The website FiveThirtyEight has issued their first comprehensive analysis of the mid-term elections coming this fall. From the poll data available at this time, they estimate a 75% chance that the House of Representatives will flip to control by the Democrats.
The data are revised on a daily basis as new information comes in, so those interested in the elections might want to bookmark the site for future reference.
Update Sept 4:
I have been visiting FiveThirtyEight every couple days since this original post. The numbers truly do update daily (there's lots more data than what I've embedded in the screencap). The % chance of a flip of the house drifted down from the 75.4 shown above to the low 70s, but this week it has been trending upward, and today it hit a new high -
Nothing is guaranteed, of course, and dramatic events could result in massive shifts, but the close we get to November, the more confident I feel about the projection.
What scares me about such stats is that some people will think they can skip voting and everything will be alright. Like in 2016.
ReplyDeleteThe same site predict Hillary as a landslide favorite over Trump in 2016. The current political polarity in this country prevents Republican supporters from answering questions from pollsters. They answered in the voting booth in 2016. I don't pretend to know what will happen at mid-terms, but I'm sure this type of graph/poll holds no weight in the outcome.
ReplyDeleteI agree re the wrong prediction in 2016. But what prevents Republicans from answering questions from pollsters?
DeleteLook, I know I'm in enemy territory on this blog, but darn it, I enjoy the content and the commentary!
DeleteThat said, I am a republican and I stopped talking to most people about politics long ago. I did this because I have friends and coworkers, people I encounter on a regular (or not) basis, who have become truly hateful towards republicans.
So myself and a lot of other republicans (or just non-Hillary supporters) didn't say a word to friends, family or pollsters about how we intended to vote in 2016 because we were tired of being told we are wrong or evil or dumb. I am none of those things. Tolerance is preached, but not practiced any more when it comes to politics.
Therefore, I am happy to let the left have their say. Have their polls and graphs and charts. But I will be voting in November for the person/party I believe is best, and I don't feel the need to tell a soul about it. ...The readers of this blog excepted.
I understand now; thanks for the insight, David. (and your secret is safe with us...)
DeleteTo be fair, they work in probabilities and margins and did not explicitly predict Clinton winning. These are statisticians, so the most they were willing to say was that Clinton was most likely to win. Unlike other sources, they were always very clear to indicate that the margins were more important than the average predicted probability.
DeleteTheir models change daily and, as they often say, become more accurate closer to election day. A few days before, they had Clinton at 66%. This was perhaps the most accurate estimate, based on available data.
I like 538, because 1) they look across multiple polls, which increases accuracy; 2) they look a lot at local polls; and 3) they are clear about their methods and poll weighting decisions.
Thank God for the electoral college or else the polls wouldn’t have been so far off. Not that I don’t support the electoral college. I do.
DeleteBy keeping their numbers seemingly lower they rally their own side to "rise up" against the threat, while hoping to stimulate complacency in the "other side".
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteWhen virtually all of us (whether for Hillary or Trump) were stunned to learn that Trump had actually won, I just couldn't understand why everyone got it so wrong--including me...and I voted for Trump! But when my wife, who is not a political person, told me that, pretty much, "OF COURSE HE WON," I started to realized what the problems was for those who got it wrong.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you are aware that the more you know about something, the more you can see that could go wrong, etc. In other words, when you are aware that there are, say, 20 variables in some matter, and you know that those could easily come into play, it's hard to pick the right outcome with any real confidence.
When I was a younger man, I was really into whitewater rafting. Over time, after so many trips down scary rivers, along with a couple of near-drowning issues, I see so much more than the holiday rafter does. I KNOW what can go wrong, for the most part, while everyone is happily oblivious. And so I can sweat it out sometimes, even though nothing bad happens.
Same with politics. Those who followed it (the news, the polls, etc.) were so influenced by the scale of negativity against Trump (much of it well-deserved) that we couldn't fathom that there was something a lot more basic that was driving the voting.
We missed it because we had TOO MUCH information, while those who called it had tuned in to the core vibe, you might say.
So, it might be that while the polls show a Democratic resurgence, we might again be shocked.
I really think that the combination of all the anti-Hillary stuff, dating from the Clinton years, combined with Bernie Sanders' not being the candidate sank Hillary. Also, I don't think most people took Trump's chances seriously. And then there's the Electoral College, which seems terribly undemocratic to me.
ReplyDeleteAxios had an interesting read today, the gist of it is that Trump's false braggadocio of a 'red wave' this fall, combined with his 'polls are fake news' rhetoric leave a huge blindspot for the Trumpian potential voter, and that republican pollsters see this as a huge threat to turn-out and support in the mid-terms.
ReplyDeleteMy own personal comment is that the polls don't give a good factor for cheating and meddling, which may have tipped the 2016 election.
I don't think it will happen, but (as an Independent) I do think we'll be in better shape overall as a country. It seems some of our best years in recent history are when the executive office and the legislative are controlled by two different parties.
ReplyDeleteSee: Reagan years, George HW Bush years, Clinton's last 6 years, and Obama's 2nd half.
Now, contrast that to years when a single party controlled the House, Senate, and Executive office:
Lyndon B Johnson, Jimmy Carter, 6 years of George W Bush, the first 2 years of Obama, and the first 2 years of Trump. Not exactly a treasure trove.
Sadly, I don't think the Dems have a chance in hell and this is just more wishful thinking by people educated enough to understand statistics, but naive enough to think that the game isn't rigged.
ReplyDeleteI used to consider myself a Democrat but I lost faith in the Democratic party when they put forward an insider over an inspiring and (frankly stronger) candidate. Sanders would have beaten Trump in an even fight.
We know the fight wasn't even, election tampering, voter fraud, what have you. From both sides, but we've learned that there's no lengths that the Republican Party won't go to in order to ensure the survival of the Corporate Oligarchy that they sold their party to in the 80's (maybe even earlier).
Now I'm free, Independent, free to disagree with most of what every candidate says and pick the one I disagree with the least... all the while knowing that my vote doesn't matter as much as someone with a Botnet in Russia.