Election Update: As The Race Tightens, Don’t Assume The Electoral College Will Save Clinton

Five Thirty Eight .com ^ | 9/1/2016 | Nate Silver

[Jack Black]

The race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has tightened. Clinton, whose lead over Trump exceeded 8 percentage points at her peak following the Democratic convention, is ahead by 4 or 5 percentage points today, according to our polls-only forecast.

***

Overall, Clinton’s leads in the tipping-point states — the ones most likely to determine the Electoral College winner in a close election — average about 4 percentage points, close to her numbers in national polls.

[IrishBrigade]

His rep is far above his ability..a one hit wonder

so I take it you reject his premise in this article as well...and that you believe Hillary can indeed count on that EC firewall we hear so much about...?

[Buckeye McFrog]

The Former Twelfth Lady

I see what you did there.

[God luvs America]

i think its more amazing last week he was dismissing the LA Times poll and the week before that he was claiming the polls were correct and Trump was getting slammed...

[HombreSecreto]

+1

[Buckeye McFrog]

yu are aware that in 1980, political polling was still in its infancy as a predictive medium

I would argue that polls in 1980 were far MORE reliable. Almost everyone had a landline. No one had caller ID. Most would answer a pollster's questions honestly and would never think about lying to them. And you had an infinitely better chance that the person who picked-up the line spoke English.

None of those conditions exist today. In 1980 Pat Caddell gave Carter a poll five days before the election which called the correct result to within 1%.

[af_vet_1981]

Can you look for a glimmer of light ? If Trump wins the popular vote by 2 or more points he wins the Electoral College. Pray without ceasing for God’s mercy.

[ConservativeDude]

yep!

[Redmen4ever]

regarding House of Rep. possibility:

The odds are better (though very low) that this happens due to an exact tie, 269 to 269, than to Johnson winning anywhere. Romney states + FL + OH + IA + ten more EVs = 269; ex., NV and NH; or, WI; or CO + ME-2.

[IrishBrigade]

last week he was dismissing the LA Times poll

actually, he has consistently employed the Dornsife poll, and has defended that usage...

and the week before that he was claiming the polls were correct and Trump was getting slammed...

two weeks ago the polls were indeed showing a Trump defeat, as RCP and 270 to Win both had Clinton at 272 EV’s; as of now, both have reduced the Clinton tally to 262 with the recent WI polling, and Silver has accordingly upgraded Trump to 30% from the 13% he had him at...he was simply reporting what the polling indicated; I can’t imagine what else you think he should be doing...

[ealgeone]

Don’t fret. Homeland security is monitoring the election.

[IrishBrigade]

I would argue that polls in 1980 were far MORE reliable

we are all free to believe whatever we wish; the beauty of a free republic...

[DrDude]

RCP is way behind the times. They never update when the R is in the lead. When they do they saturate positive D polls at the same time. They also don’t use the tracking polls like Dornslife/LA Times except on a once a week basis. Hasn’t incluced this poll in over a week. I don’t think polls are the “end all” but Silver adjusts when facts are clearly in front of him.

[laplata]

And the Data Center for counting the votes is in Spain.

WTH

[TexasFreeper2009]

Yep, I agree, Nate is laying the ground work here for a Hillary loss.

[IrishBrigade]

They never update when the R is in the lead.

except that they just did update in favor of Trump...the Marquette Law polling propelled the reduction of Clinton’s 272 to 262; for your premise to be true, they would have kept Clinton the winner at 272...

[Baldwin77]

Nate Silver sucked, totally sucked, in his primary predictions. State after state after state, he was completely wrong. Both on the Dem side and the Rep side.

I think he’s highly overrated. Not to mention, Brexit. Wasn’t he wrong there too?

[Jack Black]

If inrecall...Reagan was neck and neck with carter in the polls...none showed the landslide it was....polls are bs

Reagan smashed the electoral college:

, and smashed the popular vote, too.

Nominee	Ronald Reagan	Jimmy Carter	John B. Anderson
Party	Republican	Democratic	Independent
Home state	California	Georgia	Illinois
Running mate	George H. W. Bush	Walter Mondale	Patrick Lucey
Electoral vote	489	49	0
States carried	44	6 + DC	0
Popular vote	43,903,230	35,480,115	5,719,850
Percentage	50.7%	41.0%	6.6%

Well for sure, this America doesn't exist anymore:

If you look at the "Historic Presidential Polls" page you can see that 2 or three polls in Aug/Sept. time from had Reagan ahead, one by a very large margin. The polls showed a tighter race in the last Oct. period before the vote, but still one (of three archived) showed Reagan ahead at 47%.

Here is the Gallup track for that election:

All in all though, I think these details substantiates your point. It was a blow out and the polls missed it.

Here is a whole article (from March of this year) that compares Trump to Reagan in 1980 - and it already seems wildly out of date!

This Is Not 1980, And Donald Trump Is Not Ronald Reagan

He's a bitter #NeverTrump guy who has moved over the National Review now. LOL.

[austinaero]

My concern is that Soros/DHS is targeting the EC and that’s where they are going to try to manipulate the outcome.

[TexasFreeper2009]

He was being disingenuous on purpose or his partisanship blinded him.

Trump got a HUGE bump from his convention which started a week or two BEFORE the convention began.

Nate purposely ignored the first week or so of Trumps convention bounce and only measured Trumps bounce starting from where his numbers were on day one of the convention.

THEN, since the Democratic convention was only a week after the Republican, Hillary's convention bounce (which did start exactly when he convention did) dramatically stepped on Trumps bounce.

But Nate's spin aside, the TRUTH is, both candidates got about a 3 week bounce from their conventions after which BOTH of their numbers reverted back to where they were in the months previous to the convention with Hillary sitting at about 41-42 and Trump sitting about 38-39.

BUT, over the last week Trump has made some progress and now the race is looking like a toss up at 40% each, with Trump having gained couple of points, and Hillary having lost a couple of points.

That still leaves 20% unaccounted for.

And I don't believe for a second that more than 1 or 2% will in the end vote 3rd party this year.

Which means 16-18% of the people are currently undecided and WILL eventually decide this race.

I believe they will decide after the debates in Trumps favor.

[stylin19a]

watch out for the RATS trying to initiate “The Compact” if things start going south. Right now, only known RAT states have passed this, so it’s probably not an issue, except if CA and NY become in play for DJT

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation