Showing posts with label Maine by district. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maine by district. Show all posts
Friday, December 2, 2016
My apology
I've talked in person to multiple people who followed my blog. They tell me that my numbers helped them stay calm.
I wasn't trying to keep people calm. I was trying to get it right.
I failed massively, and for that I am deeply sorry. I have always distrusted the pundits, and after 2000 I wanted to do something on my own to get numbers I could trust. I was trained as a mathematician, but I'd never done statistics. Once I learned stats and learned how fast and loose the field is with methods, I decided to make my own system.
My system told me the electoral college was close in 2004 and it was. Bush needed to take both Ohio and Florida to win. Bush won the popular vote by 2.5%, Florida by 5% and Ohio by 2.1%, so it wasn't that close in terms of the real vote. Obviously, it was nowhere near as close as 2000, but it wasn't a landslide by any means.
The Wall Street Journal found my website in 2004, which was hard to do back in the day as it was a hidden page on my now-defunct website about Pascal's Triangle. They asked me for a prediction by the Sunday night before the election. The polls were close and my system said Kerry was the favorite because Bush's chances to sweep Ohio and Florida were under 50%. I made my prediction, but polls on Monday turned the tide slightly and Bush was a favorite. Still, my Sunday numbers were printed and I screwed up.
Obama's wins weren't close, and my system predicted the states and the district contests in Maine and Nebraska very well. It also did very well on the Senate races in 2012. These positive results made me confident, but I kept looking at where things might go wrong. I had no idea things could go as wrong as they did.
In previous years, I would miss one or two races. In the 56 contests for the electoral college in 2016, I got six wrong and all of the upsets favored Trump. In order from least surprising to most, I missed Maine's District 2, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Of those six losses, only Michigan and Wisconsin are truly slender leads, and Pennsylvania is somewhat close.
I honestly don't expect recounts to change anything, much as I don't think Gov. McCrory's hope for a recount in North Carolina is going to go anywhere.
Let me ask myself some questions in public.
Did I have any doubts? Yes, but I didn't have the numbers that made me think the doubts were worth mentioning. Let's look at the three states now looking at recounts.
Wisconsin: 31 polls since May, Trump never lead in even the most optimistic Republican pollster's numbers. The median of the past few weeks said a 7 point lead for Clinton.
Pennsylvania: 54 polls since May, and only Google Consumer Surveys, a new polling company that often disagrees with the consensus, gave Trump a lead. The median said a 4 point lead for Clinton.
Michigan: 28 polls and only one poll even gave Trump a 50-50 chance, another new company named Strategic National. The median was a 2 or 3 point lead.
In simple terms, I had no "what if" I could ask that made these now crucial states look close.
How did the polls screw up so bad? That is a question I can't answer with certainty, but one of the known problems with polling is getting too many "refused to answer". Beyond the fact that Clinton and Trump combined might count for 90% or less in a poll when they averaged about 95% in the actual contest, there are the people who refuse to pick up the phone because they have caller ID, or the people who answer but hang up when they hear the noise of a call center in the background, or even someone like me who might stay on the line but be rejected because I truthfully answer the question about being a public employee. I have no way of knowing how the "refused to answer" crowd will vote or if they will vote at all. This might account for the difference, but I can't say that with any mathematical certainty, as I said before.
Any other factors look important? This was a very strange election and a lot of the strangeness is a matter of public record, not some conspiracy based nonsense. My problem is I have no way to quantify any of them. The oddest things to my mind were Comey's decision to try to sway the vote, the one-sided nature of the WikiLeaks information and the attempts by Russia to assert influence. Another strong pro-GOP influence were the efforts to discourage voters in many states, whether it was ID laws that were difficult to comply with or allocating minimal polling places in areas with strong Democratic tendencies.
While I know for a fact all these things happened, I don't trust any of the numbers I can get to determine how important these factors were.
