Nate Silver Obama 92.2% Chance of winning

[courseofhistory]

315.3 EV

Onward and upward!

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

[MSMITH33156]

1. Several swing states ticked up

a bit too.

[Doctor Jack]

2. I love the bonus updates

Just when I thought everything was as good as it would get!

[BlueDemKev]

3. He's not even listing Ohio as a battleground anymore.

Almost seems too good to be true. The biggest question I have with Nate Silver's numbers are how can he be so confident that a state (any state) will vote a certain way when the poll averages show a 1 or 2-point difference?

[Doctor Jack]

5. Nope. Ohio is a "Safe Obama"

Just like New York and Illinois

[CthulhusEvilCousin]

6. Probably by the number of polls that come out.

If you have all the polls saying 1 to 2 digit lead, then that 1 to 2 digit becomes a higher probability of being real. Though there are probably many factors that get plugged into the simulation.

[BlueDemKev]

7. Even if those polls are within the margin of error?

I mean an 80+% probability if a candidate is ahead by, say, 50% to 48%?

[CthulhusEvilCousin]

14. That's a good question

But the polls in OH, for example, aren't all just 1 or 2 points, but some are as high as 5 points. Nate's model does take into account other factors, like the lean of certain polls (whether R or D) and the margin of error, but when you have so many polls saying the same thing, I think the probability makes sense. You should check out Nate's blog, as I've read on it a few times how he works out his probabilities.

[MSMITH33156]

9. He explains this somewhere on his site

but essentially, he uses consistency of polling. It's not just average.

For example, if one state has 4 polls all with Obama+2, then he is comfortable that Obama has a 2-point lead and the percentage of win will be much higher.


However, if he has 4 polls, with 2 of them +6 for Obama and 2 of them +2 for Romney, the average will be +2 again, but in this case, his percentage his much lower.

And this is a scientifically sound statistical method. Essentially, 1 poll can have a large margin for error, but when you examine the polls in totality, the margin of error all but disappears. I believe he posted something the other day that shows that something like the candidate won 30 of 33 races where he was up by 0.1% to 5%. This is pretty robust. The only way Romney wins is if the polls as a whole, are collectively, severely biased across multiple states.

On Sam Wang's web site, you can even do the Romney +2 number, and Obama still wins in that case. The polls need to be more than 2 points off, in multiple states.

[aletier_v]

10. As an educated guess? It's time-based

Each passing hour narrows the probability window.

Just a guess.

[MSMITH33156]

4. I think at this point, any poll

that drops he will run another simulation.

[budkin]

8. UNREAL!

[timlot]

11. Dude is going all in.

If he is right. He will supplant Rove and co as the new Oracle of election predictions.

[zebe83]

12. I thought the same thing. He is going all in on his prediction.

[yellowcanine]

13. Nate is going straight to evangelical Christian Hell for that prediction.

Particularly since he turned Florida light blue. He should be using prophecy instead of polls to predict who is going to win.

[CthulhusEvilCousin]

15. The creeps on the Right

wish that was so, but they love their political party moreso than they love God. If they did love God, they wouldn't discard their principles for short term political gain, since the Kingdom of God is specifically "not of this world."