FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

PP did this previously to wrap up the BO/Hillary dem-nom betting . . .when the result was beyond obvious.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Well, it's Ohio he has flipping in the event Romney wins the popular vote:

Nate Silver ‏@fivethirtyeight

Conditional upon Romney winning, it's MUCH more likely to be narrow, e.g. he wins OH/FL/VA/CO but loses IA/PA/WI/NV.


Sort of goes without saying that if Romney wins the popular vote by 1%, there's a 70% chance he wins Ohio too -- and thus the electoral college.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

I find it heartwarming that you now accept Nate Silver's statistical analysis. Big flip from you in the past three days. Kudos!

However ...

No.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

I'm not trying to be a PITA, but how would you read the two tweets?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Are we talking about the same thing? "O+1" means Obama +1, not Ohio +1.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Maybe I need to go back and read my posts.

O+1 means Obama +1.

What I'm trying to say, is that based on Silver's tweets, I read it to mean that if Romney wins the popular vote by 1% or greater, the odds of him winning Ohio and thus the electoral college, are about 70%.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

OK.

But your earlier statement, the one I'm working off, was that Ohio is in step with the national. That isn't the case in the polling. They aren't cosmically far apart, but 3 points is a pretty big difference in this.

Regardless, why is it that you're quoting Silver now when you were mocking and dismissing him three days ago?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

State polls are not completely out of step with national polls. State polls will diverge from national polls by a certain amount. But, they will generally move in the same direction.

If you tell someone like Silver, Rove, Barone, etc. the final results of the national popular vote, they can tell you what states each candidate won.

It's only if the election is incredibly close that this becomes difficult.

As for Silver, my objections are thus:

-- His model doesn't have enough of a history to be viewed as infallible, as some here seem to.

-- His model is not impartial. And maybe it shouldn't be, but he gives some polls more credibility than others. The problem with that is that we won't know which polls are the most accurate until after the election.

-- To the degree he is impartial, it's still dependent on the work of others. If the polls are overestimating the Dem vote, than so does Silver's model.

Now, if he thinks Obama's chance to win Ohio is at 80%, then I don't object to him giving Obama an 80% chance to win the electoral college.

I just think that's to high a percentage for Ohio.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

But Obama doesn't need to win Ohio to win the Electoral College. Only Romney does.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

You're missing the roughly 1 in 6 chance that Romney wins.

I'm not saying he's going to win, but a lot of people are equating 15% chance with no chance. He's a little more likely to win than the Giants were to win the NLCS after being down 3-1.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Silver explains what Rick just said twice a week. Makes no difference to either his supporters or critics.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Not 100% true.

Both can win without it, but the most likely scenarios for each include winning Ohio.

Ari Fleischer just tweeted his predictions:

https://twitter.com/AriFleischer

He has Romney winning 271 EVs with FL, VA, CO, WI, and NH going to Romney.

I'm not sure he'll win WI while losing OH, but it's possible.