And so now we have President-elect Trump. I have no idea how bad things will get, but I have little hope these four years will work out for the best. When it comes to domestic policy, we will have to see how much in lock step the Republicans are on their worst ideas, which for me would have to include the privatization of Medicare. When it comes to foreign policy, my greatest fear is we have a gang who thinks a shooting war with Iran is a good idea. Those are just two of my policy concerns off the top of my head. When it comes to tone of our politics, it will now get worse than it was under Obama, when it was already not good.
If my numbers said this was a serious possibility, I would have made that as clear as I could. But they didn't say that and so I passed out incorrect information, believing it to be reliable.
For that I am truly sorry.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Clinton vs Trump.
30 October 2016,
9 days before the election
This post is going to be MUCH longer than usual. If you just want the numbers, you can skip down to the graphs. If you want to see me take out The Big Ugly Stick on Nate Silver, Bill Gates, Survey Monkey and James Comey, read the whole essay.
Let's take a look at the states where the odds are really close, where the favorite is has a 60% chance or less of winning.
Alaska: 3 EV: Trump 60%, Clinton 40%
Alaska a battleground? I am as amazed to type this as you are to read it. Five polls make up this very surprising result. Two polls, Survey Monkey and C-VOTER International have this race as a sane person would expect, a complete whomping of the Democrat by the Republican, any Republican. But two polls, Google Consumer Survey and Lake Research, say Trump has a slender one point lead and both candidate are under 40%. And then there's Craciun Research, which I pronounce "Crazy One Research", that gives Clinton a comfortable four point lead 47% to 43%. This means the median shows a one point lead, which usually converts to about 60%-40% in Confidence of Victory.
I can only hope a more established polling company will take a crack at this race next week. Suffolk polled Alaska in June and gave Trump a nine point lead. I hope they get hired to go back, whatever the result.
Utah: 6 EV: Trump 52%, McMullin 30%, Clinton 18%
There was some talk early on that Utah might become a battleground because the Mormons disapprove of Trump's lifestyle and he, of course, hearing himself insulted, had to insult the state and the religion right back. Until polls in mid September, there was no sign of any trouble, but Trump, still in first place, was polling at 40% or less. In early October, polls started showing where the missing votes were going, supporting Evan McMullin, a Utah born former CIA operative who started running in August and is on the ballot in only 11 states.
For me, it was kinda fun to break out the algorithm for a really close three way race and the idea of a "favorite son" candidate is pleasantly quaint. That said, there have only been five polls since October 18, the first time McMullin looked competitive, and Trump leads in four of five. Because of some messy math, I have to use averages instead of medians in my calculations and it is very unlikely the polls will make McMullin the favorite in the next nine days.
Ohio: 18 EV, Clinton 50%, Trump 50%
Ohio is Trump's proudest achievement is the race so far, and it is still a coin toss. In the eleven most recent polls, four of them - done by Emerson, Quinnipiac, Ipsos and Suffolk - have the race at dead even. Four give the advantage to Clinton and three say Trump is ahead.
My system may well rate this a toss-up a week from today. Stay tuned.
Arizona: 11 EV, Clinton 51%, Trump 49%
Polling companies are taking the idea that Arizona is a battleground state very seriously. Ten polls by ten different companies in the past three weeks and Clinton leads in five of them and Trump leads in five. (It's a little odd in a race this close to have no flat-footed ties.) This means the race is this close because it's the average of a Trump victory with a Clinton victory. I can't remember the last state where this was the case.
As older polls leave due to my freshness dating rules, good polls for Trump could swing this around.
Iowa: 6 EV, Clinton 59%, Trump 41%
Clinton's advantage is based on only six polls taken in the last three weeks, a sparse amount of polling for a swing state. She leads in four, one calls the race a tie and Trump is only given a lead by Survey Monkey, a very busy but erratic polling company that favors Trump almost exclusively in the true swing states.
