6 Months Ago: HuffPost Forecasts Hillary Clinton Will Win With 323 Electoral Votes

[oberliner]

The HuffPost presidential forecast model gives Democrat Hillary Clinton a 98.2 percent chance of winning the presidency. Republican Donald Trump has essentially no path to an Electoral College victory.

Clinton’s win will be substantial, but not overwhelming. The model projects that she’ll garner 323 electoral votes to Trump’s 215.

Senate Outlook

The Senate is likely to shift to a Democratic majority, with 51 seats, or 50 seats and Tim Kaine as the vice presidential tie-breaker. The HuffPost model says there’s a 66 percent chance Democrats will get 51 or more seats, and a 25 percent chance the chamber ends up with each party at 50 seats.

...giving Feingold a 98 percent chance of winning.

... this one is called for McGinty.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/polls-hillary-clinton-win_us_5821074ce4b0e80b02cc2a94

Still can't believe how everything ended up playing out. How different the world would be if things had turned out the way everyone said that they would.

[Botany]

1. Simple reason

"they cheated"

[oberliner]

2. What about the Senate races?

How did Feingold and McGinty lose?

Both seemed pretty secure even right up to election day.

[L. Coyote]

12. Simple reason, to quote a knowlegable source, "they cheated"

In the battleground states there was VERY ROBUST polling, exit polls and pre-voting polls, and the exit polls matched the multiple, robust polls. Nonetheless, nationally the Senate races have a mean red shift of 4.7%, more than TRIPLE what was a scandalous 1.5% red shift in 2004 in the Presidential race. If we accept science and statistics as valid, the evidence indicates two branches of government were stolen in 2016 because stealing the Senate turned the Supreme Court.

Of course, in America we now know that science and mathematics is just fake.

[oberliner]

13. Who cheated?

Are there specific people you have in mind?

[L. Coyote]

16. If only "Who cheated?" was a simple question, there would still be people in jail since 2000.

To follow some of what is happening in real time, take note of MikeFarb on Twitter. This is a long thread:

Link to tweet

[Eliot Rosewater]

27. GOP hasnt "won" the WH since 1988. They have occupied it, but not "won."

p.s.

KGB doesnt work for decades planting thousands of agents around the world to be presented with a chance to take over the world with their boy trump and then leave it up to the voters.

think about it...for 60 years, agents, some born here, in positions of influence like election boards/precincts, talk shows, politicians.

Our voting machines are so hack-able it isnt funny.

[L. Coyote]

28. This is where investigations may lead.

[sarisataka]

19. Meteorology is a science

but is often wrong. Predictive science is only as good as the model and the data. Select the wrong data or design an incorrect model you get a wrong prediction.

[L. Coyote]

24. Meteorology is a science, predicting weather isn't. Prediction is data interpretaton.

Prediction can employ scientific methods, but the future is not entirely predictable.

In elections, we have exit polls, which are not predictions but rather a sampling of outcomes. And we have election results which are not inferential statistics with margins of error, rather descriptive stats without margins of error (given the results have not been altered).

[sarisataka]

25. A sample

which predicts the overall result... If the samples are not adequately taken it will lead to a false conclusion.

[L. Coyote]

26. Sampling methods determine the margin of error.

Simple laws of inferential statistics. Those laws do not predict Republicans will win the elections by several times the margin of error.

[mythology]

37. The national polls were more accurate in 2016 than in 2012. It just happens the error

wasn't in our favor.

Exit polls conspiracy theories are silly.

https://www.thenation.com/article/reminder-exit-poll-conspiracy-theories-are-totally-baseless/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ten-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-exit/

[Mr. Ected]

3. President Clinton would have been totally stymied by now

Republicans in Congress would be introducing resolutions of impeachment on a daily basis. Her agenda would have been tabled in lieu of partisan interference.

Yes, I wish she had been elected. I wouldn't live each day in fear like I do right now under a Trump presidency. Merrick Garland might be sitting on the SC. The ACA would not have been disemboweled. But let's not pretend that she could have been effective in rolling out her policies. Not in this current environment of Congressional fascism.

[oberliner]

5. What if Democrats had the majority in the Senate?

Which was also predicted to happen.

[Mr. Ected]

8. It still wouldn't have prevented those anarchists in the House

From unleashing their tyranny against a Democratic leader.

[yallerdawg]

4. Thank you, James Comey.

"Florida, Nevada and North Carolina have leaned toward Clinton in the polling averages. The forecast in recent weeks, along with the strength of early voting numbers, makes it seem very likely that these will stay with her. All three states are more than 80-percent likely to swing Democratic. New Hampshire polls have wavered recently, but the HuffPost model still predicts those four electoral votes will go to Clinton with more than 90 percent certainty. And Clinton should fairly easily hold onto Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania."

[oberliner]

6. What about the Senate losses?

How did Feingold and McGinty both lose?

[yallerdawg]

9. Must be something to...

that 'coattails' thing.

[L. Coyote]

20. We may find out if people investigate rather than accept whatever election result machines report.

When there is no transparency and we rely on ultra-right, Christian Dominionists to provide black box voting machines, perhaps inquiry into these questions is advisable.
Just maybe.

[sarisataka]

7. There were other opinions

that were less rosy and some warning that complacency will cost the election... but most didn't want to hear any "defeatist" talk. Any poll which didn't forecast an overwhelming victory was labeled as "flawed"; any news article that indicated the Electoral College vote was close was dismissed as the media creating "drama" to keep an illusion the election was not going to be a landslide.

Unfortunately too many are still living in a world as they wish it was, ignoring what is...

[Hassin Bin Sober]

10. Yep. A week before the election, Nate Silver was. ..

... attempting to temper euphoria.

Du's answer was "fuck him, look at the Princeton poll!!!"

[oberliner]

15. Final Election Update: Theres A Wide Range Of Outcomes, And Most Of Them Come Up Clinton

Even Nate Silver predicted HRC victory right up until the end.

[brush]

17. A week before the election maybe, but before Comey's letter Silver predicted a Clinton win

Why'd you leave that part out?

[stevenleser]

21. Some folks always leave out facts that don't support a certain narrative

And can't look into the mirror and figure out their own biases. Leaving out facts and whataboutism do not belong on DU.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

29. What are you talking about?

What did I "leave out"? Nate was tempering the euphoria a week out. Thats a fact. Im not purporting to recite everything he said prior to.

I think it's a given to anybody who was around and paying attention knew that late silver was predicting a Hillary Clinton win.

Nate was predicting a Hillary win. Now, feel better?

But, and this is a big but, he was saying Trump had a one in four chance of winning the presidency. And he also said Hillary's margin of victory was within two or three points in all the Battleground States.

To me, that was very troubling because I know the Hillary hate that exist in the right-wing world - and in the Obama supporter world in 2008 (but thats another thread). I was a Hillary primary supporter in 2008 btw. That and her high unfavorable ratings among registered voters.

When Nate said Trump had the same 1 in 4 chance that the Cubs just pulled off, I got that sinking feeling. The same sinking feeling I got in 2004 when I realized the repigs managed to place anti gay marriage initiatives on 10 or 15 state ballots.

[brush]

33. God! Just admit the elephant in the room. Comey's letter gave the election to trump...

and stop going on about Dem euphoria and Dems ignoring trump's one in four chance.

The repugs cheated, plain and simple.

And Comey is a repug who cheated and knew exactly what he was doing — divulging a re-opening of the Clinton email investigation (without even bothering to look at the allegedly "new" emails which proved to be nothing) while keeping absolutely silent on the investigation he had been conducting on trump since July of 2016.

That, my friend, is what happened. I know it doesn't fit the preferred narrative of pundits and Berniephiles and Clinton haters who love to go on about what a horrible candidate Hillary was and what a horrible campaign she ran, a campaign that won 3m more votes btw, but the fact remains that Comey's letter gave trump the win.

Polls conducted after the Oct. 28 letter tell that story clearly so I don't get why they are even cited, as if they didn't differ at all from the polls before the letter?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

34. I don't doubt that was a factor.

That's the problem with a race that ended up so razor thin (where it counted).

