Posted on 11/05/2012 9:19:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
With one day to go in the U.S. presidential election, Obama's probability of winning has reached 86%, according to New York Times polling guru Nate Silver.
Betting markets Intrade and Betfair also show the President maintaining a strong (but less extreme) lead. These assessments come despite the continued release of some polls that look good for Romney. The difference between the national polls and the betting markets, some polling experts say, is that the national polls focus on the popular vote, whereas Silver's odds focus on state-by-state polls aimed at determining the winner of the electoral college and, with it, the Presidency. Nate Silver's model also averages hundreds of polls.
Nate Silver is so confident in his polling model that he publicly offered to bet MSNBC host Joe Scarborough who would win the election. Scarborough, who maintains that the election is a "toss-up," has not accepted the challenge.
Let's go to the data...
First, Nate Silver now gives Obama 86% chance of reelection. That's up from a post-first-debate low of ~60% three weeks ago, and it's higher than the 80% previous all-time peak Obama hit just before the first debate.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
In baseball you have hard statistics, based on a player's past performance. If the statistics state that a player reached base 30% of at bats, that's what it is. It's not 30% with a margin of error of 3%, or 30% when the model uses 41% Red Sox fans vs. 30% Rangers fans. It's 30%, period.
Polling, on the other hand, always has a margin of error, and depends heavily on the models used in the particular polls being evaluated.
In short, there is significantly more variability and vagary in the input data for political mathematical prognostication than in prognostication in baseball.
If it were that straightforward, and like calculating loads on a bridge, they could just come up with the equivalent of Turbo Tax that would automatically input the polling data from each organization and spit out the likely winner. No need for commentators or prognosticators - just the ‘Turbo Election’ program.
It's not that simple.
I got a little shaken up by the info I was reading too when I deliberately stepped out of my perspectival ‘bubble’ for a bit—but it did give me better understanding of why Obama is up so much on Intrade and what not.
Does he get to keep his "guru" status when he is proven to be oh so wrong?
In poker, when you’re gonna lose your ass anyway, might as well go “all in”.
They keep Krugman and Dowd around, don't they?
Here’s my take on these polls.
We’re looking at human nature at work: 2008 obama voters don’t want to admit obama is the wrong choice to pollsters, because that means the voters were wrong and who wants to admit that? And so we don’t see the huge decline of obama in the polls. However, that’s going to change tomorrow in the voting booth where there are no pollsters. It’ll then be a choice not about saving face but of voting between obama and Romney.
Best thing to do to convince a fence sitter to vote for Romney is to simply say: “It’s okay to vote for Romney, he’ll be a good president.” And don’t even get into obama’s record.
Bookmarked, for a session of hooting laughter on Wednesday morning (Working the polls tomorrow, pub thereafter).
I think you got your analysis backwards I think- they are trying to attract more money to the Romney side by offering a higher payoff
which means there is a lot of money on Obama’s side- but Intrade is not allowed to trade in USA and overseas they are excited about an obama 2nd term - they love hime way more than we do
Now it’s up to 92.2 percent. This is just getting sad.
How was your followup reading session?
No hooting laughter, that's for sure. Don'tcha hate it when the "bad guys" are right?
Now I have to get me a gub'mint job, to break the regime from the inside! < /sarc >
Oh, and to add insult to injury, the pub lost power and was closed by the time we finished election duty! A beer at home just ain’t the same!
Now that hurts.
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