# 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:** 84
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1662 "2016-11-02T23:36:44Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > DSeid turned me on to this place: > [pollyvote.com](http://pollyvote.com) > > They aggregate polls, experts’ opinion, betting sites, citizen forecasts and econometric models. Thanks! That’s really helpful. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1663 "2016-11-02T23:43:28Z")
Some [great news](http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/updates/) from A- rated pollster Ipsos - Clinton at +7 nationally, with no adjustment, in a poll taken from 10/28-11/1. Also, I’m starting to wonder if Nate Silver is taking his whole “correlation between polls in different states” thing a bit to far. For example, in his latest update Florida went from lightest blue to pink for seemingly no other reason than because DFM Research, a B- rated pollster, just put Trump at +9 (adjusted to +11) in Missouri. I get that shifts in individual states can often be part of a nationwide trend, however HRC operatives have basically invaded Florida in the past week or so to GOTV, whereas my guess is that she is merely keeping up appearances in bright red Missouri, so I think that in this point of the election this correlation starts to weaken as each candidate starts to further fine tune their strategies for individual states. ---
**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:** [November 2, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1664 "2016-11-02T23:48:32Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > Thanks! That’s really helpful. Very welcome. The only problem is they’re boring. They don’t change the prediction every news cycle. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1665 "2016-11-02T23:52:43Z")
So those five A-minus Ipsos polls show Clinton steadily climbing between Oct 24 and Nov 1 nationally, and Silver raises her chances of winning a measly 0.2 percentage points. Then a poll from a B-minus-rated pollster shows Trump up by 9 in Missouri and Silver drops Hills’ chances of winning by a whopping 1.4 percentage points. All that from Missouri? Come on Nate. I know better, but I keep hitting refresh anyway. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1666 "2016-11-03T00:22:31Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > Some [great news](http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/updates/) from A- rated pollster Ipsos - Clinton at +7 nationally, with no adjustment, in a poll taken from 10/28-11/1. > > Also, I’m starting to wonder if Nate Silver is taking his whole “correlation between polls in different states” thing a bit to far. For example, in his latest update Florida went from lightest blue to pink for seemingly no other reason than because DFM Research, a B- rated pollster, just put Trump at +9 (adjusted to +11) in Missouri. I get that shifts in individual states can often be part of a nationwide trend, however HRC operatives have basically invaded Florida in the past week or so to GOTV, whereas my guess is that she is merely keeping up appearances in bright red Missouri, so I think that in this point of the election this correlation starts to weaken as each candidate starts to further fine tune their strategies for individual states. In his User’s Guide, Nate Silver says the model is conservative early and aggressive late. In other words, when the election is soon it has a tendency to consider fluctuations in the polls as meaningful when they may be merely noise. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1667 "2016-11-03T00:32:41Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > In his User’s Guide, Nate Silver says the model is conservative early and aggressive late. In other words, when the election is soon it has a tendency to consider fluctuations in the polls as meaningful when they may be merely noise. Hadn’t checked out the user’s guide yet. Thx! ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1668 "2016-11-03T00:34:42Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Come on Nate. I know better, but I keep hitting refresh anyway. My name is skdo23, and I’m a 538 addict. ---
**Author:** ![ultimate11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/49beb7/32.png) [@ultimate11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultimate11)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1669 "2016-11-03T00:55:47Z")
You could also be a doper. You have the 1666th post. Anyways, the nowcast shows Nevada flipped towards Trump. Polls Plus should soon follow. Might be a useful filler state if Utah is won by Evan McMullin. The 538 shows that his chances are also slipping in Utah, so now Trump needs to win Colorado or Pennsylvania. If that’s the case, Trump just needs to win the equivalent of DC (3 points) to tie this ballgame up. In this [perfect map](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EkBTv7Yf6lt5GP2rERU9hYNmgzKstchETYCl_JZVHC8R06KGsdMDJuZxv9jPXMu0aNnImXbckm1kt0TuR65CcYwB38RHBIeTd7lNFSeHrpSUsu5OG_JalWakrsQ5A5HFp95febm6Ru-LXp6n15b7vTnk6kWdDZnAtXra8yCLCIlEx-VFUo3WSE5IbtcGvBkpG-zXVpPKtGpysywm1EefuImxXzq2zGJMU-HwhF_JDw0lq9siKAmyiNjbnyklOH9dOXm6DWTbjzhwDcHXtvCjyrtRTV2b-gl-ZuNP8UElLNJ0ZGstbAoZvOkCOrVn9oEfK1eClYj8yqX8H4sUAGG70YTab5AzZ78keFb-MRk4Mc931552a31Cx3IjRlR-e5WZBJ37j_wtCcb5I9xnZ5O30KT5buMI9O4CexC86i7xgKoz-t1nfEIuWAhOnawugTT1Omm7wSjEL6DY2oa0TVa4cgsJCR-2rx_4nRXoFUoQUt5KTY5mdaHMi9kkw-ptdLLiGE2P7Rd_AlkEH9ySI40FXUIcIi5JOOcnu1oVDF3iR1flWDBREKF_-DaMNafHwAggiE3RsDUaXbQ0hme5cmdRR6-8TcbzXc-yk1dZ1FHYoI4Ov4Pd=w746-h579-no) I generated, Clinton would still win, but not by much. And any deviation in the map (Pennsylvania, Colorado, District of Columbia losing their minds (lol)), could point to Trump relocating from Manhattan. EDIT: Any state that flips will result in Trump becoming the President- or at least tying up the election. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1670 "2016-11-03T03:35:35Z")
