He simply predicts/forecasts/reports based on what the numbers tell him. The numbers (the polling data) were wrong so he was wrong. He was not wrong because of some personal objectivity problem or bias for Clinton.

Well said. Open primaries and caucuses are especially tough to predict, and flukes happen. Earlier in the day Silver had said he thought the race might end up being a lot closer than expected.

If Hillary had won as expected.

What he actually said was that he had a feeling Sanders might outperform versus expectations. That is a 50-50 proposition.

Very Clintonesque to try to leave himself an out, but less than a 1% chance speaks for itself.

...but sometimes it ends up being wrong. Late deciders, independents, people feeling complacent because they think their candidate has it wrapped up...these are the sorts of things that bring about surprising results. And surprising results are bound to happen.

It doesn't mean the people who report the data as it is have some personal vendetta or that they fail to understand that data is sometimes misleading.

there are too many unknowns in the data to make predictions with the level of precision that Sliver implies.

When there are enormous splits in voter preference based on Independent versus Democrat, young versus older, black versus white, unless you know the precise mix of voters you can't predict the results with any accuracy. And how do you know the percentage of voters in an age when many people don't have landlines, many who do have landlines won't answer their phone unless they know the caller, etc.?

I have done plenty of financial spreadsheets and modeling. When you are doing one and realize that you are putting one assumption on top of another assumption on top of another assumption and that if you change the values for those underlying assumptions the forecast jumps all over the place, you know you probably have garbage in and garbage out. You warn your client that the actual outcomes could be all over the place and show them a variety of outcomes based on different assumptions; it's called sensitivity analysis. You don't just shove it all into the black box and pretend you have an accurate model.

It's that he's a fraud.

you might want to look it up in the Dictionary

Uncalled for accusation.

It was an "open" primary which is extremely hard to predict. With just dems allowed to vote his prediction would have been more accurate.

The polls were wrong in Michigan but he's usually right. It's predicting the future and no one can do it all the time.

Or anybody's ability. There are too many variables and too many unknowns to predict with the degree of accuracy that Sliver pretends to.

If Silver was as good as his fans think he is, he would keep his sports predictions to himself and make a killing in Las Vegas.

Whoever knows these limits but hypes it as though it were "science,"* which is what Silver and the rest of the polling industry do, is engaging in self-interested commercial shilling.

* - something can be scientific - apply transparent methodology in an effort to falsify hypotheses - and still wildly unreliable. Primary polling is such a something.

You: "Primary polling is unreliable and people can and do change their minds."

Therefore anyone selling primary polling as "science," setting odds as if they're running a betting parlor, or making claims like "99% chance of Clinton winning Michigan!," is concealing the unreliability and selling themselves. This is a for-profit industry. Really it's not unlike the financial ratings agencies. All kinds of predictions can turn out reliable in normal times, and then it gets useless in extraordinary times but continues to pretend it has acquired a legitimate expertise to speak down to everyone else.*

There is no incentive for Nate Silver or any of the rest of these outfits to say: "Don't pay attention to me, because I don't really know for sure." Or: "Screw what the odds are, pay attention to the issues and vote for what you think is right."

* (All these would-be Snopes-style fact-checkers are another one. There's no reason why the outfit should have more authority than the argument, but people cite them as though they do.)

Whereas I don't care about him. He's just one player within the charade of the for-profit polling industry that oversells itself and is exploited by the unscrupulous to confuse politics. They can all go to hell collectively. What is their net effect? We're talking about personal bullshit all day instead of debating issues and maybe even changing each others' minds and arriving at solutions.

He isn't doing the research and so is at their mercy. When things go well, he looks like a rock star. When they don't, he's an idiot. The lesson here is that he is nothing special and just does meta data analysis. He got lucky in a big way. Not so much this cycle. Hope he invested well.

the mo-mo's hooting and hollering over Silver's demise make me question if they're of voting age.

But the problem is with the polls that he tries to aggregate as a lot of them are getting less accurate. They don't distinguish between open and closed primaries well, they don't predict which way independents and republicans are crossing over to vote in the democratic primaries, they underrepresent young people (under 50) and people that lack a land line.

When you try to aggregate flawed data you get junk results.

PPP has been useless in the primaries and has consistently been off and throws off a lot of the results.

Of the 2 of you I'm pretty sure Nate is not the one without objectivity...

