538 Model Megathread

[Dr. Arch]

Did anyone else notice that OH flip in 2 of the 3 models? I think that accounts for the % difference. That is really weird considering the polls are extremely good for HRC.

[Ebsy]

If you use HuffPo 3-way and limit the polls to nonpartisan pollsters and likely voters the current numbers from their trend lines are Clinton 45.1%, Trump 40.7%, Johnson 5.1%. For the 2-way it gives 45.8% to 42.4% (moderate smoothing)

Why would you do any of this?

[Maxwell]

yes because being non-partisan worked out for Gallup in 2012

[Blackacre]

Trump's chances keep going up, exactly what I was kinda freaking out about a few days ago. First time we've seen a state flip from blue to red since the debate I think.

Also, Ohio is to the right of Arizona. That is so strange

[Dr. Arch]

Trump's chances keep going up, exactly what I was kinda freaking out about a few days ago. First time we've seen a state flip from blue to red since the debate I think.

Also, Ohio is to the right of Arizona. That is so strange

His models has been going towards Trump for a while now even with very positive polls for HRC.

AZ: C+2 [increased for Trump]
GA: Tie [increased for Trump]
Breitbart Nat: C+1 (+1 from their last poll) [increased for Trump]
Pew Nat: C+7 [increased for Trump]

It's doing very questionable movements. I'm not buying it.

[Blackacre]

Trump's chances keep going up, exactly what I was kinda freaking out about a few days ago. First time we've seen a state flip from blue to red since the debate I think.

Also, Ohio is to the right of Arizona. That is so strange

His models has been going towards Trump for a while now even with very positive polls for HRC.

AZ: C+2 [increased for Trump]
GA: Tie [increased for Trump]
Breitbart Nat: C+1 (+1 from their last poll) [increased for Trump]
Pew Nat: C+7 [increased for Trump]

It's doing very questionable movements. I'm not buying it.

Hmm, thats interesting. I can't really go anywhere else now that Ive been following 538 for this whole cycle, and switching somewhere more bullish on Clinton would make me just think that Im just trying to feel better. Like, it's hard for me to reject 538's model when everyone who did so in 2012 got humiliated.

[BoAtlantis]

Trump's chances keep going up, exactly what I was kinda freaking out about a few days ago. First time we've seen a state flip from blue to red since the debate I think.

Also, Ohio is to the right of Arizona. That is so strange

His models has been going towards Trump for a while now even with very positive polls for HRC.

AZ: C+2 [increased for Trump]
GA: Tie [increased for Trump]
Breitbart Nat: C+1 (+1 from their last poll) [increased for Trump]
Pew Nat: C+7 [increased for Trump]

It's doing very questionable movements. I'm not buying it.

Yea it's interesting because Drew Linzer at Daily Kos and Sam Wang at Princeton Consortium did better than Silver in 2012, margin-wise, and they're more optimistic at 95% and 99%, respectively.

With new batch of polls, Hillary's chance of winning is almost exactly the same for them.

[ApatheticAustrian]

nate just said that all of trump's gains come from johnson...he is literally bleeding left and right.


https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/791980369562181632

[Mr. Morden]

nate just said that all of trump's gains come from johnson...he is literally bleeding left and right.


https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/791980369562181632

"Literally" bleeding left and right, huh?  "Literally"....

Sounds painful.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Trump is over 20 in polls-plus for the first time since October  11th!  Also, all three models now project him to make this a closer EC race than 2012.

Actually, he appears to be not that far from getting this back to the new 272 freiwal, but he needs to find a way to come back in one of WI/PA/CO/NH (all between 15 and 20% right now, with Michigan and Minnesota just below 15).

[ApatheticAustrian]

"Literally" bleeding left and right, huh?  "Literally"....

haha, yeah, my bad but "bleeding left and right" is a figure of speech and in this case, he loses to HRC and DJT.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Actually, he appears to be not that far from getting this back to the new 272 freiwal, but he needs to find a way to come back in one of WI/PA/CO/NH (all between 15 and 20% right now, with Michigan and Minnesota just below 15).

i see him winning AZ/UT/TX/FL/NC/IA/OH/ME2....in the best-case scenario.

should still not be enough.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

Trump's chances keep going up, exactly what I was kinda freaking out about a few days ago. First time we've seen a state flip from blue to red since the debate I think.

