Everybody could be wrong like in November 2016….
But it doesn’t seem like THAT is the case this time….
Democrats are favored to gain control of the House of Representatives in this year’s midterm elections, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast model. But — a very FiveThirtyEight-ish sentence follows — the range of possible outcomes is wide and Democrats’ prospects are far from certain. Relatively small shifts could allow Republicans to keep control of the House, or could turn a blue wave into a tsunami.
What’s behind all of this? Our methodology post goes into a lot more detail about how our forecasts are calculated. But that explanation is rather abstract, so in this article, I’m going to focus on how these factors are playing out given what we know about the political environment this year.
Theme No. 1: A broad consensus of indicators point toward Democrats performing well
In contrast to our presidential forecasts, which are heavily dependent on polling, our House model uses a broad mix of polling and non-polling indicators, including factors such as fundraising totals and historical trends in midterms. Those indicators look both pretty good for Democrats and remarkably consistent with one another:
- The Lite version of our forecast, which focuses as much as possible on district-level and generic ballot polls, projects Democrats to win the popular vote for the House by 7 or 8 percentage points.
- The Classic version of the model, which incorporates a lot of non-polling metrics such as fundraising and past voting in each district, also shows Democrats winning the popular vote by 7 or 8 points.
- The generic ballot, which influences all three versions of our forecast, has generally shown Democrats with a lead of … 7 to 8 percentage points.
- And finally, our model calculates a starting assumption about the race based on historical trends in midterms since 1946 and presidential approval ratings. It also implies that Democrats “should” win the House popular vote by about 8 percentage points — just what the other metrics show…..
Most of us here recognized that Trump had a chance to win, although none of us believed he would. You were one of the few people who said that Trump couldn’t win – and you were very critical of 538 for saying otherwise. You and I were arguing about this before the election, so it is offensive to suggest I was as wrong as you were.
Z?
Whatever degree?
We ALL got the 2016 Presidential election result wrong….
ALL of us…
No one was more surprised then the two people in the contest ….
We can debate this till the cows come home…
Nate Silver and the crew have come up the yin and yang of predictions DSD….
From 14 to over 50 Democratic House seat gained…
But are now hedging their bets….
twitter….
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Nate Silver Retweeted amy walter
This is right. In our model, there a ~60% chance that Democrats *either* win 40+ seats *or* fail to take the House.
(The above follows this post)
amy walter
@amyewalter
Ultimately, I think Ds either fall a few seats short of House majority or win 35+ seats. Tons of single digit races that will break overwhelmingly to D or R on Election Day – won’t break 50-50.
James, It is incredibly obvious to me that you don’t even understand what predictive modeling is. There is no such thing as “hedging your bets” in a predictive model. I said Trump had a chance to win and if that means I was wrong, then believe what you want. I’m not going to debate someone about predictive modeling when they don’t even understand what it is.
I enjoy my time here discussing with others, but you make it unpleasant. So spread your illiterate bullshit with others, and hope that someone will understand what you are trying to say.
Nate Silver ‘s crew say how many separate things here?….
There can be a 14 seat win…..
OR?
There COULD BE as much as 50+ seat win….
They admit there predictive modeling COULD be either of more like 35 seats….
Sooooo?
They are giving as many as THREE conclusions…
I’m NOT talking about YOUR conclusion….
My ‘ illiterate bullshit ‘ seems pretty clear….
They ARE hedging their bets….
Now we can guess why, can’t we?
Again…
Donald Trump was NOT supposed to win…
Had No Chance?
EVERYBODY went with the flow….
Donald Trump DID win!
Soooooo?
We NOW get pundits adding a disclaimer in their ‘predictive models’
Now they give NOT one prediction, forecast or educated guess…
They GIVE SEVERAL…
You KNOW how this works Z….
So you’re smarter than this ole dog….
But I STILL see Nate Silver, who gets paid a good amount of money to make educated guesses?
Hedgeing his bets….
Don’t read this comment because it’s probably NOT something you can understand….
That was a double negative ?
Does THAT equal a positive?
I just don’t know?…..
He, he, he……
Last set of comment from me and then I am gone.
First, I’ll use a sorts metaphor. If the Cleveland Browns are playing the Eagles, the odds of the Browns winning are about 15%. It has nothing to do with hedging bets.
Second, I don’t know what the odds are that someone could get over 2% more votes, yet still lose as happened in 2016. It required Trump winning a lot of states by very small margins. The polls just before Election Day had Hillary winning by about 3 points, so they really weren’t wrong.
Finally, predictive modeling is literally a mathematical equation. Think of it this way. Algebra is advanced arithmetic. Predictive modeling is advanced algebra. Silvers is the only pundit I know of that uses a predictive model. That does not mean that other pundits do not use polling or past statistics in making their predictions, but they do not use a predictive model.
I promise not to bother you for awhile. Maybe you should let the Texan take my place?
Take Care Z…..
Good move James.
Running a poster off because he just couldn’t take more of your illogical BS.
I think it seems to be getting progressively worse.You claim to be stating “opinion.”As requires constant reteration when engaging with the likes of you,Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.Nobody is entitled to their own facts.
Indeed, in this exchange you almost seemed to be taking some delight in exhibiting your stupidity.
Very Trumplike I might add.
Hell, why worry though?Therell be a few more from New Guineans joining the thousands of others that arrive daily because they couldn’t read all this stuff on well known news sites.Likely they just want to read your informative “opinions.”
As I have done with everyone who visit’s
I wish them well….
As I have also said here to all
You give?
You gotta be able to take…
As you well know Jack?
I’m gonna keep posting and saying my piece
FiveThirtyEight…..8/21/18
Republicans have a 2 in 7 chance of keeping control of the House, while Democrats have about a 5 in 7 chance of winning control of the House….
Link….
(This is a daily updated number…)