Maine District 2: 1 EV, Clinton 59%, Trump 41%
There's sparse and then there's drought conditions. There have only been three polls in the past three weeks released dealing with Maine's two districts. District 1 is heavily Democratic, but District 2 is closer. This morning, University of New Hampshire released a poll they finished on October 25. One poll says it's tie, the median says it's a one point lead and the last gives Clinton a comfortable advantage.
I would love to see more polling here and in Nebraska's three districts as well, only the one including Omaha has any chance of being competitive.
I have about a week to fish my wish.
Nevada: 6 EV, Clinton 59%, Trump 41%
Nevada is being polled like crazy. Ten polls by ten different companies in the past ten days make up the list I'm working with. Clinton leads in six, three make it a flat-footed tie and Trump leads in one, yet again from Survey Monkey, the most Trump-friendly pollster in the battleground states.
Having mentioned all of these, even if Trump sweeps these races, he has a long way to go. Let's ignore the 2nd District's one electoral vote, which doesn't really help Trump win. His chance to sweep the vital contests about 1.3%. He also desperately needs Florida and North Carolina, and multiplying those odds together, he gets way below a percent at 0.0487%, better stated as 487 parts per million.
And then he needs to win one more state where his chances are less than 10%, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire or Michigan.
There are other paths to 269 electoral votes or more. I assume the Republicans are going to keep the House and in a contested race, they will elect the guy their voters really want, not pull some 1824 style shenanigans. But even adding all those up, his chances to win an election held today round to about one hundredth of a percent.
And make no mistake, the election IS being held as you are reading this. Nate Silver's numbers right now put Trump at 21.4%. I assumed his numbers would start to agree with others as the election got closer and his margin of error shrunk, but no. He is peddling horse dung and the public still eat it up. I haven't seen such an undeserved reputation for quality since Microsoft produced its truly awful 1980s software that turned a dozen or so nerds into billionaires.
I programmed for a living in the 1980s. Don't get me started on Bill Gates.
And then there's James Comey. I was on Twitter when the news broke Friday, and I got that numb "oh, crap" feeling I got when Hillary fainted on September 11. Then the news clarified. Comey didn't have a warrant to look at these e-mails, they were likely from Anthony Weiner on his former wife's computer. They were a complete waste of time and Comey comes out looking worse than anybody else in this horrible episode, having more egg on his face than even Weiner or the eager beavers in the House.
I tend to stay with the numbers and report on what they say about the race, but the polling that will come out may not give a clear view of the impact. My best instincts say the impact is minimal. People supporting Clinton will find the news outlets that correctly call this a nothing burger and people supporting Trump already think Clinton should be executed by a combination of hanging and shooting only after being given a slow acting, painful poison, so this will not change their view.
This won't change a lot of minds. Trump doesn't need a bombshell at this point, he needs an asteroid hitting the planet. This is not the asteroid he was looking for.
And now the numbers and the pretty pictures, prettier if you are a Clinton supporter.
===
Here is the list of states and districts, from most likely to go Trump to most likely to go Clinton. RED indicates a state moving from one category to another in Trump's direction, while BLUE means the state moved in Clinton's direction.
Solid Trump (more than 95% Confidence of Victory [CoV]):
NE-3 WY NE-1 OK ID WV AL AR KY LA ND NE MT TN KS SD NE-2 IN TX MS SC
Total: 145
Leaning Trump (between 50% and 95% CoV for Trump): MO GA AK UT
Total: 35
Toss-up: OH
Total: 18
Leaning Clinton (between 50% and 95% for Clinton):
IA NV ME-2 AZ FL NC WI PA NH MI
Total: 188
Solid Clinton (more than 95% CoV for Clinton):
CO MN NM ME-1 VA ME DE OR RI CT NJ WA IL MD HI NY MA CA DC VT
Total: 222
The Current Count
CLINTON 340
TRUMP 180
TOSS-UP 18
Utah moved from Toss-up to leaning Trump and given that it's a three way race, having more than 50% means a lot. States where Trump is a prohibitive lead got a little stronger for him, notable Texas and Indiana, and a few states where Clinton was a 95% favorite have changed to her being about a 90% favorite. Eventually, some state where one candidate is a 90% favorite is going to switch sides, but it hasn't happened yet in roughly 200 contests I followed in 2004, 2008 and 2012 general elections. (Primary races are a completely different kettle of fish.) So far, the states I've gotten wrong have been where the favorite was no better than 70%. That's why I listed the seven races at the top of the post. With just over a week to go, that's where the action is. If Trump wins all of those, he still isn't president.
