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Hillary Clinton’s win probability hit 95 % yesterday according to Princeton Election Consortium
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton’s win probability hit 95%. This seems like a good time to reveal one of the Princeton Election Consortium’s secrets. Thankfully, it does not involve an Access Hollywood video.
Here it is: poll-based Presidential prediction is not very hard.
I guess that is a pretty boring secret. Sorry.
It is an interesting irony that poll aggregation got popular in 2008, a year when there was not that much suspense in the Presidential race. That year, Barack Obama led John McCain for almost the entire campaign season, with the possible exception of the week after the Republican Convention, where Sarah Palin stole the show. That ended up with a 7-percentage-point popular win, and an electoral outcome of 365-173.
President Obama’s re-election in 2012 carried even less suspense: he never lost the lead to Romney. The closest he came was right after the first debate, though even then he was slightly ahead. The eventual outcome was a 4-percentage-point popular win and an electoral outcome of 332-206.
I have formed a sneaking suspicion that the runaway success of poll-based forecasting arises from these two victories. If this is correct, then sites like The Upshot and FiveThirtyEight are basically prurient entertainment for progressives. Which is okay with me. Everyone needs an outlet. Republicans got theirs in 2010 and 2014.
I think it is a good thing that those sites did not start in 2004. When many hobbyists (including electoral-vote.com, me, and many others) started doing poll aggregation, it was a tough year: John Kerry and President George W. Bush traded the lead several times, and it was a photo finish, coming down to Ohio. When it comes to probability, it is too easy to do a suboptimal job of extracting all the possible value out of polls. That would have led to a boring year of commentary: “it’s too close to call!” seems okay for a pundit to say, but is that what we really want from a data nerd?
This year, Hillary Clinton’s lead has been remarkably consistent, despite the emotional drama offered by commentators. At some level the drama is justified by the expected value, which is defined as the size of a payoff (or cost) multiplied by its probability. This year, the cost of a presidency as profoundly disruptive as Trump’s would be enormous. Even 5% of that would be notable.
Here it is: poll-based Presidential prediction is not very hard.
I guess that is a pretty boring secret. Sorry.
It is an interesting irony that poll aggregation got popular in 2008, a year when there was not that much suspense in the Presidential race. That year, Barack Obama led John McCain for almost the entire campaign season, with the possible exception of the week after the Republican Convention, where Sarah Palin stole the show. That ended up with a 7-percentage-point popular win, and an electoral outcome of 365-173.
President Obama’s re-election in 2012 carried even less suspense: he never lost the lead to Romney. The closest he came was right after the first debate, though even then he was slightly ahead. The eventual outcome was a 4-percentage-point popular win and an electoral outcome of 332-206.
I have formed a sneaking suspicion that the runaway success of poll-based forecasting arises from these two victories. If this is correct, then sites like The Upshot and FiveThirtyEight are basically prurient entertainment for progressives. Which is okay with me. Everyone needs an outlet. Republicans got theirs in 2010 and 2014.
I think it is a good thing that those sites did not start in 2004. When many hobbyists (including electoral-vote.com, me, and many others) started doing poll aggregation, it was a tough year: John Kerry and President George W. Bush traded the lead several times, and it was a photo finish, coming down to Ohio. When it comes to probability, it is too easy to do a suboptimal job of extracting all the possible value out of polls. That would have led to a boring year of commentary: “it’s too close to call!” seems okay for a pundit to say, but is that what we really want from a data nerd?
This year, Hillary Clinton’s lead has been remarkably consistent, despite the emotional drama offered by commentators. At some level the drama is justified by the expected value, which is defined as the size of a payoff (or cost) multiplied by its probability. This year, the cost of a presidency as profoundly disruptive as Trump’s would be enormous. Even 5% of that would be notable.
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/10/10/some-secrets-are-not-all-that-dirty/