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brooklynite

(94,596 posts)
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 08:45 PM Nov 2012

FiveThirtyEight: "For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased"

NY Times:

President Obama is now better than a 4-in-5 favorite to win the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. His chances of winning it increased to 83.7 percent on Friday, his highest figure since the Denver debate and improved from 80.8 percent on Thursday.

Friday’s polling should make it easy to discern why Mr. Obama has the Electoral College advantage. There were 22 polls of swing states published Friday. Of these, Mr. Obama led in 19 polls, and two showed a tie. Mitt Romney led in just one of the surveys, a Mason-Dixon poll of Florida.

Although the fact that Mr. Obama held the lead in so many polls is partly coincidental — there weren’t any polls of North Carolina on Friday, for instance, which is Mr. Romney’s strongest battleground state — they nevertheless represent powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a “tossup.” A tossup race isn’t likely to produce 19 leads for one candidate and one for the other — any more than a fair coin is likely to come up heads 19 times and tails just once in 20 tosses. (The probability of a fair coin doing so is about 1 chance in 50,000.)
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FiveThirtyEight: "For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased" (Original Post) brooklynite Nov 2012 OP
The lead sentence is wrong abumbyanyothername Nov 2012 #1
Who cares about MATH!!! LOL!!! Liberal_Stalwart71 Nov 2012 #2
Nate abumbyanyothername Nov 2012 #4
Yeah, I know. I was being facetious. How he could get that wrong, though, makes me nervous again! Liberal_Stalwart71 Nov 2012 #12
Online bettings site have him 9:2 Jeff In Milwaukee Nov 2012 #3
He is not citing online betting sites abumbyanyothername Nov 2012 #10
Doesn't the "better than" phrase cover him in any event? nt MADem Nov 2012 #5
I would say no abumbyanyothername Nov 2012 #6
Well, I'm guessing he is editing on the fly, so I will cut the guy some slack. nt MADem Nov 2012 #8
better than 4 out of 5 Godhumor Nov 2012 #7
And better than 5 out of 6 isn't? abumbyanyothername Nov 2012 #9
I agree TexasCPA Nov 2012 #11

abumbyanyothername

(2,711 posts)
1. The lead sentence is wrong
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 08:49 PM
Nov 2012

Clearly wrong. President Obama is now better than a 5 in 6 favorite to win the EC, according to the FiveThrityEight forecast.

83.7% = 5.14 to 1 = 5.14 in 6.

Jeff In Milwaukee

(13,992 posts)
3. Online bettings site have him 9:2
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 08:52 PM
Nov 2012

This come to just a titch below 80%. It was 4:1 just two days ago.

The consensus appears to be that Obama is padding his lead coming down the stretch.

abumbyanyothername

(2,711 posts)
6. I would say no
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 09:06 PM
Nov 2012

to me "better than 4 in 5" means greater than 4 in 5 but less than the next whole number odds. Expressing the odds in integer to integer implies that the odds are closest to those to integers.

Here they are not. The odds actually exceed the next full step up to the next higher integers.

TexasCPA

(527 posts)
11. I agree
Sat Nov 3, 2012, 09:12 PM
Nov 2012

If you aggregate the state polls, Obama is out of the MOE is enough states to get above 270. He only losses if the statisticians have made wrong assumptions in who will be voting.

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