And now the overall odds if the election were held today and the fifteen races my algorithm thinks are worth watching.
Here are the 15 states considered this week's by the algorithm.
Trump's non-battleground count of electors: 128
The battleground states ranked by pqn:
(Clinton %, Trump %, electors)
1. FL: 76%, 24%, 29
2. OH: 50%, 50%, 18
3. AZ: 51%, 49%, 11
4. GA: 21%, 79%, 16
5. NC: 85%, 15%, 15
6: UT: 48%, 52%, 6 (48% is Clinton + McMullin)
7. IA: 59%, 41%, 6
8. NV: 59%, 41%, 6
9, PA: 93%, 7%, 20
10. MI: 95%, 5%, 16
11. WI: 92%, 8%, 10
12. AK: 40%, 60%, 3
13. MO: 7%, 93%, 10
14. TX: 1%, 99%, 38
15. SC: 5%, 95%, 9
Current probability of victory if the election were held today:
Clinton 99.87%
Trump 0.13%
I hate celebrating early, but there isn't time for Trump to turn this mess around. Breaking 200 electoral votes will be a moral victory for him, but 269? Like I said earlier, he needs an asteroid to hit, not a little skipping stone like James Comey's career suicide last Friday.
Back on Saturday with the last weekend, starting with the still close battle for control of the Senate. Frickin' finally.
Let's take a look at the states where the odds are really close, where the favorite is has a 60% chance or less of winning.
Alaska: 3 EV: Trump 60%, Clinton 40%
Alaska a battleground? I am as amazed to type this as you are to read it. Five polls make up this very surprising result. Two polls, Survey Monkey and C-VOTER International have this race as a sane person would expect, a complete whomping of the Democrat by the Republican, any Republican. But two polls, Google Consumer Survey and Lake Research, say Trump has a slender one point lead and both candidate are under 40%. And then there's Craciun Research, which I pronounce "Crazy One Research", that gives Clinton a comfortable four point lead 47% to 43%. This means the median shows a one point lead, which usually converts to about 60%-40% in Confidence of Victory.
I can only hope a more established polling company will take a crack at this race next week. Suffolk polled Alaska in June and gave Trump a nine point lead. I hope they get hired to go back, whatever the result.
Utah: 6 EV: Trump 52%, McMullin 30%, Clinton 18%
There was some talk early on that Utah might become a battleground because the Mormons disapprove of Trump's lifestyle and he, of course, hearing himself insulted, had to insult the state and the religion right back. Until polls in mid September, there was no sign of any trouble, but Trump, still in first place, was polling at 40% or less. In early October, polls started showing where the missing votes were going, supporting Evan McMullin, a Utah born former CIA operative who started running in August and is on the ballot in only 11 states.
For me, it was kinda fun to break out the algorithm for a really close three way race and the idea of a "favorite son" candidate is pleasantly quaint. That said, there have only been five polls since October 18, the first time McMullin looked competitive, and Trump leads in four of five. Because of some messy math, I have to use averages instead of medians in my calculations and it is very unlikely the polls will make McMullin the favorite in the next nine days.
Ohio: 18 EV, Clinton 50%, Trump 50%
Ohio is Trump's proudest achievement is the race so far, and it is still a coin toss. In the eleven most recent polls, four of them - done by Emerson, Quinnipiac, Ipsos and Suffolk - have the race at dead even. Four give the advantage to Clinton and three say Trump is ahead.
My system may well rate this a toss-up a week from today. Stay tuned.
Arizona: 11 EV, Clinton 51%, Trump 49%
Polling companies are taking the idea that Arizona is a battleground state very seriously. Ten polls by ten different companies in the past three weeks and Clinton leads in five of them and Trump leads in five. (It's a little odd in a race this close to have no flat-footed ties.) This means the race is this close because it's the average of a Trump victory with a Clinton victory. I can't remember the last state where this was the case.
As older polls leave due to my freshness dating rules, good polls for Trump could swing this around.
Iowa: 6 EV, Clinton 59%, Trump 41%
Clinton's advantage is based on only six polls taken in the last three weeks, a sparse amount of polling for a swing state. She leads in four, one calls the race a tie and Trump is only given a lead by Survey Monkey, a very busy but erratic polling company that favors Trump almost exclusively in the true swing states.
Maine District 2: 1 EV, Clinton 59%, Trump 41%
There's sparse and then there's drought conditions. There have only been three polls in the past three weeks released dealing with Maine's two districts. District 1 is heavily Democratic, but District 2 is closer. This morning, University of New Hampshire released a poll they finished on October 25. One poll says it's tie, the median says it's a one point lead and the last gives Clinton a comfortable advantage.
I would love to see more polling here and in Nebraska's three districts as well, only the one including Omaha has any chance of being competitive.
I have about a week to fish my wish.
Nevada: 6 EV, Clinton 59%, Trump 41%
Nevada is being polled like crazy. Ten polls by ten different companies in the past ten days make up the list I'm working with. Clinton leads in six, three make it a flat-footed tie and Trump leads in one, yet again from Survey Monkey, the most Trump-friendly pollster in the battleground states.
Having mentioned all of these, even if Trump sweeps these races, he has a long way to go. Let's ignore the 2nd District's one electoral vote, which doesn't really help Trump win. His chance to sweep the vital contests about 1.3%. He also desperately needs Florida and North Carolina, and multiplying those odds together, he gets way below a percent at 0.0487%, better stated as 487 parts per million.
And then he needs to win one more state where his chances are less than 10%, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire or Michigan.
There are other paths to 269 electoral votes or more. I assume the Republicans are going to keep the House and in a contested race, they will elect the guy their voters really want, not pull some 1824 style shenanigans. But even adding all those up, his chances to win an election held today round to about one hundredth of a percent.
And make no mistake, the election IS being held as you are reading this. Nate Silver's numbers right now put Trump at 21.4%. I assumed his numbers would start to agree with others as the election got closer and his margin of error shrunk, but no. He is peddling horse dung and the public still eat it up. I haven't seen such an undeserved reputation for quality since Microsoft produced its truly awful 1980s software that turned a dozen or so nerds into billionaires.
I programmed for a living in the 1980s. Don't get me started on Bill Gates.
And then there's James Comey. I was on Twitter when the news broke Friday, and I got that numb "oh, crap" feeling I got when Hillary fainted on September 11. Then the news clarified. Comey didn't have a warrant to look at these e-mails, they were likely from Anthony Weiner on his former wife's computer. They were a complete waste of time and Comey comes out looking worse than anybody else in this horrible episode, having more egg on his face than even Weiner or the eager beavers in the House.
I tend to stay with the numbers and report on what they say about the race, but the polling that will come out may not give a clear view of the impact. My best instincts say the impact is minimal. People supporting Clinton will find the news outlets that correctly call this a nothing burger and people supporting Trump already think Clinton should be executed by a combination of hanging and shooting only after being given a slow acting, painful poison, so this will not change their view.
This won't change a lot of minds. Trump doesn't need a bombshell at this point, he needs an asteroid hitting the planet. This is not the asteroid he was looking for.
And now the numbers and the pretty pictures, prettier if you are a Clinton supporter.
===
Here is the list of states and districts, from most likely to go Trump to most likely to go Clinton. RED indicates a state moving from one category to another in Trump's direction, while BLUE means the state moved in Clinton's direction.
