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Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUN 17, 2008 09:08 AM

Thought I'd pass this along for those of you who might not have heard of it. I just came upon it a few days ago and am really, really digging it.

Anyway, FiveThirtyEight.com is the brainchild of SABRmatrician Nate Silver, who helped revolutionize the world of statistical baseball nerdery by inventing the PECOTA stat a few years back. Since then, he's turned to politics. Using cold, hard numbers and algorythms and crap that I don't even come close to understanding, he's been consistently more accurate than any other pollster this primary season at predicting the outcomes.

In short, it's like Real Clear Politics, except without all of the nonsense punditry. Silver is an Obama backer, but his methodology remains neutral. For what it's worth, right now he's predicting Obama to win 306 electoral votes to McCain's 232.

Highest Recommendation.

MrCrisp

MrCrisp

I'm lost
August 2004

JUN 17, 2008 09:12 AM

my head hurts.

Hunkpapa

Hunkpapa

United Kingdom
June 2004

JUN 17, 2008 09:33 AM

Blimey, that's overwhelming. Though I'll be interested to keep an eye on it if he's as accurate as you say.

smokebombhill

smokebombhill

Providence, RI
January 2008

JUN 17, 2008 09:37 AM

I <3 stats.

d20

d20

San Francisco, CA
September 2003

JUN 17, 2008 10:33 AM

holy mother of stat porn.

bean

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

JUN 17, 2008 10:42 AM

d20 said:
holy mother of stat porn.



For serious.

Quirky

Quirky

Birmingham, AL
October 2005

JUN 17, 2008 11:02 AM

Could someone help us undereducated (in mathematics and statistics) people interpret this mountain of information?

bean

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

JUN 17, 2008 11:32 AM

Wodanaz said:
Could someone help us undereducated (in mathematics and statistics) people interpret this mountain of information?



Which part are you having trouble with? I mean, the answer is, "Yes," but I'm not about to go through and explain the entire thing to anyone without an actual question to answer or some sort of direction.

Mr_Matt_

Mr_Matt_

Pompano Beach, FL
July 2005

JUN 17, 2008 11:34 AM

Thanks for showing me another site for me to waste hours on.

Quirky

Quirky

Birmingham, AL
October 2005

JUN 17, 2008 11:35 AM

The Super Tracker and Swing State Analysis. I don't understand what those are actually talking about.

bean

bean

STAFF

Los Angeles, CA

JUN 17, 2008 11:49 AM

Wodanaz said:
The Super Tracker and Swing State Analysis. I don't understand what those are actually talking about.



The Super Tracker is just a week-by-week poll averaging tracker. Every week the polls for the week are averaged, and then plotted. The trend line is drawn between the points to weed out anomalies and indicate... well... trends.

Here's a good explanation of the Swing State Analysis. In order to understand what he's talking about here, it's important to remember that he's running simulations to predict the outcome. Here's the key bit:

Speaking of swing states, I'm now reporting another new parameter in my output, which is the state that "swings" the election in each of the simulation runs. The way that this works is as follows: I arrange the states from best to worst in order of Obama's (or Clinton's) vote share in each of the 5,000 simulations. I then count electoral votes upward until he equals or exceeds 269 EV. The state that puts him over the top is literally the swing state for that simulation run.



I'm not certain about the tipping point vs. must-win states, but it would seem that the tipping point ones are the ones listed by the above method, and the must-win ones are the ones that were included in the winner's tally in the largest number of scenarios. So if Ohio is at 88%, it was won by the overall winner in 88% of scenarios. That's what it seems, anyhow.

_margot_

_margot_

Los Angeles, CA
December 2007

JUN 17, 2008 11:53 AM

I have to admit I check fivethirtyeight almost obsessively.

As a stats junkie this site has become a huge place for me to analyze stuff until my brain hurts.

It has been accurate thus far, and really interesting.

Quirky

Quirky

Birmingham, AL
October 2005

JUN 17, 2008 12:04 PM

Ok now I am hooked. Goddamnit. I have too many damn chores to be this smart.

Bastardo

Bastardo

Boston, MA
January 2005

JUN 17, 2008 12:32 PM

That site gave me a boner.


