taking future 538 predictions for the WAGs they appear to be

No matter how many numbers you have to crunch there is the unpredictability of human behavior.

Wild Ass Guess?

good guess!

In Britain, WAG is a slightly sexist and classist, derogatory term for the Wives And Girlfriends of top professional soccer players. It conjures up images of horrible orange spray tans and ostentatiously expensive clothes. To.me, it has connotations of wanting to keep young working class women in "their place", so please don't mistake my explanation for approval.

I don't blame them for being wrong or even being so wrong it is comical. I am just glad they were wrong.

I don't mean more educated or even IQ increases. I mean I think they are onto the 1% and finally get that they have been getting hosed.

The majority still carry water for those that keep us enslaved to the 1% and do so with glee and pride.

who your worst enemies are.

It's really not very hard if you have that skill. Most do not and it has been intentionally removed from our education system for that very reason.

And like you said it's not taught in schools, the reason is because people are supposed to work not think.

Don't accept a wooden Hillary.

Or is it wood?

That ends that!

Oh, fuck it!

too funny! Thanks!

before they've done it.

I was also personally offended by Hillary's obvious pandering over the Flint water crisis. I guess other folks here didn't care so much for that either.

Both of his forecasts, polls and polls plus, gave him a less than 1 % chance of victory.

For Nate, this is a colossal embarrassment. It's one thing to get a close race wrong, but he completely screwed up this projection.

It's worse than ever this time around.

P R E S S R E L E A S E
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 6, 2016 Contact:
Steve Mitchell
248-891-2414
Clinton Opens Up Huge Lead in Michigan
(Clinton 66% - Sanders 29%)

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Mitchell-FOX2DetroitMIPollDEM3616.pdf



OOPS?

An open primary?

One selects the ballot when goes to the polls. It is not binding. So yes, it is an open primary. But it is not likely that many GOP opted to vote a Democratic ballot. The GOP are truly mad as hatters here.

independents swayed it. It's also possible that the debate swayed it.

Greater than 99% .... HAH!

I'm not anti-Nate, but this shows that the math isn't always so simple. He's much smarter than I, but somehow he screwed up.

n/t

use a bunch of number to pick the conventional wisdom favorite and call it a prediction.

His model would work better if he actually talked to people in addition to crunching numbers.

Just like "mediums" after they miss the mark time after time. People forget the negative predictions in favor of the ones that were right.

were totally and tragically wrong.

He's built a reputation and he'll keep it no matter how many times he is wrong.

OMG the Iraqi war pundits it's really not so bad they were wrong, people make mistakes and huge ones. But they were wrong for a decade, now that is a special kind of wrong.

how he almost immediately takes down his data as soon as possible.

His number crunching is rather straightforward. His problem is that the numbers he is given to crunch are flawed, through no fault of his own.

The root of his mistakes is tied to the horrible polling being conducted this election season. As long as the polls are wrong, 538 will be wrong as well.

but it was only one in realm of reality.

winning by 2% with 97% In is huge victory for bernie.

and damn if I can find the thread, I didnt throw in my guess, but most predictions were right around the actual outcome

Go Bernie Go.

I hope others share my feeling about Real Clear Politics and how they are totally unreliable in primary predictions.

First off, when you have a state that has an impending primary--it is not helpful to factor in polls that are 2 or 3 weeks old. We have very little time between primaries. It is not helpful to rely on RCP averages that aggregate polls from weeks ago. When you've got a week between state votes--so much happens to the numbers in that week.

Look what happened to Michigan! Yesterday, RCP said that Hillary was ahead by 21 points. This was based on past polls and a couple of recent polls that did show the race tightening. However, they included two AWFUL polls that should have been relegated to the trash heap. One robo poll had Hillary ahead in Michigan by 30+ points. It was ridiculous.

When you have states in which there is only one or two weeks to convince people--the dynamics are constantly shifting. The campaigns hold rallies, events, their ground games get geared up and ads are running. The numbers can shift drastically day to day.

Going forward, I think it would be wise to just trash any outfit that aggregates these polls. What we really need is a very recent, reliable poll. Anything else, is shit. And a waste of time.

Maybe Nate has parlayed his past successes into becoming a highly respected, highly paid "driver" for the oligarchy.

I think Nate genuinely tries to do a good job. It is just that the assumptions that always worked in the past do not work in this crazy election. Both parties are in revolt against the establishment and it just may not be possible to accurately predict this election. Think about it- who honestly would have predicted last year that an old Jewish socialist from Vermont would be taking it to Clinton and the favorite Jeb! would be forced out early in the season?

I'm wary of polls anyway knowing that with a little sleight of hand polls can be made to return the results somebody wants--or pays for.

99 percent? Wow.

also failed so miserably in his UK voting predictions last year, that maybe, just maybe, he would take a deep and long look at these 'assumptions'. As a scientist and professional he should, but I suspect his support for Clinton biases his 'assumptions'.

I love when human psychology trumps math.

deserves its own thread.

If they define likely voters by a metric that includes a yes or frequency count re voting in past elections, or to whether they show up on a phone list because they in fact did vote in some of the past elections, then perhaps that's why every single one of those polls was skewed.

Will they stop at nothing?!

I wasn't in the best of moods today.... until tonight!

So the polling average was only off by 23 points!

Rather, it analyzes polls and uses statistical modelling methods (like "Monte Carlo&quot to make predictions of outcomes.

If the polls that provide the input to the models are based on faulty samples then 538 is going to produce incorrect predictions. Garbage in, garbage out. So ... what's wrong (and right) with the polls?

Polls in late 2015 tended to under estimate millennial voter turnout. (The CNN/ORC poll in December literally included no one in the sample under the age of 50! This is basically expressing an assumption that younger voters won't turn out.) In those states where younger voters have outperformed the predictions of the sample, Sanders has either won or out performed expectations and made it close.

Michigan is the most striking example of this. Polls had Ms Clinton way out in front. I could have SWORN I saw a Google alert earlier in the evening announcing a Clinton victory. Imagine my surprise (and delight) when one came up with the news that Sanders had won!

He lost big in Mississippi ... and I haven't looked at the demographics of that vote yet. But I bet young voter turnout was small. Why does Clinton do so well in the South? I think a lot of it has to do with the influence of the black church down here. It is impossible to over estimate the importance of the black church in the role of the black community in the South, or indeed across the nation. But especially in the South. The influence is justified by its history. And the black church leans heavily Clinton. The Sanders movement simply did not successfully make its case to the leadership of that vital element of the Southern community.

But the South has pretty much voted. Michigan has shown what can be done. Let's do it!

Trav

Kudos and an A++

'it's the math stupid'

Gephardt will be Kerry's Running Mate

From what I recall, in the 2012 election, most of the other polls were predicting a Romney win, but Nate Silvers called it for Obama.