Solid Trump (more than 95% Confidence of Victory [CoV]):
NE-3 WY NE-1 OK ID WV AL AR KY LA ND NE MT TN KS SD NE-2 IN TX MS SC
Total: 145
Leaning Trump (between 50% and 95% CoV for Trump): MO GA AK UT
Total: 35
Toss-up: OH
Total: 18
Leaning Clinton (between 50% and 95% for Clinton):
IA NV ME-2 AZ FL NC WI PA NH MI
Total: 188
Solid Clinton (more than 95% CoV for Clinton):
CO MN NM ME-1 VA ME DE OR RI CT NJ WA IL MD HI NY MA CA DC VT
Total: 222
CLINTON 340
TRUMP 180
TOSS-UP 18
Utah moved from Toss-up to leaning Trump and given that it's a three way race, having more than 50% means a lot. States where Trump is a prohibitive lead got a little stronger for him, notable Texas and Indiana, and a few states where Clinton was a 95% favorite have changed to her being about a 90% favorite. Eventually, some state where one candidate is a 90% favorite is going to switch sides, but it hasn't happened yet in roughly 200 contests I followed in 2004, 2008 and 2012 general elections. (Primary races are a completely different kettle of fish.) So far, the states I've gotten wrong have been where the favorite was no better than 70%. That's why I listed the seven races at the top of the post. With just over a week to go, that's where the action is. If Trump wins all of those, he still isn't president.
And now the overall odds if the election were held today and the fifteen races my algorithm thinks are worth watching.
Here are the 15 states considered this week's by the algorithm.
Trump's non-battleground count of electors: 128
The battleground states ranked by pqn:
(Clinton %, Trump %, electors)
1. FL: 76%, 24%, 29
2. OH: 50%, 50%, 18
3. AZ: 51%, 49%, 11
4. GA: 21%, 79%, 16
5. NC: 85%, 15%, 15
6: UT: 48%, 52%, 6 (48% is Clinton + McMullin)
7. IA: 59%, 41%, 6
8. NV: 59%, 41%, 6
9, PA: 93%, 7%, 20
10. MI: 95%, 5%, 16
11. WI: 92%, 8%, 10
12. AK: 40%, 60%, 3
13. MO: 7%, 93%, 10
14. TX: 1%, 99%, 38
15. SC: 5%, 95%, 9
Current probability of victory if the election were held today:
Clinton 99.87%
Trump 0.13%
I hate celebrating early, but there isn't time for Trump to turn this mess around. Breaking 200 electoral votes will be a moral victory for him, but 269? Like I said earlier, he needs an asteroid to hit, not a little skipping stone like James Comey's career suicide last Friday.
Back on Saturday with the last weekend, starting with the still close battle for control of the Senate. Frickin' finally.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Clinton vs Trump.
11 September 2016,
58 days from the election
OMG, it really is less than two months until the election. It's feels like it's been an eternity and it might never end.
First things first. It was a good week for Trump and he now has his best numbers since July. Those numbers aren't good by any rational standard, but he currently has the momentum.
And now the numbers, state by state, on in the case of Maine, district by district. (I'm still waiting for such precise polling from Nebraska, which also splits its electoral votes by district.)
Solid Trump (more than 95% Confidence of Victory [CoV]): ND WY AL ID TN LA MT SD WV MS OK TX KY UT AK IN KS MO SC AR
Total: 159
Leaning Trump (between 50% and 95% CoV for Trump): NE GA ME-2 AZ IA
Total: 39
Toss-up: FL
Total: 29
Leaning Clinton (between 50% and 95% for Clinton): OH NC NV CO WI RI MI NJ PA NH
Total: 116
Solid Clinton (more than 95% CoV for Clinton): ME VA MN CT OR DE NM WA IL DC ME-1 MA MD NY VT HI CA
Total: 195
The current count
CLINTON 311
TRUMP 198
TOSS-UP 29
Grown-ups will be made nervous by Florida being a toss-up and Ohio being the weakest leaning Clinton state. All I can say to calm those worries is that right now, Trump has to run the table of all the states where he currently leads, and then win in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado.