We also have a poll from Colorado showing the race tied: [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest\_polls/](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/) And since that same poll shows the Senate race at D+8, that rules out oversampling of Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1671 "2016-11-03T06:14:21Z")
For those of you who enjoy trying to make heads or tales of early voting numbers, here are the latest I could find: [Florida](http://steveschale.com/blog/2016/11/2/6-more-days-and-no-more-wednesdays.html) [Nevada](http://www.ktnv.com/news/ralston/the-nevada-early-voting-blog) I’d also recommend [reading this](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/11/02/early_voting_a_poor_predictor_of_final_results.html). ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1672 "2016-11-03T06:43:24Z")
It’s starting to look like Democrats got excited early in the process and now have slacked off. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1673 "2016-11-03T12:32:11Z")
Although this morning has started off with some decent polls for Clinton, 538 drops her to about a 65% chance of winning. ---
**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:** [November 3, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1674 "2016-11-03T13:04:02Z")
The Nevada poll is troubling but the polls have been all over the place in that state, and early voting seems to be favoring Clinton. However, Clinton and Trump supporters both have a sense of desperation in Nevada, so I think this will go down to the wire. Nevada is probably ground zero for white push-back against the wave of Hispanic immigration. And of course it is also where Clinton’s Hispanic support is strongest. It’s most likely a toss-up state, as it has been all along. My gut tells me Clinton will keep it blue by the thinnest of margins - margins so thin that it could be challenged after the election. ---
**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:** [November 3, 2016, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1675 "2016-11-03T13:05:51Z")
Jon Ralston says yesterday was a big win for Dems in NV: [x.com](https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/794041861258166272) > [@](#): > > Wow. Dems win big today in Clark, nearly 5,000-voter edge. Was 4,000 on this day in 2012. Clark firewall now at 55,000. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1676 "2016-11-03T13:42:01Z")
The most accurate poll of all: your interlocutor’s wife, who leans strongly Democratic (my influence, though she doesn’t like to admit it) renewed her voter registration for this election and is finally returning her Florida mail-in ballot today. She’s never voted before, though she planned to vote (for GWB) in 2004. She was originally pro-Hillary, but now she’s just anti-Trump. Her mother, who grew up as a New York Republican but listens to a lot of Limbaugh, switched from Trump to Gary Johnson just before early voting (and has now voted). ---
**Author:** ![ThisIsTheEnd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisistheend/32/4713_2.png) [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1677 "2016-11-03T14:16:16Z")
**Final Prediction:** Clinton 323 Trump 215 CO-PA-NH-NV-VA all hold blue Trump flips IA and (probably) OH from 2012, that’s it Clinton flips NC and ekes out FL At noon ET on Jan. 20, I’ll be in the air en route to Vegas. Good luck to all, and sayonara. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1678 "2016-11-03T14:22:17Z")
> [@ThisIsTheEnd](#): > > **Final Prediction:** > > Clinton 323 > Trump 215 > > CO-PA-NH-NV-VA all hold blue > Trump flips IA and (probably) OH from 2012, that’s it > Clinton flips NC and ekes out FL > > At noon ET on Jan. 20, I’ll be in the air en route to Vegas. > > Good luck to all, and sayonara. This is almost where I have it. As of now, I give NC to Trump, which puts my map at 308 for Hillary. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1679 "2016-11-03T14:38:13Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > Also, I’m starting to wonder if Nate Silver is taking his whole “correlation between polls in different states” thing a bit to far. For example, in his latest update Florida went from lightest blue to pink for seemingly no other reason than because DFM Research, a B- rated pollster, just put Trump at +9 (adjusted to +11) in Missouri. I get that shifts in individual states can often be part of a nationwide trend, however HRC operatives have basically invaded Florida in the past week or so to GOTV, whereas my guess is that she is merely keeping up appearances in bright red Missouri, so I think that in this point of the election this correlation starts to weaken as each candidate starts to further fine tune their strategies for individual states. Nate Silver’s model might not be correct, but it follows the data. The state-to-state correlations were empirically determined. Of course the correlations vary from election to election, and this election might well be an outlier anyway. But I can’t fault him for being fact-based rather than injecting guesses, no matter how reassuring those guesses might be. ---
