Free Republic
Browse · Search
GOP Club
Topics · Post Article

To: VanDeKoik

Although Silver is a liberal, he tries to keep his statistical analysis bias-free. He takes the attitude that “you can get some information from all polls” and tries to include some of the polls favorable to Trump in his analysis (i.e., LA Times) as well as those favorable to the other side.

The biggest flaw in his analysis is that like everyone else, he is including polling data that is 1, 2 or 3 weeks out of date. Given how fast this race is changing in Trump’s favor, the polls and predictions are inevitably going to lag what every sees is actually happening on the ground.

To his credit, Silver does have a “polls plus” model which Silver says is his most accurate predication. The polls plus model takes some other factors into account that go beyond a simple average of polls taken over the last 3 or 4 weeks. This model does not show North Carolina, Florida, Iowa and Ohio has having moved into the Trumps column (and Georgia and Arizona as never having been in any serious doubt for Trump).

What this means is that Trump is now within one state of an electoral college majority: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado, Michigan or the combination of (Nevada + New Hampshire) would put him over the top.

I’ve found one of the more useful tools on Silver’s site is a graphic with a long snake-like listing of all the states from most-blue to most-red, showing where the likely dividing point is. That dividing point is now creeping very close to an electoral majority for Trump.

Trump has also written a couple of articles for the site that says despite the popular wisdom that has been put out that there is an “electoral college advantage” for democrats, that in fact Trump is far more likely than Clinto to be able to put together an electoral college victory without a clear win in the popular vote.

I think even Nate Silver is telling us good news.


7 posted on 09/15/2016 9:22:14 AM PDT by CaptainMorgantown
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]


To: CaptainMorgantown

Silver’s biggest flaw with this ‘percent chance of winning’ is that any democrat will automatically start with a higher percentage...since California, New York, etc. are a ‘lock’ for the democrats. These states shouldn’t even be included in the equation - the real contest is in around 14 swingish states, and right now Trump is at least batting .500 in that contest.


9 posted on 09/15/2016 9:32:16 AM PDT by lacrew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
GOP Club
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson