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

[Bull Moose Base]

He's wrong. go look at Jonathan Chait's column from today.

Obama will be the 5th term limited president but the parties have diverged ideologically; there are much fewer swing voters today than 15 let alone 55 years ago. Also, Silver should know better than to consider midterm electorates as relevant for whether or not there's a Democratic majority in presidential elections. In the latter, Democrats have won 5 of the last 6 popular votes and the demographic make-up of presidential electorates has been trending more Democratic still. He also dismisses the D electoral college advantage by arguing there is no "firewall".  Silver is smarter than that. Republicans can win but they have to sweep the swing states to do so. Democrats only need to stop a GOP sweep.

He's right that the economy is unpredictable and that Bush or Walker won't change the race much but calling it a toss-up is arbitrary. Silver is better at analyzing polls a month before election day than predicting with hunches (like when he gave Hillary only an 80% chance to be the nominee 2 months ago or whatever).

As I said 2 years ago, Hillary has the easiest path of any non-incumbent in modern times. I'd say she's close to 70% to be the next president, incredibly high for someone on the day they announce.

[Bull Moose Base]

Silver can be wrong about what probabilities are, and often is when not relying on stats. It can't be proven but it can be obvious, like it was when he gave Hillary close to 80% or something to be the nominee a couple months ago. Her being the nominee won't prove him wrong and wouldn't if he'd said she had a 10% chance. But it's also obviously wrong because of common sense.

Virginia has trended D. The GOP probably needs to win the pop vote by 1-2% to win enough swing states. That's what you call an electoral advantage for the Ds.

The GOP has only won the popular vote once in the past 6 presidential elections. Demo trends favor Ds. The gender gap favors Hillary with women making up a majority of voters.

The GOP regularly loses issues polling to Ds.

[Bull Moose Base]

I don't see how it's a toss up when all the Democrats need are the Kerry states + VA, NM, NV.  

New Mexico and Nevada are practically freebies at this point.   That just leaves Virginia, which is probably one of the most obvious trending states in the country.    Even if the national vote shifts 3% toward the GOP from 2012, Virginia would still be winnable.  

It's just not a workable map for the Republicans.   They NEEEEEED a realignment.

There tend to be large swings in elections.

From 1972 to 1976, the party that won by 23 points lost by two. So a lot of states swing hard.

From 1976 to 1980, the party that won by two lost by 9.8, and that was reflected in the states. Ohio, which Ford narrowly lost by less than a percent, when to Reagan by ten points. North Carolina, which Ford lost by 11 points, went to Reagan by two.

1988 was a good presidential cycle for Republicans, but Bush lost a lot of ground from Reagan's reelection. Reagan won Wisconsin by nine points. Bush lost it by 3.62.

Bush loses Wisconsin by half a point in 2004. Obama wins it by nearly 14 points in 2008. Bush wins Indiana by 20 points in 2004. Obama wins it in 2008.

States that got by more than ten points to a party aren't guaranteed for that party in the next cycle.

Citing of the 70s and 80s doesn't persuade me there can be major swings in 2016, any more than citing baseball stats from 100 years ago would convince me home runs are rare and complete games common. We're in a different era with a much, much smaller % of the electorate have a low threshold for changing their presidential vote to a different party.

I suppose there was a big swing in 2008 with the election happening right after the biggest economic crisis in 80 years and if that happens again next year, I guess it could hurt the incumbent party. But the odds of that happening again don't feel like 50-50.

[Bull Moose Base]

Flimsy analysis? How did he find out about Atlas?

Yeah, it's pretty funny that this thread has devolved into the exact sort of flimsy analysis that Silver is railing against. Just completely unsupported assertions that a handful of cherrypicked data points have strong predictive power.

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). 

Looking at past results to predict future one is about all of what Silver does.

Not sure why you don't think past results have predictive value. A growing majority of voters are very consistent in what party they vote for in presidential elections, more so than in decades past. Recent presidentials suggests more people are likely to vote Democratic than Republican and the GOP has a higher bar to clear as far as turnout and winning over the shrinking pool of undecideds.

I also think his analysis is off the mark when he seems to acknowledge Obama would have won even if he'd lost the pop vote by 1-2 points. That's significant since the only pop vote the GOP won in the past 25 years they won by 2.5 points. If he doesn't see Ds as having an advantage in the electoral college, he's clueless.

He's made his name in looking at polling averages and projecting what they say about which way a state will go. He's great at that, especially in the closing weeks of a campaign but that skill doesn't necessarily translate to analysis in something like this.