Per 538 Team Clinton is apparently of the belief that PA is a lock Blue and 538 is with you that it may be more a tipping point state.
And the answer is … today.
Wang is currently at 70% Clinton with random drift and 85% “Bayesian.”
Betting markets are also in that same range.
As long as we can keep Hillary out of a tank we’ll be fine.
It is interesting that the different models all pretty much converge:
538 gives Trump 19 to 26 depending on method; Wang 15 to 30 also depending on model variation; betting markets (per Silver) 20 to 25. That’s all averaging 22.5.
Meanwhile Silver notes the same thing I noted a few days ago in another thread: at this point at least Trump performs better in swing states than in the nation overall. He offers a potential explanation though, that such is a function of his relatively weak performance in some traditionally solidly Red states bringing his national numbers down even though he will still win most of those states. Of course it could just be that state polling is still relatively sparse.
Still it raises a question … IF Trump wins places like Texas but by smallish margins does that have any impact on down ticket races? IOW is it worth competing in places like Texas (especially if you have a bigger war chest) not with an expectation of winning the state (excepting in such an overwhelming national win that it would not matter) but rather in order to make some down ticket headway and build for future elections as the demographics shift further?
That’s what happens when you have multiple honest ways of looking at the same reality, yes.
It would be shocking if they didn’t all pretty much converge, especially Wang and Silver, who are both applying statistical methods to the same polling data. (Betting markets are another story, because the market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent. That is, bettors are not necessarily basing their actions on anything rational, even though they ostensibly have money on the line; they can over-value and under-value all they want based on gut feelings, especially if individual bettors don’t feel they have that much riding on the outcome.)
I think so, yes. This could be a big year for the Senate if Red-State Democrats are energized to get out and vote and are primed with that downticket strategy.
Just for grins, I took today’s 538 polls-plus numbers and fired up the 270 To Win app. I distributed all but the eight closest states (as determined by Silver) to Clinton or Trump, leaving Colorado, Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Florida undecided.
That map gave Clinton 266 electoral votes. Trump would need to win every single one of the eight closest states to take the presidency. If Clinton could only manage to swing just NH, those 4 EVs put her at 270. (Of course this doesn’t account for the odd split EVs in Maine and Nebraska, though.)
Trump’s got a yooge challenge with the map. Although it’s not even July yet, I know lots can change before November.
You probably know this by now, but that article was jumping the gun a little–about two days after this article appeared a PAC supporting Clinton announced plans to spend $10.5 million on TV ads in Pennsylvania. IOW, right in line with what they had already earmarked for Virginia. I suppose you could argue that the Clinton campaign was pushed to change their minds by the fivethirtyeight article 
but I kind of doubt it…
Ulf I had missed that! Thanks.
I must admit I don’t quite get 538 polls-only currently giving PA a Clinton +8 with an 81.6% probability of winning. June polls are Clinton +1, +1, and +4. To say that current polling (polling only) supports Clinton winning PA by more than the national margin seems odd. So Uncle Jocko that also presumes that all states Silver calls not in the eight closest do indeed go that way. Remember that list has the number 9 state being called at 70% probability and you have to go 13 more states until the certainty gets to over 80%. 80% certainty implies being wrong one in five times and they are not likely independent events.
Cool. Thanks.
You are welcome.
So as to how 538 comes up with PA so much more strongly Clinton than recent polls state … the method uses all the polls and uses recency as only one factor, along with size and track record of the house. An older Marist poll, two months old (!), is weighted most strongly because it was large and the house is highly regarded. That two month old poll was Clinton +15 and offsets more recent data showing a closer race in the 538 model.
Wang’s model is simpler: last three or last week’s polls for the state, whichever is greater, use the median. PA last three are now: tie; Clinton +1; Clinton +4. Median is +1. So Wang rates PA as current Clinton +1, a virtual toss-up, and Silver as Clinton +8, while RCP rolling average is Clinton +2.5
Again, impressive that the different techniques or 538 and PEC come up with the average of their two variations for the national results (and the sauce added by each to create their value added approaches is very different as well) as exactly the same.
Anybody else notice the way fivethirtyeight phrased the headline on the article presenting their first prediction?
For background, note on the side of the site the baseball predictions, which specify for example that Cleveland has a 52% chance of defeating the Blue Jays tonight. Or the predictions for the primaries, earlier, which would state things like “Bernie Sanders has a 72% chance of winning the Wisconsin Democratic primary.” That seems to be the standard way of expressing these things: “[Favorite] has a [percentage] chance of winning [event].”
Yet the headline is “Donald Trump has a 20 percent chance of becoming president.” NOT the more standard formulation “Hillary Clinton has an 80 percent chance of becoming president.”
I am not accusing fivethirtyeight of any particular bias toward Trump or against Clinton, or anything of the sort…but I find it fascinating. It’s just always all about Trump!
Oh, I know, absolutely. I wouldn’t presume to say anything based on polling in the first half of the year equates to a lead-pipe lock in November.
So throw PA in the mix. With a snapshot of today’s situation, Trump would need to make practically a clean sweep of the nine states polling the closest. As of today, that’s a big hill to climb.
It’s as if Trump gets a “get out of jail” card on everything he does from his supporters. All you really need to ask the population is whether they watch Fox News, CNN or MSNBC. That’s going to give you a better count of the eventual vote.
I couldn’t live without Rachel Maddow’s reassuring voice each night. Trump getting more than 200 electoral votes is Freddy Krueger on the loose to me.
Yes, but again, not all independent events.
Even if somewhere north of 80% probable not.
Take Wang’s current status with Trump just +2 map. Give Trump the three toss-ups of IA, NH, and FL. Then have him just flip ME as an any given Sunday (Clinton is relatively underperforming there) and it is 269 to 269 with the House deciding. Have him instead flip VA (in four-way currently only +3) and it’s a Trump EV win even with a popular vote loss.
The agregated popular vote seems (at this point) sticky at 5 to 7 Clinton in the face of Trump being just about as awful as can be; is it just as sticky in the other direction if he starts campaigning better, gets funding, and Clinton has some significant gaffes? I hope so. (And even more hope to not find out.)
Are we seeing the same thing here? According to that cite, Clinton has 3 more EVs than she needs to win POTUS. (273)
ETA, elsewhere on that site; State polls: Clinton 330 EV, Trump 208 EV
When will 538 publish its Congressional predictions?
Not sure what is confusing you.
Yes Trump just +2 over current polling by itself gets Clinton down to 273 if she does not win any of the three toss-ups, and if VA flips too (it is currently Clinton +3 and would be Clinton +1 in that scenario) then Trump wins.
Make sense?
Interesting. I am guessing that timeliness is given a higher weight the closer you get to the election. Perhaps they have data indicating that June polls don’t have significantly more predictive value than April polls and that poll quality matters more.