**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:** [November 3, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1680 "2016-11-03T14:38:49Z")
When the results are all know how should we score the aggregators? How much should confidence play in? Can we agree ahead of time that [the Brier score](http://www.matterofstats.com/mafl-stats-journal/2013/12/22/is-that-a-good-probability-score-the-brier-score-edition.html) is the best metric to use? > [@](#): > > which assigns scores to probability estimates on the following basis: > > Brier Score = (Actual Result - Probability Assigned to Actual Result)^2 Point of the Brier score is that it rates based not just on being right or wrong but the confidence of the predictions. Saying that X will happen with 51% confidence and being wrong less bad than saying X will happen and being wrong with 75% probability. But saying that X will happen with 51% confidence and being right less good than saying X will happen and being right with 75% probability. [Here’s](http://rationality.org/2012/11/09/was-nate-silver-the-most-accurate-2012-election-pundit/) is a discussion about the use of that score to judge the different aggregators in 2012 - which found the best was Lizner: > [@](#): > > … So who did best, and how much better did the top pundits do, compared to the rest? To find out, we can’t simply compare the absolute number of correct predictions each pundit made. > The reason for this is that pundits (the better ones, anyway) don’t just predict election outcomes, they also tell you how confident they are in each of their predictions. For example, Silver gave Obama a 50.3% chance of winning in Florida. That’s pretty damn close to 50/50 or “even odds.” So if Romney had won Florida, Silver would have been wrong, but only a little wrong. In contrast, Silver’s forecast was 92% confident that Rick Berg would win a Senate seat in North Dakota, but Berg lost. For that prediction, Silver was a lot wrong. Still, predictions with 92% confidence should be wrong 8% of the time (otherwise, that 92% confidence is underconfident), and Silver made a lot of correct predictions. > So how can we tell who did best? We need a method that accounts not just for the predicted outcomes, but also for the confidence of each prediction. … > > … We see Drew Linzer, Wang & Ferguson, Nate Silver, Simon Jackman, and DeSart & Holbrook within about 0.01 of each other, with Linzer in the lead. This is interesting since Drew Linzer has not been lionized like Nate Silver. > Also note that Wang & Ferguson got a better Brier score than Silver despite getting Florida (barely) wrong while Silver got Florida right … But there is also [this critique](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/12/1160597/-Election-forecasting-and-the-problem-with-the-Brier-Score) of using the Brier score and suggesting an alternative: > [@](#): > > Jewson (2004) notes that the Brier score doesn’t deal adequately with very improbable or probable events. For example, suppose that the probability that a Black Democrat wins Texas is 1 in 1000. Suppose we have one forecast model that predicts Obama will surely lose in Texas, whereas another model predicts that Obama’s probability of winning is 1 in 400. Well, Obama lost Texas. The Brier score would tell us to prefer the model that predicted a sure loss for Obama. Yet the model that gave him a small probability of winning is closer to the “truth” in the sense that it estimates he has a small probably of winning. That seems counter-intuitive. In addition to its poor performance scoring highly improbable and probable events, the Brier score doesn’t perform well when scoring very poor forecasts (Benedetti 2010; sorry for the pay wall). > > These issues with the Brier score should give prognosticators pause for two reasons. First, they suggest that the Brier score will not perform well in the “safe” states of a given party. Second, they suggest that Brier scores will not perform well for models whose predictions were poor (here’s lookin’ at you, Bickers and Berry). So what should we do instead? It’s all about the likelihood. Well, actually its logarithm. … Personally I’m not sure I follow the discussion that continues. But that first link does rank the scores in 2012 by that metric as well (scroll down) - Wang and Lizner both did better than Silver by that metric as well. The models going from the extreme confidence of Wang to the extreme uncertainty of Silver should give us a good chance to evaluate the models when all is said and done if we, preferably in advance, decide to judge based on some metric that evaluates justified vs unjustified confidence along with accuracy. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2016, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846/1681 "2016-11-03T14:44:52Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > This is almost where I have it. As of now, I give NC to Trump, which puts my map at 308 for Hillary. I give Florida to Trump (I just _can’t trust_ Florida, ever. Sorry), but North Carolina BARELY to Hillary. Otherwise, I agree – hope – that this map is what happens. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846.md?page=83) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-could-win-the-election-in-a-nowcast-by-fivethirtyeight/760846.md?page=85)