Nov. 2: For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased (Silver: 83.7% Chance Obama Win)

NY Times FiveThirtyEight ^ | November 3, 2012 | Nate Silver

[PJ-Comix]

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.

[glennaro]

Is Silver willing to put his money where his mouth is?

If so, I'm in on this prediction -- all in!

[JPG]

Campaigns pay big bucks to receive ACCURATE internal poll results. They don't want any fluff or BS designed to persuade or encourage. Silver's big claim to fame was the ‘08 election but the word is that the Obama campaign fed him the numbers from their internal polling. This time around Silver is exposing his 100% rat partisanship and has both of his thumbs on the scale.

[arthurus]

Reports of “defective” touch-screen voting machines were coming from 6 states last I saw, probably more by now- Romney votes getting switched to kenyan. How many people make their choice and don’t even see what shows up on the screen?

[only1percent]

It makes perfect sense for Silver to double down now. His downside is fixed — a reputational hit if Romney wins — but his upside is variable. If he increases his confidence interval and Obama wins, it looks like his model was the best and his reliance on it was warranted. If he decreases his confidence interval and Obama wins, then it looks like he was just lucky and was trying to hedge his bets.

[ncalburt]

Typical Sliver BS trying to cover all his bases !
This scam artist played the same game with the Walker recall .
He went around whispering to all the websites and networks that the polls have tightened playing his usual Gay radical psych ops games .
But he did not change his model !
He was hoping to hurt Walker turnout with his games !
CNN bought his BS and looked stupid in end but no one called this fraud out on his antics !
He is radical gay leftist from the daily Koz !
Romney will win the electoral college !

The Obama media played the same Ohio is going for Kerry by 5 pts in
2004 and Bush won .
Did any one in the media lose their job for peddling that bold faced lie !
No ?
Never will !

[riverdawg]

Hope you’re right!

[Hotlanta Mike]

Good luck, the vote count won’t even be close to contest.

[Kleon]

Silver seems to acknowledge that Romney may win the popular vote count, but claims that the Electoral College math favors Obama. I hope I’m being too pessimistic, but I think it will be difficult for Romney to win more that 257 electoral votes.

Most reputable pundits put him over 300 easily. You're being way too pessimistic.

[riverdawg]

I hope I am being too pessimistic. I have taken renewed hope in Michael Barone’s latest analysis, which has Romney winning almost all of the battleground states.

[Rockingham]

Nate Silver seems unaware of or unwilling to accept the sturdy political science rule of thumb that mass mobilization of one party's electorate in an election commonly yields only a temporary benefit as it leads to an offsetting counter-mobilization by the other party and its supporters in ensuing elections.

Thus Obama's 2008 turnout was eclipsed by grassroots Tea Party counter-mobilization of 2010 that retook the US House for the GOP and lead to massive GOP gains down ballot. And this year has seen an historic increase in identification with the GOP and a massive party turnout effort that will offset or surpass Obama's turnout efforts.

Or, to put it another way, Obama and the Dems virtually maxed out their turnout in 2008, with only relatively minor gains possible in 2012. Meanwhile, the GOP has accrued major new political strength by adding independents and Democratic defectors, and GOP turnout is likely to reach a new level. With continuing high unemployment, the unpopularity of Obamacare, the corruption and waste of the stimulus spending program, and other political and policy failures by Obama, the net advantage is to the Republicans.

In sum, next Wednesday morning will make Nate Silver look like a one hit wonder who could not deliver after getting a three album deal from a major recording label. By the end of the year, he is likely to be looking for a new job, probably with a foundation or university. Shed no tears for Nate Silver though as that will be a better fate than several decades of playing his one hit over and over on the lounge and club circuit and on an oldies tour.

[WashingtonSource]

To come to this conclusion he has to give sole consideration to the polls that show Obama more favorably than even the average poll, which is biased toward Obama. This is pure delusionary thinking — and because he wraps it in lots of numbers it seems impressive. He’s nothing more than a political alchemist trying to turn Obama’s lead into Presidential gold.

[FrdmLvr]

From the Free Press poll published on Friday, they showed Props 1, 2, 4, 6 going down to defeat but 4 was close. Only having skimmed the article, I don't know why Prop 3 and 5 weren't addressed. I'm hoping it's not because they only reported on those not passing. It would be great if 5 passed, but I'm afraid of what that means for that green energy, Prop. 3. Our union seems to have stopped hassling us about Prop 2. I guess they sense the futility because the union called a mandatory emergency meeting Tues. morning (Nov. 6) with one item on the agenda only: to poll the members on what concessions we want to take. They begin contract negotiations in a few months. Our contract is up in June. I believe our district will be dissolved and will reopen as a charter.

Our school district - a formerly high-achieving district with great test scores, spiraled into the abyss when we became a "School of Choice", and can now not meet AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. This is one area where I staunchly disagree with Republicans - the School of Choice issue. You want to set up your district for failure, just turn it into a school of choice. You're better off closing buildings and consolidating.

[PermaRag]

I don’t know why they need to resort to that stuff — vote fraud that’s actually so easily detected. If it was the other way around though, Bonzo votes counting for Romney, all we’d be hearing is “Diebold! Diebold! Diebold!” from the puppetmaster media.

Why mess with the machines when it’s far easier to just get the vote counters in key counties to add votes for Bonzo and subtract ones for Romney with the stroke of a pen? Or find a box or two of ballots in Al Franken’s trunk? Or have every Philly ghetto precinct cast 225% of its votes for the Magic Negro? Or...

Republicans have zero record of tracking down and punishing vote fraud; they just bend over and take it. The Rats don’t need to be nearly so subtle about it as monkeying around with “calibrations” of voting machines.

[Revel]

No matter how people vote- This election is going to be rigged. The democrats have been infiltrating the system for years. The only thing they needed was “Sandy” to use as a cover to explain why they won.

[arthurus]

far easier to just get the vote counters in key counties to add votes for Bonzo

That, too, especially that ih these machines after they are downloaded for the count they retain no record of the vote. The vote is what the counters say it is. There is no way to check behind them.

[CharlesMartelsGhost]

Interested in determining how Barack Obama's support has eroded since 2008, The Washington Post commissioned a poll to determine which segments has fled the candidate of Hope and Change. Overall, the Post-ABC poll found that 13 percent of 2008 Obama voters have decided to back Mitt Romney. Now, I'm no math wizard like The New York Times' Nate Silver, purveyor of statistical butt-hurt salve for Lefists... ...but let's use a little arithmetic to see what this means. In 2008 Obama won the popular vote over McCain, 69,456,897 to 59,934,814. 13 percent of Obama's vote represents approximately 9,300,000 votes. Even if that figure overstates defections by 50 percent, the race is a statistical tie... without any increased Republican turnout. And if we turn out in droves, if we muster everyone we can to try to save this Republic, then I think we may have an election result that truly is... historic. Link: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/11/chart-obama-defectors-and-what-they-mean.html

[This I Wonder32460]

I have a feeling a lot of Republicans and Independents like in my family are lying to the pollsters just to let Obama and his ilk think they are ahead with the voters. I know my Dad has done this to both live and automated telephone pollsters and my husband and I each lied answering an automated telephone poll.

[lacrew]

The electoral college over-represents small states like Alaska and Wyoming.....red states. It would be a.near impossibility for Romney to win popular and lose electoral...and if Silver says this might happen, he is obviously lacking in the math department.

[NoLibZone]

Cant post Huffpo stuf but they too continue to show Obama far far ahead.

[who knows what evil?]

ROTFLMAO!!!