Nate Silver: 2016 is a tossup; most conventional wisdom analysis is flimsy

[Beezer]

There is no firewall, it is a myth. What there is a that PA, MI, WI, IA, NH, MN have a slight D+ PVI ranging from IA at 0 to MN at +4. Where the GOP struggles in the PV not the EV. If the GOP candidate ever got 52% of the PV, all those state except MN would fall and MN would be a Dem win of about 1%.

Nate uses statistics, you use your feelings. 70% is based on what modeling??? Show me how the number was calculated. Take about rejecting science.

When is a Republican going to get to 52% though? Fact of the matter is that a Democrat can probably lose the PV by around a percentage point yet still win the EC. That by no means indicates that a Democrat is a shoo-in but rather that any Democrat starts the electoral race with a headstart independent of the various "fundamentals."

[Beezer]

There is no firewall, it is a myth. What there is a that PA, MI, WI, IA, NH, MN have a slight D+ PVI ranging from IA at 0 to MN at +4. Where the GOP struggles in the PV not the EV. If the GOP candidate ever got 52% of the PV, all those state except MN would fall and MN would be a Dem win of about 1%.

Nate uses statistics, you use your feelings. 70% is based on what modeling??? Show me how the number was calculated. Take about rejecting science.

When is a Republican going to get to 52% though? Fact of the matter is that a Democrat can probably lose the PV by around a percentage point yet still win the EC. That by no means indicates that a Democrat is a shoo-in but rather that any Democrat starts the electoral race with a headstart independent of the various "fundamentals."

That scenario is so unlikely. It is MUCH more likely that a Republican wins the EC but loses the PV.

Explain to me how how exactly is so unlikely? The Democrats have an EC advantage these days (albeit a very narrow one), that's what the recent electoral data illustrates. Obama had a lead of 5% in the "tipping point" state of CO while winning the national PV by 3.86 points. So a uniform national swing of 1.1 points to the right would have still left enough states in the Obama column to get him to 270.

[Beezer]

Has no-one ever considered that just maybe Nate Silver has done a tiny bit more research than you into what has predictive power in elections and what doesn't? And if the "zomg Dems have won the PV in 5/6 elections" had any significance, past election results would showcase it? (Hint: they don't. You don't have to be Nate Silver to work this out, have a look yourself by looking at election data and see if you can find any significant relationship between past performance and future results).  

Of course past election results can play a role in predicting future results unless you think the electorate makes its decisions based on a coin flip. As has been pointed out in this thread, we now have a deeply polarized electorate with very few true swing voters. So the fact that Dems have done better in recent presidential election cycles can serve as an indicator that they are heading into 2016 with an advantage as well, assuming the economy doesn't take a complete nosedive.

About past election results and their ability to predict future ones:

The correlation between President Obama’s margin in 2012 and his margin in 2008 across all 50 states and D.C. is .96. In other words, you can closely predict Obama’s margin in 2012 almost perfectly from his margin in 2008; his drop from 2008 to 2012 was fairly uniform, and limited the number of electoral votes he lost from 2008.



http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/12-from-12-some-takeaways-from-a-wild-election/