chance to drill into the polls out there, so I don’t know where the numbers are coming from. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/69 "2016-07-25T21:54:33Z")
Before today, the Bernie or bust people were an annoyance to be tolerated but mostly ignored. Now they are my ENEMY. If these jerkoffs give the election to Trump by not turning out for Hillary because of their own perfect being the enemy of the better than Trump Tantrum, I will never, EVER forgive them. This is war, and I will rhetorically burn every single one of them to the ground whenever I encounter them. Before then, I will act to persuade, we want them on our side. But I swear, if these useful idiots of the Kremlin/Trump trainers actually get that disaster elected… Guys, we cannot let stupidity reign. We need to go out into the cesspool known as facebook comments and huffington post comments and tyt video comments and engage with these people, try to turn them away from their petulance and darkness. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/70 "2016-07-25T21:59:45Z")
At least listen to Bernie’s speech before hitting the warpath. There’s was loads of nonsense eight years ago from Hillary supporters. Remember the PUMAs? And the Hillaryis44 stuff? It all turned out to be nothing in the end. The media will play it up, because conflict drives ratings, but as long as Donald is out there running his mouth, most Bernie supporters will remain firmly in the Democratic camp. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/71 "2016-07-25T22:12:21Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I’m not–I have no idea how Trump is polling even with Hillary (such that a hypothetical election held today might see him win), my _assumption_ is he must be getting historic support from whites since I cannot imagine he’s getting meaningful support from blacks or Hispanics. But I haven’t seen the full “polling results” for all these polls–typically when a poll is ran they release a document that is several pages long that drill a lot deeper than just the “headline %” that we see on the news, and I haven’t had a chance to drill into the polls out there, so I don’t know where the numbers are coming from. I don’t know of a quick resource which averages the internals of all major polls. Then if you look at just one you have to consider how its headline result corresponds to the RCP average (or other reputable aggregate). But in general poll internals where Trump does pretty well show him getting similar % of the non-white vote to Romney, sometimes slightly more than Romney among Hispanics which is biggest chunk, though OTOH the non-white % of the vote assuming 2012’s turnout rates among groups would be higher, more of a drag on Trump even if he loses it by no bigger a % than Romney did. But some polling orgs seem to specifically assume white turnout (rate) will be higher this time. And other polls now are ‘likely voter’ so again we’d have to average out those internals of who ‘likely voter is’… Anyway several polls show Trump ahead nationally, the RCP avg a tie. I agree the basic assumption would have to be higher % of the white vote than Romney and/or higher white turnout rate than in 2012 projected in an RV poll or implied by the ‘likely voter’ screen. However again now several such polls exist, so ‘proving’ Trump couldn’t do it by describing the kinds of Romney voters who wouldn’t vote for Trump is questionable on its face. Being a 2012 Romney voter who won’t vote for Trump not only assumes the voter finds Trump distasteful (which is obviously a phenomenon, even some GOP politicians are banking on that to further their future careers) but doesn’t find Clinton more so. Also there’s no way to deductively analyze who will come out to vote for Trump who didn’t bother to vote in 2012. Current polls may prove to be part of a transient Trump ‘bounce’, or a continuation of the rising trend in his polls which started after Comey’s remarks well before the RNC, or some combination. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/72 "2016-07-25T22:39:45Z")
> [@LonghornDave](#): > > Funny, but if you asked a Trump supporter they would say a vote for Johnson is just a vote for Clinton. The GOP has turned itself into a 3rd party. Votes for Green or Progressive or Libertarian will mostly like raid the Dem base, not the GOP base. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/73 "2016-07-25T22:42:01Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Before today, the Bernie or bust people were an annoyance to be tolerated but mostly ignored. Now they are my ENEMY. If these jerkoffs give the election to Trump by not turning out for Hillary because of their own perfect being the enemy of the better than Trump Tantrum, I will never, EVER forgive them. This is war, and I will rhetorically burn every single one of them to the ground whenever I encounter them. Before then, I will act to persuade, we want them on our side. But I swear, if these useful idiots of the Kremlin/Trump trainers actually get that disaster elected… > Guys, we cannot let stupidity reign. We need to go out into the cesspool known as facebook comments and huffington post comments and tyt video comments and engage with these people, try to turn them away from their petulance and darkness. Not only that, they are actively reposting Karl Roves lie about Hillary. The lies that “we wuz robbed” and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/74 "2016-07-25T23:22:50Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > I certainly didn’t expect any bounce out of that debacle of a convention. My guess: The people who change their minds after the conventions don’t watch much of them. The audience for the debacle part was people who care about politics, and they’ve all made up their minds. > [@RickJay](#): > > I am been pointing out for a long time that the election was close, but for reasons I don’t really understand, some people simply do not want to believe the plain facts; you will find folks, on this board and elsewhere, who will swear up and down that a Clinton victory is totally guaranteed, and you’ll find more still who swear a Trump victory is totally guaranteed. It reminds me a little of Brexit. The polls clearly showed it to be possible, but every leave poll was downplayed and every remain poll was trumpeted as the coming victory for remain. And now people are asking why the polls were so wrong. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/75 "2016-07-26T01:53:32Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > How can Donald win without blacks, hispanics, women, gays and handicapped? Not to mention the thoughtful. > > What kind of poll could this be? If you win 65% of the white vote, you win. Period. It could also be that Trump is doing a little better among African-Americans. Even if he’s only pulling 10%, that means he needs fewer white voters than Romney did. ---
**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:** [July 26, 2016, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/76 "2016-07-26T03:15:35Z")
Trump isn’t getting 65% of the white vote, period. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/77 "2016-07-26T03:20:19Z")
He’s leading Clinton by double digits among independents according to the CNN poll. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/78 "2016-07-26T03:50:52Z")
I think we’ve had this discussion about people who call themselves “independents” these days four years ago, didn’t we? I wonder if anything has changed since then. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2016, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/79 "2016-07-26T04:08:39Z")
Doesn’t matter. No Democrat can win if they lose independents by double digits, regardless of what independents “really” are. ---
**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:** [July 26, 2016, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/80 "2016-07-26T04:15:32Z")
Clinton v. Bush v. Perot Don’t think Clinton carried the I vote that year. Probably not in 1996 either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846.md?page=5)