In looking at the vice-presidential selections of the past five decades or so since television has expanded the regionality of presidential elections, it's clear that, in reality, both major parties rarely have nominated VP candidates as a strategic electoral vote collector, and to the extent they have set about deliberately trying to add a state with a VP pick it has almost never worked.


See? Learned me something new right there.

ckdexterhaven

ckdexterhaven

USA
December 2005

JUN 17, 2008 01:00 PM

I think I'm in love.

Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUN 17, 2008 11:51 PM

ckdexterhaven said:
I think I'm in love.



Me too. And it's shit like this that seals it for me. Here's ABC News, reported gleefully by Real Clear Politics:

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll underscores the conundrum of the 2008 presidential election: If everything is so good for Barack Obama, why isn't everything so good for Barack Obama?

Disapproval of George W. Bush has reached a record high for any president in modern polls, a record number of Americans say the country is on the wrong track, Democrats hold a significant advantage in partisan affiliation and Obama leads John McCain on a range of issues and personal attributes, as well as in sheer enthusiasm.

Yet Obama has less of a head-to-head advantage against McCain than these views would imply.

Among all Americans, Obama leads by a fairly narrow 6 points; among those most likely to vote -- an estimate that it's admittedly early to make -- the two are locked in a dead heat.

In generic preference in local congressional elections, by contrast, the Democrats lead the Republicans by 15 points, a wide 52-37 percent, among all adults.

Obama's advantage vs. McCain is about the same as in an ABC/Post poll last month -- no bounce from Obama's victory in the long-fought Democratic nomination campaign.



Only one problem with all of that: it's total fucking bullshit, as 538 points out using actually relevant metrics.

An odd day of polling, but one attention-grabbing result dominates the rest. That is from Ohio, where Public Policy Polling has Barack Obama ahead by 11 points. While Public Policy Polling developed a reputation as being somewhat Obama-friendly in the primaries, its track record is fairly strong, and its prior Ohio poll -- taken way back in March -- had shown McCain ahead by 8 points. As Ohio is probably the single most important state in this election (it's by no means the only important state, but it's pretty darned important), this result is enough to drive Obama past the 67 percent threshold in our overall electoral projection; we presently have him as about a 2:1 favorite to win the election.
...
There is also a SurveyUSA poll out in Kentucky that shows Obama trailing by 12 points. This poll made it across our wires too late to be included in our metrics, but it speaks to the extent that Obama is starting to improve his numbers among lapsed, Clinton-leaning Democrats, particularly in Appalachia. Obama had trailed by 24 points in Survey USA's May poll of Kentucky, and by as many as 36 points previously.

There are also a series of national polls out, all of which have consolidated in the area of Obama +4, exactly the popular vote margin that we attribute to him based on the state-by-state polling results.

So what to make of the meme that Obama's numbers haven't been bouncing? The only way that you can come to that conclusion is if you cherrypick results. There have been a few dozen polls released since Clinton conceded the primaries, and our methodology extracts an average bounce of about 4 points between them. Four points is not so large that some individual polls won't show a bounce, particularly if the bounce is concentrated in particular states and regions. But bounce Obama has, and the longer Republicans remain in denial about it, the less time they'll have to catch up.



The more the mainstream media continues to frame this election (as they did with Obama-Clinton) as a "tight race" where "anything can happen", the more I'm starting to believe the conspiracy theories about the networks trying to puff up their ratings. The fact is that right now Obama's up, and up big. Of course, he can still lose it and anything can happen, but the idea that this is somehow "tight" at the moment or that things are shaping up to be a nailbiter is totally ridiculous.