There were several events/actions that, if they went the other way, would likely have swayed the election the other way.

It sucks to hear it, but some of those were in our control. And some were self inflicted wounds.

You guys are like the guy who every other day shows up to work late and blames the train tracks he drives over every day for making him late.

[brush]

35. And you are one of the guys who won't deal with the reality of what happened...

and prefers to go with the narrative one has talked themselves into.

No way trump wins without the Oct. letter.

And no way trump wins if the electorate knew he was also being investigated (talk about self-inflicted wounds).

[sarisataka]

22. Over a year ago...

Donald Trump Is Killing It With White, Working-Class Voters In The Rust Belt

WASHINGTON — Here are some scary findings for anyone who doesn’t support Donald Trump for president.

Working America, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO union federation, just spent five weeks canvassing in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas, focusing on likely voters who live outside the city and have household incomes at or below $75,000 (read: white and working class). The group’s canvassers spoke to 1,689 people, 90 percent of whom cast ballots in 2012. While the report serves as a non-scientific “front porch focus group,” rather than a representative sample of the states’ voters, its findings offer a glimpse into some voters’ minds.

Of the entire Democratic and Republican fields, the most popular single candidate was Donald Trump — and it wasn’t even close. Thirty-eight percent of people who had already made up their minds said they wanted to vote for the Republican real estate magnate. The candidate with the next highest share was Democrat Hillary Clinton, with 22 percent.

Trump’s haul was more than the rest of the GOP field combined, which was 22 percent. Democratic candidate and Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders rang up 12 percent of decided voters. The Clinton and Sanders shares, when combined, came out roughly equal to Trump’s.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-working-class-voters_us_56aa44d0e4b0d82286d51ffa

January 28, 2016... long before day one the Rust Belt was shaky; but it was simply assumed those states were in the bag because they usually vote Dem. Come election day every pundit and pollster (and those already on their second bottle of victory champagne) was stunned...

[bettyellen]

30. Interesting, I knew a lot of people who were concerned at how close it was...

And they doubled down and worked harder. They knew it wasn't going to be the "coronation" others dismissively called it but the result of a lot of hard work.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

31. Yes.

There was an article about the Michigan Democratic party screaming for help...

[bettyellen]

32. I'be never been part of a campaign where some segments didn't scream for more resources. It's normal

But pointing fingers is more fun.

[Lurks Often]

11. Those of us who were skeptical of those polls were shouted down and

sometimes alerted on. People believe the polls that tell them want they wanted to hear and ignored and ridiculed the polls that hinted at anything other then HRC winning.


And just so I am clear I NEVER thought Sanders could win the general election.

[brush]

18. You have to differenciate between the polls before and after the Comey letter

Let's be real. The letter gave the election to trump. Without it Clinton wins in a walk.

[stevenleser]

23. Again, some folks don't want to deal with ALL the facts. nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Black swan events happen. That's how Vegas makes it money. Folks hoping they can identify and bet ..

Black swan events happen. That's how Vegas makes it money. Folks hoping they can identify and bet on one.


Buster Douglas was a 42-1 underdog when he knocked Mike Tyson on his ass. I am not going to infer from Chump's upset win he is invincible. Buster lost his title in his first defense of it.

[BzaDem]

36. I'm not even sure it's reasonable to call this a "black swan event."

Clinton was within normal-polling-error range in the key swing states on the morning of election day. That still made her likely to win, in the sense that a two thirds probability event could be considered "likely". But a two thirds probably event fails to happen one out of every three times. Her probability of winning wasn't even close to Obama's probability of winning in either of his elections.

Many people made the mistake of incorrectly internalizing what 2-1 odds means. This is partly due to the fact that her popular vote lead misleadingly made her look like she had far better odds (compounded with truly idiotic reporting that made it look like the electoral college helped her chances), partly due to the fact that she led for nearly the entire race (which can be mistakenly assumed to imply higher odds than the last-day polls would indicate), and partly due to the fact that a Trump presidency would be substantively unthinkable to a majority of people highly engaged in following politics.

[kentuck]

38. Even though she did not poll over 50% in any of the polls?

That may have been the warning flag?