Mathematically, that's hard to do, which is why my system now counts him as being far behind. I personally would hate to see him win Florida and Ohio, because it would give his candidacy
legitimacy it does not deserve, but winning those two states alone won't make him president.
A change this week. I not only list the 15 battleground states, but also the probability Clinton will win, the probability Trump will win and the number of electors, which in statistical terms are p, q and n. I also give Trump's count of electoral votes that are not in the battleground mix. This gives any keen nerd a chance to check my work.
Trump's non-battleground count of electors: 160
The battleground states ranked by pqn:
(Clinton%, Trump%, electors)
1. FL: 50%, 50%, 29
2. OH: 54%, 46%, 18
3. NC: 55%, 45%, 15
4. AZ: 34%, 66%, 11
5. GA: 11%, 89%, 16
6. CO: 79%, 21%, 9
7. IA: 39%, 61%, 6
8. NV: 66%, 34%, 6
9. WI: 87%, 13%, 10
10. PA: 94%, 6%, 20
11. MI: 94%, 6%, 16
12. NJ: 94%, 6%, 14
13. NE: 10%, 90%, 5
14. RI: 91%, 9%, 4
15. VA: 98%, 2%, 13
Current probability of victory if the election were held today:
Clinton 96.5%
Trump 3.5%
I set up my system to have 15 battleground states, but if I were using my own judgment instead of an algorithm, my current view of the true battlegrounds would be Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Nevada. If Georgia becomes closer for Clinton or Wisconsin closer for Trump, they would be on my true list as well. Using the shorter list, Trump's chances improve to 94.6% to 6.4%, still much longer odds than what Nate Silver is broadcasting to his much larger audience.
Fun stuff for data nerds only.
1. As I said earlier, I'm waiting for more info on the district by district numbers in Nebraska. Often, the Omaha district goes Democratic and the rest of the state goes Republican strong enough to overwhelm the "big city".
2. There are now three companies polling at least 40 states each, Ipsos, Google Consumer Surveys and SurveyMonkey. Ipsos posts every week, but I decided my system wouldn't let any one company have more than one poll in the mix at any time, so only their freshest poll gets counted. Ipsos and Google have the unfortunate tendency to take very small polls in low population contests, which messes up my Confidence of Victory (CoV) method. For example, a 5 point lead in a sample of 500 voters give a CoV in the 90% range. If the lead is 5 points but the sample size is 200, that shrinks to 80%. Due to these discrepancies, I have made the arbitrary decision that the lowest acceptable data set size is 256, which is two to the eighth. I'm an OP (Original Programmer), and that's how I roll.
3. The three big companies don't show a major bias in either direction, sometimes showing Trump closer than you might expect, sometimes doing the same for Clinton. On the other hand, there are pollsters at the state level, notably the newcomer Emerson and the once reliable Quinnipiac, who now skews Republican by assuming white people always vote and non-whites not so much. I take them at their word, reporting the numbers they publish, figuring the market will correct for them over time. Nate Silver's 538 has decided instead to "adjust" numbers for pollsters they don't trust completely. I am morally opposed to doing this. I can read cross-tabs as well as anyone who understands addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but I don't adjust the numbers a company produces as long as the sample sizes are large enough.
In any case, I'll be back next weekend with more info on the Senate races and the electoral college. Thanks for stopping by.
First things first. It was a good week for Trump and he now has his best numbers since July. Those numbers aren't good by any rational standard, but he currently has the momentum.
And now the numbers, state by state, on in the case of Maine, district by district. (I'm still waiting for such precise polling from Nebraska, which also splits its electoral votes by district.)
