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0 pointsthomasmeeks5y ago0 comments

If you'd like to not be downvoted into oblivion you'd do well to provide an alternate theory. What's your prediction for the upcoming election? Why? What's your methodology? Or is your point that forecasting is futile? I can't tell. There's too much emotion directed at 538/etc. for me to suss out what your point is besides disliking 538/the media/etc, which just isn't particularly helpful for the discussion.

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ceilingcorner5y ago

I wish it were that simple. HN just seems to have gone the way of reddit, where downvoting is disagreement. And of course, 3 minutes after I post this comment, it's downvoted.

I don't have a methodology, because I'm not a pollster with dozens of people at my disposal. I am just bemused and annoyed that things like 538 continue to be taken seriously when they continue to ignore sociological, historical, and cultural factors in favor of an overly-complex quantitative model.

Re: the upcoming election. I don't think we can be sure, yet. Certainly it will be close, and the Biden at 90% to win estimations make no sense to me. Biden is a much weaker candidate than Hillary and he continues to make blunders (i.e. I guarantee that his comments on fracking in the last debate just lost him Pennsylvania.) Trump seems to be finding a lot of allies in strange places, e.g. African-American celebrities. That may be an isolated incident, or it may signal some big unexpected changes.

At this point my estimation is Trump-Biden 55-45, for the simple reason that people tend to vote for economic issues and Trump has a better "perception" on this issue. "It's the economy, stupid." as James Carville put it.

sellyme5y ago

> HN just seems to have gone the way of reddit, where downvoting is disagreement.

Alternatively it might be because you're objecting to the results of a well-documented statistical process, and then when being questioned saying things like "I don't have a methodology".

You'll notice that the comment you replied to (saying it was similar to your point) is not downvoted into oblivion.

rsynnott5y ago

> Biden is a much weaker candidate than Hillary and he continues to make blunders

That’s your view; however, he is polling much better than Clinton, which would indicate that voters don’t necessarily agree with you (or else just that peoples’ opinions of Trump are lower than last time round, or a combination. But really it hardly matters).

> (i.e. I guarantee that his comments on fracking in the last debate just lost him Pennsylvania.)

Looks like 20-50,000 people employed in fracking plus industries supported by it in Pennsylvania. And presumably most of those would be voting for Trump anyway; it’s not like Biden’s views on fracking were a total black box til now. So it only really matters if it’s very close anyway.

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TMWNN5y ago

I agree that there are factors that so much of current reporting is missing. The black (and Latino) swing toward Trump, for example, is apparent in every single poll I've seen. As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion Nate Silver's discussed it, but little else other than the odd article like https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/trump-macho-a... (which basically attributes male Latino support for Trump to the same machismo that ruined their ancestors' countries). Same with the increase in black Trump support from 2016%'s 8%, even though it's pretty clear from history that no Democrat can win the White House without at least 85% of the black vote.

>At this point my estimation is Trump-Biden 55-45, for the simple reason that people tend to vote for economic issues and Trump has a better "perception" on this issue. "It's the economy, stupid." as James Carville put it.

Indeed, Gallup reports that 56% of Americans believe that they are better off than four years ago (https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/321650/gallup-electio...).

My model is simpler. If Trump wins every other state he won in 2016, he only has to win one of MI, PA, WI, MN, or NH/NV. The first three he won in 2016 (and, as you say, Biden's views on fracking may very well cost him the state); MN Trump lost by 1.5%, so the state is only sightly behind the rest of the Midwest bar IL, and half of Minneapolis being torched this summer probably pushed the state over.

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