Nate Silver Election Update: Polls Show Pennsylvania Back In Clinton’s Firewall

[Hissyspit]

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-polls-show-pennsylvania-back-in-clintons-firewall/

Election Update: Polls Show Pennsylvania Back In Clinton’s Firewall

By Nate Silver

Filed under 2016 Election
At FiveThirtyEight, we generally prefer state polls to national polls. So far, though, we haven’t had much of them to work with. If you’re getting dozens of national polls every week, but just a smattering of state-level surveys — and that’s what we’ve been getting — you’re better off inferring what’s going on in the states from the trend in national polls, rather than the other way around.

For example, Hillary Clinton has gone from having roughly a 3 or 4-percentage-point lead over Donald Trump in national polls in early July to more like an 8-point lead now. Therefore, we’d expect her to gain perhaps 4 or 5 points in polls of Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and other swing states if polls were taken in those states now, compared to the previous versions of those polls conducted a month ago.

On Tuesday, we finally got a bunch of state polls to test the theory — three polls each from Quinnipiac University and Marist College. And, in fact, the new data mostly confirms our hypothesis, although with some caveats. Clinton gained an average of 4 percentage points across the six surveys. The clearest trend toward Clinton is in Pennsylvania, which is now part of her path of least resistance to 270 electoral votes. Here are the new surveys:

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[VMA131Marine]

1. Trump can't win without PA

[grubbs]

2. Silver is way to neg for Clinton

I realize they hedge. But really. C'mon man!😀

[Adrahil]

3. He's just being careful....

He totally wrote off Trump in the primaries, so he's making sure he follows the data.

[StrictlyRockers]

4. Silver is wrong way too often for my tastes.

I'm not sure how he keeps his job. Maybe he's good with the sports predictions..

[mythology]

7. In the 2008 GE, he hit 49 of 50 states

In the 2012, GE, he hit 50 of 50 states.

It's difficult to judge too hard based on primaries, especially given that his methodology is based on polling because both Clinton (minority voters) and Sanders (1st time and young voters) are hard to poll for in a primary election especially. But in spite of that, the polling was generally right on the winner if not the margin of victory in any given states. There were a couple of notable examples like Michigan, but if one looked at the demographics of the state, it was pretty clear Sanders should have been favored.

I'm not sure why you think Silver has been wrong so often, but okay.

[StrictlyRockers]

8. I'll accept that he was wrong one time, eight years ago.

Also, I will accept that he was right one time four years ago.

Anything in the past 4 years that you can cite?

[Johnny2X2X]

9. He just did

2012 he went 50 for 50 in states.

[StrictlyRockers]

11. Right, I said I accepted that he was right one time, four years ago.

I have not been impressed with him lately.

[Orrex]

14. Does this mean nothing to you?

Some very impressive work in the political arena.

[FLPanhandle]

10. He is incredibly accurate

The one area that is hard to predict during the primaries was caucuses since they weren't easy to predict using polls.

Outside of that, he has been spot on.

[StrictlyRockers]

12. So you're saying he's been spot on except for all those many times that he was wrong?

okkkk

[onehandle]

5. Not a chance Trump wins here. PA is over for him. nt

[Glassunion]

6. Mark my words.

I said this last Thursday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8073816

[StrictlyRockers]

13. If you actually want unbiased predictions and good methodologies on state-wide polling

Go here: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Or here: http://uselectionatlas.org/PRED/index.php

Or here: http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Or here: http://www.electionprojection.com/presidential-elections.php

Or here: http://www.270towin.com/

And shun Nate Silver and 538.com, or at least give them the weight that their accuracy actually deserves.

[Chathamization]

15. Yeah, 538's model is kind of ridiculous. Good models don't have 38% swings in a week and a half.

With a swing like that, the model is mostly useless. Straight poll aggregations (538, Huffpost Pollster) are much more informative. They were also better for the primaries - even though Silver defenders try to dismiss those as just the primary being difficult, you were better up looking at the aggregations than reading 538 articles for those. The only reason to go to 538 is if you're a person who wants a meaningless percentage attached to your poll aggregation.