Solid Trump (more than 95% Confidence of Victory [CoV]): ND WY AL ID TN LA MT SD WV MS OK TX KY UT AK IN KS MO SC AR
Total: 159
Leaning Trump (between 50% and 95% CoV for Trump): NE GA ME-2 AZ IA
Total: 39
Toss-up: FL
Total: 29
Leaning Clinton (between 50% and 95% for Clinton): OH NC NV CO WI RI MI NJ PA NH
Total: 116
Solid Clinton (more than 95% CoV for Clinton): ME VA MN CT OR DE NM WA IL DC ME-1 MA MD NY VT HI CA
Total: 195
The current count
CLINTON 311
TRUMP 198
TOSS-UP 29
Grown-ups will be made nervous by Florida being a toss-up and Ohio being the weakest leaning Clinton state. All I can say to calm those worries is that right now, Trump has to run the table of all the states where he currently leads, and then win in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado.
Mathematically, that's hard to do, which is why my system now counts him as being far behind. I personally would hate to see him win Florida and Ohio, because it would give his candidacy
legitimacy it does not deserve, but winning those two states alone won't make him president.
A change this week. I not only list the 15 battleground states, but also the probability Clinton will win, the probability Trump will win and the number of electors, which in statistical terms are p, q and n. I also give Trump's count of electoral votes that are not in the battleground mix. This gives any keen nerd a chance to check my work.
Trump's non-battleground count of electors: 160
The battleground states ranked by pqn:
(Clinton%, Trump%, electors)
1. FL: 50%, 50%, 29
2. OH: 54%, 46%, 18
3. NC: 55%, 45%, 15
4. AZ: 34%, 66%, 11
5. GA: 11%, 89%, 16
6. CO: 79%, 21%, 9
7. IA: 39%, 61%, 6
8. NV: 66%, 34%, 6
9. WI: 87%, 13%, 10
10. PA: 94%, 6%, 20
11. MI: 94%, 6%, 16
12. NJ: 94%, 6%, 14
13. NE: 10%, 90%, 5
14. RI: 91%, 9%, 4
15. VA: 98%, 2%, 13
Current probability of victory if the election were held today:
Clinton 96.5%
Trump 3.5%
I set up my system to have 15 battleground states, but if I were using my own judgment instead of an algorithm, my current view of the true battlegrounds would be Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Nevada. If Georgia becomes closer for Clinton or Wisconsin closer for Trump, they would be on my true list as well. Using the shorter list, Trump's chances improve to 94.6% to 6.4%, still much longer odds than what Nate Silver is broadcasting to his much larger audience.
Fun stuff for data nerds only.
1. As I said earlier, I'm waiting for more info on the district by district numbers in Nebraska. Often, the Omaha district goes Democratic and the rest of the state goes Republican strong enough to overwhelm the "big city".
2. There are now three companies polling at least 40 states each, Ipsos, Google Consumer Surveys and SurveyMonkey. Ipsos posts every week, but I decided my system wouldn't let any one company have more than one poll in the mix at any time, so only their freshest poll gets counted. Ipsos and Google have the unfortunate tendency to take very small polls in low population contests, which messes up my Confidence of Victory (CoV) method. For example, a 5 point lead in a sample of 500 voters give a CoV in the 90% range. If the lead is 5 points but the sample size is 200, that shrinks to 80%. Due to these discrepancies, I have made the arbitrary decision that the lowest acceptable data set size is 256, which is two to the eighth. I'm an OP (Original Programmer), and that's how I roll.
3. The three big companies don't show a major bias in either direction, sometimes showing Trump closer than you might expect, sometimes doing the same for Clinton. On the other hand, there are pollsters at the state level, notably the newcomer Emerson and the once reliable Quinnipiac, who now skews Republican by assuming white people always vote and non-whites not so much. I take them at their word, reporting the numbers they publish, figuring the market will correct for them over time. Nate Silver's 538 has decided instead to "adjust" numbers for pollsters they don't trust completely. I am morally opposed to doing this. I can read cross-tabs as well as anyone who understands addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but I don't adjust the numbers a company produces as long as the sample sizes are large enough.
In any case, I'll be back next weekend with more info on the Senate races and the electoral college. Thanks for stopping by.
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