Electoral College Decision Tree
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Electoral College Decision Tree
1–10 of 373 posts
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#2Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization.
Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#3Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
I don't think Trump beat any overwhelming odds. I think the polling was beyond horrible. A bit too many people put too much faith in the NYT and 538's methodology. I wouldn't expect the map to change too much between elections. Now, the 2022 (House & some Senate) and 2024 Presidential will be different because of the change in districting and electoral votes per state caused by the census.
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#4Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
He "beat the odds" because most models were incorrect. They have been corrected. Are the models wrong again? Maybe, but it would need to be in a totally different way, and by a much larger margin than in 2016.
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#5Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
I think Biden will win by a big margin, but I suspect there is a lot more uncertainty baked into the polls than the headline number shows. Polling involves lots of assumptions and making adjustments based on expected turnout of different demographic groups and people with different voter registrations. 95% of people called do not take polls, so it’s not just a truly random sampling like people assume.
This year, there are some truly weird things happening. For example, Trump is losing ground along seniors while gaining ground among non-white voters. He is polling 10-20 points better among Hispanic people in Florida, for example, than in 2016. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-.... Trump is significantly outperforming Romney or McCain among non-whites, and significantly underperforming among seniors. Polls do lots of adjustments based on assumptions about e.g. voter turnout by race, and I don't know if pollsters have really gotten their arms around this situation.
The explanation of the "16% chance Trump wins" got a little unscientific in the media last time. To be precise, that's the probability that Trump wins based on the statistical distribution of the different polls and the margins of error within polls. (Roughly speaking, it's "measurement error.") It does not address the possibility that there are systematic methodological shortcomings in the polls. Both things happened in 2016: there was a significant chance of Trump winning anyway, but there was also systemic errors in assumptions regarding low-propensity voters, voters who haven't gone to college, and undecided voters. Pollsters have seemingly fixed those errors, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ones.
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#6Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
I don't think Trump beat any overwhelming odds. I think the polling was beyond horrible. A bit too many people put too much faith in the NYT and 538's methodology. I wouldn't expect the map to change too much between elections. Now, the 2022 (House & some Senate) and 2024 Presidential will be different because of the change in districting and electoral votes per state caused by the census.
I thought 538 was one of the few outlets to give Trump a decent chance? Granted, I was 16 but I seem to remember that being the case.
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#7Where would one get started with building a graph like this? I’m trying to wrap my head around the code. Is there a simpler d3 example with less permutations that I can build upon?
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#8Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
I don't think Trump beat any overwhelming odds. I think the polling was beyond horrible. A bit too many people put too much faith in the NYT and 538's methodology. I wouldn't expect the map to change too much between elections. Now, the 2022 (House & some Senate) and 2024 Presidential will be different because of the change in districting and electoral votes per state caused by the census.
The NYT I agree with, but Five Thirty Eight specifically called out Trump's chances in the final days before the election: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-just-a-normal-...
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#9Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
That's because people have caricatures of each other which are wildly inaccurate.
If you talked to people you would understand that what they optimize for is not really related to the caricatures of them, its not the opposite of what "your side" cares about just completely different.
When it is obvious that all the news comes from New York City and Los Angeles, and the world resyndicates that, while a large swath of America that actually matters cares about different things, it is easy to tell why the models fail.
You would have bet the farm on the undervalued bet on the prediction markets.
Re: Electoral College Decision Tree
#10Nerd Me: This is a really nice use of this visualization. Human Me: I saw all this stuff in 2016 and Trump still beat the overwhelming odds. (Yes 16% chance of winning is still a chance, I get it... there's just so much deja vu with all these visualizations and articles about his campaign imploding).
I don't think Trump beat any overwhelming odds. I think the polling was beyond horrible. A bit too many people put too much faith in the NYT and 538's methodology. I wouldn't expect the map to change too much between elections. Now, the 2022 (House & some Senate) and 2024 Presidential will be different because of the change in districting and electoral votes per state caused by the census.
I thought 538 gave Trump a 25% chance to win in 2016? Sure, he wasn't the favorite, but that's like the probability of a typical batter getting a hit in baseball. It isn't what happens in most at-bats, but it shouldn't be a big surprise either.