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Electoral College Decision Tree

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Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#41

Post by mrtksn »

atonse wrote: post #2

Nerd 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).

Doesn't it mean that having even %16 chance means that it is actually possible?

Maybe it's simply not a good idea to analyse this in terms of chances of winning because we will witness just 1 event but the probability says that in 400 years we will have 16 Trump presidencies.

It's very counterintuitive, I don't know how to think of it. It's like saying that %99 of StartUps fail but that stat is meaningless to the individual startups(meaningful to govt & investors that will have to deal with 100s or more startups).

From subjects perspective, their own startup have %100 chance of success and Trump has %100 chance of winning.

Maybe these "chance of winning" statistics should be compiled by examining the roadblocks to the success.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#42

Post by rayiner »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28
splatcollision wrote: post #14

So the fate of the world rests in the hands of Floridians...

According to https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-ma... If Biden wins Florida, then it's a >99% chance of a Biden victory. But if Trump wins Florida, it's a 58% chance of a Biden victory. So Florida is essential for Trump, but not for Biden. Biden has a 70% chance in Florida. So I wouldn't say the fate of the world rests in the hands of Floridians. However, an early Biden win in Florida could all…

If Trump wins Florida and Pennsylvania, there is a 92% chance of Trump winning.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#43

Post by haburka »

dragontamer wrote: post #36

" If Biden wins Florida and New Hampshire but Trump wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nevada then Biden wins " I like the diagram, but it seems like a lot of superfluous words are going on in the "English translation" at the top. How about "If Biden wins Florida and New Hampshire, Biden Wins" ?? It doesn't matter if "Trump wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina,…

It’s just concatenation of a list of strings? They could have done some neat calculation to figure out if the list is the remaining swing states and then replace the text like you suggested.

However, considering this is a side project, I understand why they didn’t try to build every feature. It’s much better to publish something in a timely manner than to spend so much time polishing it that you miss the relevant deadline!

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#44

Post by BurningFrog »

jstanley wrote: post #20
vanattab wrote: post #12

Really cool use of data visualization! Nice work! What ever happens I just pray we don't hit one of the paths ending in a unfilled circle.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems obviously dumb that the electoral college has an even number of members? Wouldn't making it an odd number prevent this possibility?

In 1973 Sweden ended up with a 175-175 situation in parliament.

After deciding 152 issues by lottery, the number was changed to 349.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Riksdag#Constit...

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#45

Post by s_gangopadhyay »

I travel to "flyover" cities pretty much every other week, and I think the polls got it wrong again. Because of my transient nature and the fact that I'm neither black nor white, my coworkers and clients tend to speak more freely with me regarding politics. My conclusion is that the BLM/rioters have really screwed over Biden, and that not only will Trump win, he'll win by a landslide victory. This is all assuming there aren't going to be any controversies around mail-in ballots.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#46

Post by dragontamer »

haburka wrote: post #43
dragontamer wrote: post #36

" If Biden wins Florida and New Hampshire but Trump wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nevada then Biden wins " I like the diagram, but it seems like a lot of superfluous words are going on in the "English translation" at the top. How about "If Biden wins Florida and New Hampshire, Biden Wins" ?? It doesn't matter if "Trump wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina,…

It’s just concatenation of a list of strings? They could have done some neat calculation to figure out if the list is the remaining swing states and then replace the text like you suggested. However, considering this is a side project, I understand why they didn’t try to build every feature. It’s much better to publish something in a timely manner than to spend so much time polishing it that you miss the relevant dea…

> They could have done some neat calculation to figure out if the list is the remaining swing states and then replace the text like you suggested.

As far as I can tell, the "neat calculation" is:

* "If Trump Wins, then the list of states that Biden won are meaningless"

* "If Biden Wins, then the list of states that Trump won are meaningless".

> However, considering this is a side project, I understand why they didn’t try to build every feature. It’s much better to publish something in a timely manner than to spend so much time polishing it that you miss the relevant deadline!

I can agree with that. But I'm still going to try to offer helpful criticism when the projects hit the 1st page of Hacker News!

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#47

Post by lastofthemojito »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #22
weakfish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right. They had him on about 33%, depending on exactly when you look. Interestingly, in 2016 they thought Trump was more likely than the betting markets did. Betfair had him on about 22%. So if they were betting they'd have made a profit. This year the situation has reversed. Betfair has 35% for Trump, whereas 538 has him on only 12%. So they'd be betting on Biden.

You know what they say, armies go to battle equipped for the last war that they fought. We all take our lessons learned, and recent ones seem to dominate.

So yeah, a lot of people seem convinced that since the pre-election polling showed Trump at a disadvantage last time, we'll see an identical surprise victory this time. I personally think that makes as much sense as leaving your umbrella at home on a day with a 75% chance of rain because the last time there was a similar forecast, no rain fell.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#48

Post by jkestner »

roywiggins wrote: post #15
weakfish wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You remember correctly. "538 thought Clinton had a lock on it" is a meme, but it doesn't seem grounded in anything.

Perhaps people read 538's odds numbers as poll numbers.

Re: Electoral College Decision Tree

#49

Post by greenpizza13 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #24

Another similar tool, with very different visualization. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-ma...

This is so terrifying. If you start giving Trump states which are tossups, like FL, the others which were tossups begin to lean red. Choose red for those and you're done. At that point you're in 2016 territory.

We have an extremely broken election system.

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