Sam Wang doubles down on the PEC model

[mark_twain]

Today's article at PEC:

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/is-99-a-reasonable-probability/


In this article, Sam Wang mentions that the 99% win chance of Clinton for today forecast by PEC may be a bit on the high side, due to his assumed allowance for polling error, which he defines as having SD of 0.8%.

But in a more recent analysis, he assumes that the SD for polling is 1.1%, which results in a Clinton win chance of 95%, instead of 99%.

In any case, the reasonable range of polling error, according to Sam Wang, will be at most 1.5%, which maps to a Clinton win chance of 91%, still far higher than 538's forecast, and even NYT's forecast, at the moment.

One thing I like about the PEC model is that the certainty of the prediction grows as we near Election Day, which is correct by common sense.

[Yank2133]

Wang is literally the opposite of Nate Silver.

[Pandaguineapig]

Wang is literally the opposite of Nate Silver.

He got into a Twitter war with Silver in 2014 when he predicted a democratic senate until the last moment

[rafta_rafta]

A decisive HRC victory would give Wang revenge for 2014.

Battle of the nerds

[F_S_USATN]

A decisive HRC victory would give Wang revenge for 2014.

Battle of the nerds

Bill is throwing his hat in the ring..havent seen his final projections but if things havent changed he has Trump near 350 EV's


Bill MitchellVerified account
‏@mitchellvii
Old Hotness: Nate Silver
New Hotness: Silver Elvis

Lol :-)

[Bacon King]

Wang is literally the opposite of Nate Silver.

He got into a Twitter war with Silver in 2014 when he predicted a democratic senate until the last moment

Nate Silver has been excessively aggressive towards Sam Wang ever since Wang predicted 2012 better than he did. While Nate was correctly predicting a GOP midterm victory earlier than Wang was, to call it a "war" is a huge mischaracterization.

Wang was just minding his own business, doing his election forecasting, when Nate suddenly began singling him out, targeting his site and hurling insults at both the PEC model and Sam Wang himself. Wang only responded to Silver publicly only after two weeks had passed and Nate showed no sign of relenting. Nate's arguments ultimately amounted to nothing more than the size of PEC's error bars but he intentionally hyped it into some huge scandal to increase 538 viewership because readers were starting to catch on to the fact that the quality of Nate's work had been in a nosedive since 538 was bought by ESPN

[rafta_rafta]

A decisive HRC victory would give Wang revenge for 2014.

Battle of the nerds

Bill is throwing his hat in the ring..havent seen his final projections but if things havent changed he has Trump near 350 EV's


Bill MitchellVerified account
‏@mitchellvii
Old Hotness: Nate Silver
New Hotness: Silver Elvis

Lol :-)

Can't beat baghdad bill and his Halloween mask model

[win win]

Cmon, a 99% chance?
We've had a miss of 9% in one of the past 20 elections (Dewey vs Truman).
To say a 4% lead has a 99% chance of holding is just silly.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Why is the Washington Post not doing it this year?  Their model was the first to "call" the Senate last year, staying at 97%+ from the second week of October on.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Cmon, a 99% chance?
We've had a miss of 9% in one of the past 20 elections (Dewey vs Truman).
To say a 4% lead has a 99% chance of holding is just silly.

hate to break it to ya, but things have changed since 1948

[SirMuxALot]

Did Wang do any projections on Brexit and the 2015 UK election?  (Serious question.)

[Likely Voter]

ironically, the PEC model is the only one the major models that is giving Trump NC at this point. 

[mark_twain]

Cmon, a 99% chance?
We've had a miss of 9% in one of the past 20 elections (Dewey vs Truman).
To say a 4% lead has a 99% chance of holding is just silly.

hate to break it to ya, but things have changed since 1948

This week, Wang said that minor adjustments to the model can make Clinton's chance to win range anywhere from 91% to 99%.

So we are still at risk of a Trump victory, but according to the PEC model, Clinton is a safe bet against typical betting odds for today.

[win win]

Cmon, a 99% chance?
We've had a miss of 9% in one of the past 20 elections (Dewey vs Truman).
To say a 4% lead has a 99% chance of holding is just silly.

hate to break it to ya, but things have changed since 1948

Hate to break it to you, Bush had a 4 point lead on Gore in November 2000 and lost the popular vote.
That's a 4% miss right there, just 4 elections ago.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Cmon, a 99% chance?
We've had a miss of 9% in one of the past 20 elections (Dewey vs Truman).
To say a 4% lead has a 99% chance of holding is just silly.

hate to break it to ya, but things have changed since 1948

Hate to break it to you, Bush had a 4 point lead on Gore in November 2000 and lost the popular vote.
That's a 4% miss right there, just 4 elections ago.

And the Friday before the election it was revealed that Bush had been arrested for DUI in his younger days.  Compared to the 2016 campaign this is almost laughably tame, but back then it was big news, and it clearly hurt Bush in the election.

Interestingly(?), I predicted a PV/EV split in that election -- but it was the wrong way around!  I thought Gore would win NH and squeak out an EV victory while losing the PV by 1 or 2 percent.