Squire

Squire

I'm lost
November 2003

JUN 18, 2008 01:19 AM

I read about this in Newsweek and the first person I thought of was Subrosa. Hand to god. You go boy. kiss

gutterpunk4u

gutterpunk4u

Pewaukee, WI
May 2004

JUN 18, 2008 01:43 AM

you don't really need mathematics or statistics to see that obama is going to blow out mccain this next election. If the 2006 congressional elections were any indication, the nation is completely tired of the last eight years of elitist schism-inducing terrible politicking favoritism. I mean come on, does anyone really think that top-down economics actually works? or that the war is a good idea? (discrediting anyone who holds stocks in either halliburton, or any of the other institutions in the military industrial complex.) He simply has the right idea when it comes to pandering to what the nation wants at this particular moment. but, if you really want change, please don't expect it from this vector. the first thing he did was to appoint a washington insider to vett his vice-presidential candidates. if anyone seriously consciously wants change, please attempt to hold him accountable and lobby your local congressmen/women for public finance for political campaigns. Because that is the only true way we are ever really going to get real representatives into public office.

Quirky

Quirky

Birmingham, AL
October 2005

JUN 18, 2008 05:33 AM

How do I dissect the "Poll Detail?" What do the bars mean?

Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUN 18, 2008 06:54 AM

gutterpunk4u said:
you don't really need mathematics or statistics to see that obama is going to blow out mccain this next election. If the 2006 congressional elections were any indication, the nation is completely tired of the last eight years of elitist schism-inducing terrible politicking favoritism. I mean come on, does anyone really think that top-down economics actually works? or that the war is a good idea? (discrediting anyone who holds stocks in either halliburton, or any of the other institutions in the military industrial complex.) He simply has the right idea when it comes to pandering to what the nation wants at this particular moment. but, if you really want change, please don't expect it from this vector. the first thing he did was to appoint a washington insider to vett his vice-presidential candidates. if anyone seriously consciously wants change, please attempt to hold him accountable and lobby your local congressmen/women for public finance for political campaigns. Because that is the only true way we are ever really going to get real representatives into public office.


Not that this is all that relevant to the thread, but did it ever occur to you that a "Washington Insider" might be good to vett VP candidates because they'd presumably have the connections and inside knowledge to best effectuate finding the right Veep?

I mean, whatever. There are plenty of ways you can point to Obama's lacking a true reformer's zeal, but that seems a particularly silly one. He hired a Washington insider to do something that really only a Washington insider would know how to do. Oh noez!
eeek

Bastardo

Bastardo

Boston, MA
January 2005

JUN 18, 2008 06:57 AM

God this site is absolutely addicting. Like I don't spend enough time sitting in front of a computer.

Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUN 18, 2008 07:02 AM

Squire said:
I read about this in Newsweek and the first person I thought of was Subrosa. Hand to god. You go boy. kiss



It's like they combined baseball with politics and said to me "Come, Subrosa. Bask in all that you've ever loved."

If they could have fit tits in there somewhere, I think I might have imploded with joy.

Quirky

Quirky

Birmingham, AL
October 2005

JUN 18, 2008 07:03 AM

Subrosa said:

Squire said:
I read about this in Newsweek and the first person I thought of was Subrosa. Hand to god. You go boy. kiss



It's like they combined baseball with politics and said to me "Come, Subrosa. Bask in all that you've ever loved."

If they could have fit tits in there somewhere, I think I might have imploded with joy.



SG Set idea?

Subrosa

Subrosa

San Francisco, CA
July 2004

JUN 18, 2008 07:08 AM

Wodanaz said:
How do I dissect the "Poll Detail?" What do the bars mean?



Which bars? If you mean the bars that look like a cell phone reception thingy, I assume that's a pictorial representation of the weight that each poll is being given in his formula. Unlike RCP, he's looking at each poll and assigning (through a mathematical formula) a reliability weight to each one. The factors that go into the reliability weight are listed in his FAQ, but they include the time the poll was taken, the accuracy of that particular pollster in the past and the sample size. The weight of each poll is adjusted daily to work into his formula.

When he gets a new poll, he works it in, crunches the numbers and it spits out a new set of predictions.

Just like how the new Quinnepac polls (which have Obama comfortably ahead in Ohio, Pennsylvania and even with a lead in Florida) have adjusted Obama's overall win percentage from 67% to 75% overnight. (No Post-Clinton Bump my ass.)

kthxbi

kthxbi

Gulf Breeze, FL
November 2006

JUN 18, 2008 07:53 AM

I like how he talks about what a utter and complete joke larry sinclair and jake gannon are.

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