Also, Ohio is to the right of Arizona. That is so strange

His models has been going towards Trump for a while now even with very positive polls for HRC.

AZ: C+2 [increased for Trump]
GA: Tie [increased for Trump]
Breitbart Nat: C+1 (+1 from their last poll) [increased for Trump]
Pew Nat: C+7 [increased for Trump]

It's doing very questionable movements. I'm not buying it.

Lol, no. All this polls, but Pew that in fact showed +6 in 4-way (538 model prefers 4-way) that was adjusted to C+5 decreased Trump's chanses.  *Sigh*

[emailking]

A poll doesn't have to show Trump winning for it to increase his chances. If, for example, you're down 8-9 points for 3 polls and then you get a poll where you're only down 3 points, that's evidence there may be something off about the other polls, so it would increase your (already bad) chances of winning.

[Ebsy]

The only thing dragging Trump up a little bit in the models is the many terrible tracking polls.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

Yeah, it is some kind of Nate'ish conspiracy.

Deplorable clickbait Nate Cohn's Upshot have also raised Trump's chances. From terrible 7% to a little bit less terrible 9%.

[Mr. Morden]

Out of curiosity, I looked up which states polls-only is currently projecting will be won by one candidate or the other with less than 50% of the vote.  I came up with these 13 states:

UT: Trump 35.6
AZ: Trump 46.6
IA: both candidates at 46.6
OH: Trump 46.9
NM: Clinton 47.0
AK: Trump 47.3
NV: Clinton 47.5
NC: Clinton 48.5
CO: Clinton 48.7
FL: Clinton 48.8
GA: Trump 48.9
NH: Clinton 49.0
MI: Clinton 49.6

6 of the 13 are in the West.  I guess that's where Johnson (+McMullin) is strongest.

[Angel of Death]

Weird to see polls-plus and the now-cast agreeing against polls-only on something (Iowa).

[NOVA Green]

So interestingly enough, Nate's model now has Clinton's chances of winning Alaska higher in all three models than her chances of winning Georgia....

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

So interestingly enough, Nate's model now has Clinton's chances of winning Alaska higher in all three models than her chances of winning Georgia....

This is why I've stopped looking at 538. Huffpost 4 flyf!

[jaichind]

What is interesting is if you take the Oct 30 538 Trump chances for polls-plus and now-cast it comes out to 23.0% and 22.3% respectively.  In 2012 the Oct 28 (same number of days to election day) Romney chances for the 538 prediction model and the now-cast model comes out to 26.4% and 19.9%.  So at the same point in the campaign Romney and Trump have roughly the same chances of victory. Of course this seems to reflect a greater volatility in the 2016 election.  On the other hand Obama clearly had the momentum the last two weeks of the election whereas Trump seems to have the momentum in the closing days of the election this time around. 

[LLR]

6 of the 13 are in the West.  I guess that's where Johnson (+McMullin) is strongest.

Definitely needed to look at Nate Silver's projections to come up with this. Yep. Thanks for the insightful analysis

[Mr. Morden]

6 of the 13 are in the West.  I guess that's where Johnson (+McMullin) is strongest.

Definitely needed to look at Nate Silver's projections to come up with this. Yep. Thanks for the insightful analysis

You're welcome.

[Blackacre]

So interestingly enough, Nate's model now has Clinton's chances of winning Alaska higher in all three models than her chances of winning Georgia....

This is why I've stopped looking at 538. Huffpost 4 flyf!

What makes HuffPo's model better? Yeah, they're more bullish on Clinton, (and less bullish on Senate Democrats) but that doesn't make them a more sound model

[Smeulders]

So interestingly enough, Nate's model now has Clinton's chances of winning Alaska higher in all three models than her chances of winning Georgia....

This is why I've stopped looking at 538. Huffpost 4 flyf!

In the past 2 weeks there have been 6 polls of Georgia, 1 of which had a Clinton lead and 5 Trump leads. In the same time frame there have been 3 polls of Alaska, with Clinton leading 1 and Trump leading 2 (Google Consumer Survey poll and Surveymonkey). I'm not sure what you guys expect from your poll-based models, but I for one am not surprised Clinton gets a higher chance of winning in Alaska than in Georgia based on the polling.

You should also note that 538 puts Georgia closer than Alaska, but due to the lower number of polls there is a lot more uncertainty, which gives Clinton a higher chance of overperforming the polling.