According to his TL
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/707417109492592642

Just asking...

Really.

How does this statistical prediction game contribute to the conversation?

It isn't much different that playing high-low card ... I find it almost creepy when applied to the democratic process.

We don't talk issues, we talk this bullshit. And while all sides exploit polls to build momentum, the Clinton camp INSISTS on it as the centerpiece of her campaign, because she cannot tell you otherwise what she supports.*

(Status quo corporatism, a round of new criminal bloody wars, and pretending to service the demands of voter clienteles defined through identitarian categories.)

He didn't ask to be born that way.

and is now Nate Lead.

You have fallen into the same mindset that ruined Romney's chances last election: denigrating pollsters who bring you bad news. This is your 'revenge' for Silver being more accurate than not? Celebrating the fact that he was wrong?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

than it does with having him rammed down our throats as an unassailable idol.

The game has changed and the guy who was supposed to be keeping track of the game hasn't realized it yet.

Of course people tend to gravitate to the more reliable pollsters. Regardless of Michigan, that's still 538 and Nate Silver.

Wanting Sanders to win should never blind you to reality. Yes, there may be a lesson to learn from 538 being so much off target in Michigan but that doesn't mean the Universe abruptly started turning in the opposite direction than normal. It's just more data to add to the mix for future predictions.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

but a lot of us knew that the old methodologies were severely flawed in the age of social media. The establishment has never had their game challenged like this before and they are reeling.

Actually, 538's methodology is more of an aggregator of other polls rather than their own input. I can see the argument that land line-only polling might not be as accurate but besides that, what else do you think should be changed?

I hardly see the establishment as reeling based on Sanders performing better than expected. He's still way behind in delegate counts and the popular vote.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

That a Jewish Socialist could get this far says something. Whether Bernie wins or loses, the establishment has had its foundations rocked.

He has consistently outperformed the polling, quite often by more than the Margin of Error, sometimes by multiples of the MoE.

The fact of the matter is that it's the establishment, including Silver, that wishes to escape reality and they are very close to panic mode if they aren't already there.

His prediction likely would have been more accurate if only democrats were voting.

had a lot to do with this.

Plenty of Clinton supporters shoved Silver down our throats and wondered why Sanders was still trying since it was "done." So you are surprised that those people that have had to deal with that are not reminding those fork stickers that they were either full of crap or horribly misled?

But the math and the methodology is still sound and Sanders has an almost insurmountable lead to overcome even now. That's just how things look at this particular point in space/time. Tomorrow everything could change.

The overall pattern right now has not changed, imo.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

But when his press coverage went to his head and he started imagining that he was a pundit and actually possessed some sort of political insight he lost credibility.

He was a victim of hubris.

I was especially disappointed to hear that he preferred to use his considerable skills on sports statistics. As if that actually contributes anything to the greater good.

But I was also disappointed to hear that Colbert wants to be thought of as funny rather than as the insightful political analyst I always saw him as.

Oh, well. But it's not just Silver, it's 538.com, so I still think 'his' predictions are closer to the mark than others'.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]

Those are still solid.

The vitriol has been intense and not all of it from the Sanders Supporters side but I think much more from there. The vitriol actually 'inspires' some of us to at least root for Sanders to lose. Much of the 'stick a fork in him' comments have come as a response to the insults delivered to Clinton and her supporters, imo.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

I agree there is a lot of nastiness, but I do get tired of ridicule (not talking about you) and being portrayed as racist and not a real democrat and that sort of thing. I try not to insult Hillary supporters, but I do criticize and ridicule her, because I just don't like or trust her, and I never have.

As for Nate Silver, he's just a nerdy guy crunching numbers. I don't see an agenda on his part. I think the polls are screwed up because of so many new voters and so many cross-overs because of Bernie and Trump. I would find it very interesting to see any research he might do on that.

my support for Bernie).

From my perspective, the massive dishonesty from the Hillary side invites angry responses from the Bernie side. I have lost a lot of respect for many of Hillary's most prolific supporters on DU due to their dishonesty. I think Clinton will get the nomination, but her dishonesty and the dishonesty of many of her supporters means that she has no right to complain when Bernie supporters call her a liar or don't bother to vote for her. I am not recommending that Bernie supporters not vote for her, but it would have been nice had she earned their votes.

But then do any of us really know anything?

Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm.....well.....I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know
that anything else exists?
Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun!
Doolittle: Now, listen, listen. Here's the big question. How do you know that the evidence your sensory apparatus reveals to you is correct? What I'm getting at is this. The only experience that is directly available to you is your sensory data. This sensory data is merely a stream of electrical impulses that stimulate your computing center.
Bomb #20: In other words, all that I really know about the outside world is relayed to me through my electrical connections.
Doolittle: Exactly!
Bomb #20: Why...that would mean that...I really don't know what the outside universe is really like at all for certain.
Doolittle: That's it! That's it!
Bomb #20 : Intriguing. I wish I had more time to discuss this matter.
Doolittle: Why don't you have more time?
Bomb #20: Because I must detonate in 75 seconds.
Doolittle: Wait! Wait! Now, bomb, consider this next question very carefully. What is your one purpose in life?
Bomb #20: To explode, of course.
Doolittle: And you can only do it once, right?
Bomb #20: That is correct.
Doolittle: And you wouldn't want to explode on the basis of false data, would you?
Bomb #20: Of course not.
Doolittle: Well then, you've already admitted that you have no real proof of the existence of the outside universe.
Bomb #20: Yes...well...
Doolittle: You have no absolute proof that Sergeant Pinback ordered you to detonate.
Bomb #20: I recall distinctly the detonation order. My memory is good on matters like these.
Doolittle: Of course you remember it, but all you remember is merely a series of sensory impulses which you now realize have no real, definite connection with outside reality.
Bomb #20: True. But since this is so, I have no real proof that you're telling me all this.
Doolittle: That's all beside the point. I mean, the concept is valid no matter where it originates.
Bomb #20: Hmmmm....
Doolittle: So, if you detonate...
Bomb #20: In nine seconds....
Doolittle: ...you could be doing so on the basis of false data.
Bomb #20: I have no proof it was false data.
Doolittle: You have no proof it was correct data!
Bomb #20: I must think on this further.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

This was bound to happen sometime. 99%=/=100%. Everyone forgets about that 1%. With a 99% projection, you can expect the given data to produce the projected result 99 times out of 100, 1 time out of 100 it won't. Given the sheer amount of projections he does, I'm surprised it took this long. He is still by and large accurate, but this will not be the last mistake unless the pollsters themselves stop making mistakes (impossible).

These guys aren't tossing coins.

Those projections are based on the data entered and the electoral results from previous elections with similar data. When the data is wrong, the projection is wrong, it's that simple. Your hatred of Nate is blinding you to the fact that Nate has no control over a pollster's methodology, he can only weight for it. Weighting becomes meaningless however when ALL of the pollsters are wrong. This is not a failure of his mathematical model, it is a failure of the polling organizations that produce data that is then input in that model.

I question the value of 538. Just chalking it up to 'shit happens' doesn't really work.

A small number of failures doesn't change this. Now, if this becomes routine, then you have a point.

but if the polling is unreliable... I think Clinton supporter's overreliance on Silver as a trusty bludgeon, accounts for a lot of the backlash today.

The Sanders supporters making the exact same arguments as Romney folks with their heads in the sand 4 years ago. Silver is a shill with this voodoo math to support his political leanings. It's all the "mainstream media" that has it out for our guy. The fact that that phrase rolls off the tongue of Sanders folks so naturally should cause them pause... I see it regularly abbreviated MSM... do you even realize thats freeper bullshit when such terms are used and when guys that interpret polling data are considered subjective because you don't like their conclusions?

He has been anointed as an all-knowing seer based on his predictions of past elections. Those predictions are made using his personal algorithm to look at the existing poll numbers and using weighting methods to sort out what he feels is reliable polling data from ones with less rigor. While he makes adjustments as things progress to his running trend analysis, he is most famous for his predictions made in the final runup to elections when the latest data is available, not on his running analysis leading up to the voting.

Most of us that pay attention to the world at large who had the resources to gather all the pertinent data could make pretty accurate predictions in the hours before a contest. As noted, predicting where there are lots of variables can be shaky, that's why he uses ranges of outcomes.

The thing I'm trying to say is, don't put too much stock in what Nate says (other than trends) more than a day or two out from a contest. He's good, but only as good as his aggregated data and their sources.

Anyone that tells you "538 says..." any earlier than the day before a contest is just blowing smoke.

eom

Now, that seems to be REALLY, REALLY off, in the range of outer space off.