# 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:** 74
**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:** [October 27, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1462 "2016-10-27T19:16:43Z")
Not trying to be a tattle tale but this thread is getting off topic, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1463 "2016-10-27T19:17:12Z")
[Emily] And what’s all this about endangered theses?[/emily] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1464 "2016-10-27T19:20:59Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Not trying to be a tattle tale but this thread is getting off topic, IMO. You’re not the Mod of me! ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1465 "2016-10-27T22:41:52Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > [Emily] And what’s all this about endangered theses?[/emily] > [@asahi](#): > > Not trying to be a tattle tale but this thread is getting off topic, IMO. Never mind. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1466 "2016-10-28T02:09:45Z")
Trump is slightly favored to win Ohio, Iowa, Arizona and traditional GOP states like Georgia. To go with them, he needs Florida and North Carolina. If he also gets Pennsylvania it’s Game, Set and Match for Trump so let’s assume Hillary takes PA. With these assumptions the electoral vote is essentially tied, with 21 tipping ev’s up for grabs: Wisconsin 10, Nevada 6, New Hampshire 4, Omaha 1. Whoever gets 11 ev’s from this set takes the Oval Office. So … given that Trump gets North Carolina and Hillary gets Pennsylvania: If the split is Wisconsin for one candidate, NV plus NH for the other, _**then whoever wins NEB-2 (Omaha’s) 1 ev wins the election.**_ ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1467 "2016-10-28T03:04:19Z")
Listening to the 538 podcast, one of the hosts made the point that, in terms of early voting, they are interested if the EV indicators correlate with the polls. And, so far, they do. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1468 "2016-10-28T11:42:41Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Again, the wide spread in polling results even as the aggregate moves hardly at all is to me the big polling story of this point of the election, and hinges on divergent LV screen models. And now comments on that from both [Wang](http://election.princeton.edu/2016/10/27/why-do-the-polls-seem-so-variable-this-week/) and [Silver](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-the-polls-disagree-and-thats-ok/). > [@Wang](#): > > Why do the polls seem so variable this week? The basic answer is that there were a lot of them. Outliers are an inevitable consequence. … > [@Silver](#): > > … How unusual is it for polls to show this wide a range of outcomes? In the table below, I’ve compiled a summary of national polls conducted during the final week of the campaign in elections since 1976 … In 2012, there were 22 polls conducted in the final week of the campaign. And they formed a very tight range: None had President Obama ahead by more than 4 percentage points or behind by more than 1 point. The standard deviation of Obama’s margin over Mitt Romney was just 1.5 points. > > The 2000 and 2008 elections were similar, with only 5 or 6 percentage points between the best and worst polls for the respective candidates. No national poll in the final week of the 2000 campaign had Al Gore ahead in the popular vote, incidentally, even though he ended up winning it. The 2004 election had a slightly wider range: Some polls showed a George W. Bush lead of as large as 6 percentage points, while a couple had John Kerry ahead. > > All those differences are modest compared with what we’re seeing this year. As measured by the standard deviation, the spread in polls conducted since the third presidential debate is about twice as wide as what we saw at the end of campaigns from 2000 through 2012, on average. Again, that isn’t a perfect comparison because the range of polls may narrow over the final week of this campaign. But it’s not just your imagination if you feel like there’s more variation in the polls than you’re used to. > > Here’s another question, though. How much should you expect the polls to differ from one another? Even if there were no methodological differences, you’d expect some variation as a result of random sampling error. Could the seemingly huge spread in the polls this year turn out to be nothing more than statistical noise? > > Probably not. … The standard deviation for the 2016 polls — 3.6 percentage points — falls just outside the confidence interval, which runs from 1.8 points to 3.5 points. That suggests there are probably some real methodological differences and that the wide spread in the polls doesn’t reflect sampling error alone. … Silver’s analysis is much more complete and based on data than is Wang’s in this case. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1469 "2016-10-28T12:13:49Z")
