MO-SEN 2018: The Megathread

[Antonio the Sixth]

who care

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow great hit piece:

There’s no evidence that McCaskill played any part in directing federal funds to businesses affiliated with her husband.

The senator does not sit on committees that oversee the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agencies that award affordable housing contracts and loans to developers and pay out the subsidies.

She has voted for some massive government spending bills that would have benefited affordable housing programs, but she also voted against others...

Shepard’s investment in affordable housing projects dates back to the 1970s, long predating his relationship with McCaskill, who he married in 2002.

Can't trust a news source that doesn't know when to use whom.

[Antonio the Sixth]

McCaskill comes out against the $12 Billion farm/tariff bailout, while Hawley backs it.

McCaskill Statement


Hawley Statement (Tweet)

So let me get this straight... if you're a Red State Democrat, the way to convince T***p voters to vote for you you is to confirm a SCOTUS nominee but not to support actual economic aid to those voters?

[Antonio the Sixth]

McCaskill comes out against the $12 Billion farm/tariff bailout, while Hawley backs it.

McCaskill Statement


Hawley Statement (Tweet)

So let me get this straight... if you're a Red State Democrat, the way to convince T***p voters to vote for you you is to confirm a SCOTUS nominee but not to support actual economic aid to those voters?

Wrong thread. McCaskill voted against Gorsuch and will probably vote against Kavanaugh. And she opposes aid to fix a self-inflicted wounds. Haven't most farmers associations come out against the 12 billions $ aid?

Oh, fair enough. I'm not saying she should vote for the aid to farmers, just that sometimes Red State dem strategies baffle me a bit. You'd think that there'd be more likely to vote for something that has tangible benefits for one of their constituencies (even if it's misguided as policy) than something as abstract as a SCOTUS nomination.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, Claire wont vote for a man whos having a sexual assault charge, how terrible. Its not like polling has shown that voting for Kavenaugh would be worse for her than voting for him. Yeah, this is a likely R race now, Bagel is right, as always. /s

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://www.news-leader.com/story/opinion/2018/10/03/josh-hawley-obamacare-isnt-needed-protect-preexisting-conditions/1508838002/


What in the name of God is Hawley calling for in this??

It's called lying. Republicans do it a lot.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Of course I have my personal opinions on political issues, but when it comes to numbers I am absolutely willing to predict either side winning. If you ask me, Kevin Cramer and Josh Hawley have the advantage now. So do Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Donnelly.

I'm still in the final stages of making my model, but I will certainly give complete details on my methodology when I post my complete Senate predictions around Election Day.

It's really not some top-secret magical hocus-pocus. The model takes polls, averages them, adjusts them, and includes some other factors like fundamentals and aggregated third-party ratings. Its basic ingredients are like those of FiveThirtyEight's "Deluxe" model, but it applies the data somewhat differently.

First of all, I use mean-reverted bias instead of house effects to adjust polls. I do not believe that house effect is the best way to adjust polls, because it assumes by default that the polling average is right and makes all polls conform to it. Mean-reverted bias judges polls based on their historical track records relative to actual election results.

Second, I consider the trend lines in the polling averages. Basically, I give candidates a "bonus" if they clearly have the momentum. To my knowledge, other models do not do this. In applying this factor retroactively to past elections, I found that doing so would have helped foresee several upsets. A candidate who is clearly losing steam tends to finish lower than their final polling average, because the trend continues into Election Day.

I also have a different way of calculating "fundamentals." I restrict my fundamentals to true numerical fundamentals, namely the changes in partisan advantage both nationally and locally. If a certain state has moved sharply toward one party since the last election, that counteracts or augments the national movement since then.

I do not include fundraising as a fundamental, since it is becoming less and less predictive of the final results. Nor do I attempt to judge nebulous factors such as "candidate quality" or "scandals." What is a high-quality candidate or a scandal to one person might not be to another. I also consider "incumbency" as baked in when considering the partisan changes from a previous election, so I do not include it as a stand-alone factor. This is perhaps the biggest difference between my model and 538's. I think 538 attempts to quantify factors that are really subjective.

Finally, I include a broader range of "expert" Senate ratings as compared to FiveThirtyEight. They use only about three, while I use seven or eight.

I then give all these factors due weight, with polls getting more weight as more data is available. However, I have an absolute upper limit on the weight that polls can receive. The other two factors are always guaranteed an appreciable share of the weight.

As for minor aesthetic components, my model lists percentages to the hundredths place instead of the tenths place. It will also attempt to forecast specific vote tallies and turnout totals. This part is pretty much experimental.

I know I basically just wrote a full-length article, but I do think it's important people know how I'm doing my calculations and how my model is different from the other ones. Whenever someone asks me about my model from now until Election Day, I will refer them to this post. If there's demand for it, I will get into the specific mathematical details once I have posted all of my final predictions.

I'm aware that some people don't like the election data wonks, but I believe in data and I'm proud of it. It is not always 100% right, nor do I expect it to be. Nevertheless, it's a safer bet than subjective and biased gut feelings. Even in 2016, despite all of the talk of huge polling errors, Trump was within the margin of error in several key states that he ended up winning. The problem is typically not the data, but rather how commentators present the data in an overly confident and insufficiently detailed way.

Credit where it's due, this seems like a serious endeavor. I'd be curious to see how your model would backtest in past elections (although backtesting is not always a great predictor of future accuracy).

Also, do you have estimates of the uncertainty too (ie, not just the point estimates of your results but also the confidence intervals that go with it)? If so, what probability distribution are you using to model it? I'd be curious to see your probability numbers to compare them to 538's.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sounds like if McCaskill could find a way to effectively convey (& convince) voters that Hawley is absolutely not being honest about protecting Pre-existing condition- where as she has fought and will continue to fight to protect PE Conditions... this could potentially make up a couple of points

(not only b/c Voters rank this as such an important issue-  but always b/c it would make Hawley seem sort of fake or like he will say anything)... that is if she could find a way to really drive the point home (that he is playing roulette with this issue by sueing etc)

I sure as hell hope she's already running attack ads on that, and has been throughout the campaign.