Another poll showing that public opinion might once again be shifting in favor of Trump. > **[Clinton lead shrinks, even as nearly 6 in 10 expect her to win, Post-ABC...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/28/clinton-lead-shrinks-even-as-nearly-6-in-10-expect-her-to-win-post-abc-tracking-poll-finds/)** > > Poll finds falling concern about voter fraud after allegations election is "rigged" The recent polls were also conducted before the recent headlines about “Clinton Inc” and the Podesta email in which he called the Clinton email setup “insane.” It’s probably too little too late to save Trump as voting has now gotten underway in earnest. However, if the early voting is close, then the election day voters could make the difference. What also appears to be happening is that more and more voters are giving up on third party candidates. So what we’re seeing is that until very recently, between third party and undecided voters, we’ve had about 15 percent (or more) of the electorate still up for grabs even after all of these scandals. Those voters are now starting to break one way or the other. Conventional wisdom would say that those voters will probably break evenly – this seems to be Wang’s position IIRC. But in a race that is so emotional, with two candidates who are so unliked and distrusted, that number could be a little more partisan this time around. What I come back to is that a lot of those undecided voters are white. And while they’re not consciously bigoted or biased, subconsciously, on some level, they are. I think Trump’s campaign has hit a nerve with conservative and centrist white America. They’re country is “under attack.” Their country shuts down coal factories while letting in Indians and Chinese in Silicon Valley. Their country’s superstar athletes take knees during the national anthem instead of saluting the flag in honor of fallen officers and soldiers. “Something is wrong.” They need someone to shake things up. They need someone to restore order. And “order” has the face of a white male. For the record my money, indeed the safe money, is on Clinton to win on election night. But how much she wins by is important in determining the post-election aftermath. If it’s too close we will most likely have a contested election and a constitutional crisis. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1470 "2016-10-28T12:30:32Z")
The safe money is a Clinton win, but Trump has enough of a chance that it’s not extraordinarily unlikely. Once you get to 1-in-4 or so, you’re talking about something that can definitely happen and be an upset, but not necessarily a huge surprise. The downballot races are looking better too. RCP currently has GOP 52, Dems 48 when tossups are excluded. That would be a HUGE result for the Republicans even if Trump loses. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1471 "2016-10-28T12:33:48Z")
Constitutional crisis? Over what? ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1472 "2016-10-28T12:37:49Z")
What’s becoming clear now is that if there had been a less defective version of Trump, he would have won and I think he would have won against a candidate stronger than Clinton. Assuming the dynamics remain relatively constant between now and 2020, the next republican candidate will run on a platform of less white nationalism that is a little less offensive but still in stark contrast to the vision for American presented by democrats. It will be a platform of very limited immigration for starters and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 1924 style restriction on all immigration proposed. They will also make it easier to expel permanent residents. We may also see a return to the republican foreign policy of the 1920s, based on strict isolationism. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1473 "2016-10-28T12:40:13Z")
Ben Carson is that less defective version. Carson is just as clueless as Trump, but a lot more likeable. Of course, John Kasich would have crushed Clinton, but Republicans don’t do electable anymore it seems. If they did, this would be the election for John Huntsman’s 2nd term. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1474 "2016-10-28T12:43:38Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Ben Carson is that less defective version. Carson is just as clueless as Trump, but a lot more likeable. > > Of course, John Kasich would have crushed Clinton, but Republicans don’t do electable anymore it seems. If they did, this would be the election for John Huntsman’s 2nd term. It’ll be someone who’s as aggressive and hostile as Trump but with less baggage and more discipline. Ted Cruz comes to mind but he might have wounded himself a bit - he still has time to rehab his image though. But beyond that maybe someone like Matt Bevin of Kentucky. And no, the fact that he has adopted children from overseas won’t matter a damn. He’ll do what it takes to win an election. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1475 "2016-10-28T12:44:58Z")
**asahi** seriously dude (or dudette or whatever) you really gotta keep yourself from taking the noise as signal and predicting crises and results that flip from one way to the other based on a tick one way or the other. Wang and Silver at least agree here. > [@Wang](#): > > Don’t be like journalists who run off after the most extreme report – that is ridiculous. The only honest thing to do is to take a median of all the polls you can get your hands on. Right now, the collected wisdom of all the poll is that Hillary Clinton is ahead by 6 percentage points nationally. Not 4 points, and not 8 points. Her lead is 6.0 +/- 0.9 % > [@Silver](#): > > The race probably is tightening — but perhaps not as much as the hype on the cable networks would imply. In our polls-only forecast, Trump has narrowed Clinton’s lead in the popular vote to roughly 6 percentage points from 7 points a week ago … Plenty of polls now show negative trend lines for her (in addition to others that show a positive trend). But the race hasn’t fundamentally changed all that much, and Clinton remains in a strong position. > > The data, however, offers a lot of opportunities for cherry-picking … > > … Aggregating mechanisms like polling averages and betting markets are powerful precisely because they reflect a diverse array of approaches and opinions, and they lose their power when they’re subject to herding or groupthink. You also shouldn’t cherry-pick the two or three polls that fit your narrative when there are dozens of them out there, of course. … No, there is no chance of a constitutional crisis. Geez. No, there is no reason to believe that a less defective version of Trump would have had much a chance. If anything the overall _stability_ of the long term numbers demonstrates the exact opposite. The averages have pretty much stayed in that C+4 +/-3 range the whole time despite major news cycles pushing it in each direction. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1476 "2016-10-28T12:46:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Ben Carson is that less defective version. Carson is just as clueless as Trump, but a lot more likeable. Carson wouldn’t get the white supremacists. And he’s just terrible on the stump, and would be even worse in debates. > [@](#): > > Of course, John Kasich would have crushed Clinton, but Republicans don’t do electable anymore it seems. If they did, this would be the election for John Huntsman’s 2nd term. Huntsman wouldn’t have beat Obama – no one would have, in either election. In my opinion, at least. Huntsman might have spurred a TP conservative 3rd party, but even if he didn’t, it would have just been a bit closer. Kasich would be close, but “crushed” is just hyperbole. Hillary is an average Democrat with the negatives of (trumped up) scandals and an impression of a dissembling nature, but the positives of a great debater and fundraiser and experience. She’s not nearly as bad of a candidate as many are saying. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1477 "2016-10-28T13:02:32Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > … John Kasich would have crushed Clinton, but Republicans don’t do electable anymore it seems. … He certainly was the one I thought would have had the best chance as he plays a moderate well on TV. Crushing her? I don’t think so. Probably lost Romney style. In reality he’s less moderate than Romney and not much more inspirational. I think that many underestimate Team Clinton’s game. Their approach would have been different against a different candidate no doubt. But your later point is most cogent. The nature of the different elements that vote in the GOP primaries makes their running the candidate with the best chance of winning the general election difficult. And of course while a Kasich style would not have lost the middle as much (inclusive of so many White college educated voters) he also would have failed to excite the base and would have divided his own party in different lines. It’s hard to pander in two directions at once. What the GOP needed was for the economy right now to be in much worse shape than it is and for Obama to be at his favorability lows. Without that the current partisan divides are fairly inelastic. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1478 "2016-10-28T13:13:46Z")
Kasich and Romney actually are different sides of the coin. Kasich is actually quite conservative but in that primary field tried to occupy the reasonable moderate space while Romney actually is relatively moderate but had to tack hard in the primary season to get past the gauntlet. Still the issue for a GOP candidate would be threading a needle through a small eye with a piece of frayed yarn. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1479 "2016-10-28T14:34:34Z")
Interestingly when one looks at the possible outcomes in 538’s PollsOnly 41% of the Trump wins scenarios are Trump loses popular vote but wins Electoral College. There is virtually no chance in their analysis of the converse. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1480 "2016-10-28T16:36:43Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > What’s becoming clear now is that if there had been a less defective version of Trump, he would have won and I think he would have won against a candidate stronger than Clinton. Trump is getting almost 70% of the white male no-college vote. Seventy percent. Yes, that’s Seventy with an S. I’ll admit to utter bafflement, but it’s not clear to me that Trump is a _weak_ candidate. What most of us see as his defects are precisely what appeals most to his base. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2016, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1481 "2016-10-28T16:56:22Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > … What most of us see as his defects are precisely what appeals most to his base. Exactly. That is the dilemma for the GOP at the presidential level. The base is not enough to win a nationwide election but they also cannot win without appealing to them. The past tactic of speaking in code that dog whistled to the base hoping that such would get them enough while also fighting to win enough of the middle has been not quite enough the last two cycles and and would not have been likely to win this time. It will be harder to pull off from here for many reason. Going all out for the base is on track for not working so well either. With their structural advantages they can likely keep the House at least until the next set of redistricting and even if they lose the Senate be in good position to get it back next time. But winning the presidency will need a very bad economy and/or a very unpopular Democratic incumbent. Or major rebranding. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846.md?page=73) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846.md?page=75)