FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast • Hacker News Board

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#41

Post by cjohnson318 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

timapplesauce wrote: post #33

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 0 out of 1 countries. Here's a map showing where all the votes were cast: https://engaging-data.com/county-electoral-map-land-vs-popul...

The Electoral College exists because popular vote would lead to just a handful of our largest cities holding all of the political power. Switching to popular vote would lead to presidents completely ignoring or worse enacting policies that harm smaller cities, suburbs, and rural Americans.

A handful of the largest cities, where most of the people in America live. We already have a Senate where Wyoming with ~500k people has as many votes as California, with ~38M people. How much are we going to stack the deck against the average, likely more centrist voter, that lives in a metro area? Maybe we could finally pass common sense gun control legislation that a majority of Americans support.

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#42

Post by NearAP » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 5:29 PM UTC

GameOfFrowns wrote: post #22

kadoban wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyone paying attention was pretty certain Trump was going to win that. All you had to do was look at Trumps subreddit vs Hilarys. Look at Trumps rally turnouts. How'd that work out in 2020?

>How'd that work out in 2020? In 2020, obviously senile and charisma-void, candidate Joe Biden surprisingly manifested ~81 (Edit: actually 8) million more votes than the 'second-coming of Christ' Barack Obama before him, while speaking to low double-digit audiences at his rally stops. Really makes you think. Edit: in 2020 Biden received 81,284,000 votes , Trump 74,221,000 votes, while in 2008 Obama got 69,498,516 vot…

My apologies if I misunderstood your statement but I interpret it to mean that you're skeptical that Biden received a large number of votes compared to Obama.

If my interpretation is correct, then I think you're missing the big factor that conservatives and registered Republicans actively campaigned for Biden. They didn't just reject Trump, they explicitly said they were voting Biden, Campaigned for him, asked their fellow GOP members to vote Biden over Trump.

At the end of the day, you had Democrats + Independents + Conservatives voting Biden. That coalition didn't exist during Obama's time. In fact, the people who most likely voted for Romney were the people who were now voting for Biden

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#43

Post by iconjack » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

gorgonical wrote: post #8

egberts1 wrote: post #2

New York Times that predicted a 93% chance of a Clinton landslide in 2016. And the same 538 concurred with 87% chance of a Clinton win. And the very same 538 that claimed a “Comey Effect” that purportedly botched their deep analytical effort, posthumously. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-clinton-landslid...

Echoing a sibling comment, it seems strange it's so common that people look at probabilities like this and say that because the thing that happened was less likely that the model was wrong. They say explicitly how this works: they run simulations and count winners. That means among their simulations is very likely to be an instance that is similar to the real outcome.

Yes, I agree. If you are tasked for example with analyzing a coin to assess its bias, you could do a very thorough job, measuring precisely its mass distribution, its contours, etc and come up with an extremely accurate estimate that say, the probability of it landing Heads is 73.22%.

If the coin is subsequently flipped and comes up Tails, it doesn't mean your analysis was wrong.

On the other hand, 538's simulation was based on probabilities of winning each state, and as I think most will agree, before and after the election, the most important states were Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. On election day, 538 gave the following probabilities:

Wisconsin 83.5% Clinton [1]

Pennsylvania 77.0% Clinton [2]

Michigan 78.9% Clinton [3]

I think Nate really screwed the pooch here. The vast bulk of his effort should have been spent on these states. If that is in fact the case, then I retract my criticism.

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/... [2] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/... [3] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/...

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#44

Post by wbsss4412 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

timapplesauce wrote: post #39

wbsss4412 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the candidate with the more impassioned voters got significantly fewer votes in both 2016 and 2020.

I would argue in 2020 Biden had more of the passion votes. It was passion AGAINST Trump of course, not FOR Biden. The entire media apparatus with only a few notable exceptions worked tirelessly to undermine Trump at every opportunity and suppress negative stories about Biden. There was almost no media coverage of Biden’s obvious mental decline, lack of energy to campaign, low rally turnout, his son’s incriminating la…

I don’t deny the existence of a mainstream media bias against trump, but all of the things you listed weren’t really all that secret. I and everyone I know knew about those things and they weren’t exactly following things super close.

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#45

Post by rgifford » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

timapplesauce wrote: post #34

rgifford wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9 of those 30 states have more cows than people [1]. When your state is a single dude standing in a field filled with cows, getting the popular vote doesn't say much. 1. https://beef2live.com/story-cattle-inventory-vs-human-popula...

How much of our food supply comes from New York City and Los Angeles? Your comment implies that the needs of these states is somehow less important in the governance of our nation.

The needs of these states are less important. They have fewer people, less productive capacity, less economic output, etc. They are lesser by every metric imaginable. In our nation's bread basket folks love to hold up agricultural achievement. Ironically California dominates that too [1].

Getting rid of the electoral college system in favor of popular vote isn't enough. A couple states drive the productive, agricultural, intellectual and economic engines of our country. In a meritocracy, these states would dictate federal policy. Instead they're subject to the capricious whims of deadbeats. Another way to put it: who really needs who?

Some players are MJ or Kobe or Lebron, some sit on the bench. That's life.

1. https://www.ers.usda.gov/faqs

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#46

Post by timapplesauce » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 5:59 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #44

timapplesauce wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue in 2020 Biden had more of the passion votes. It was passion AGAINST Trump of course, not FOR Biden. The entire media apparatus with only a few notable exceptions worked tirelessly to undermine Trump at every opportunity and suppress negative stories about Biden. There was almost no media coverage of Biden’s obvious mental decline, lack of energy to campaign, low rally turnout, his son’s incriminating la…

I don’t deny the existence of a mainstream media bias against trump, but all of the things you listed weren’t really all that secret. I and everyone I know knew about those things and they weren’t exactly following things super close.

The NY Post got their Twitter account suspended for daring to cover Hunter Biden’s laptop. That story in particular was heavily suppressed.

What the media, both the social and traditional varieties, did to Trump is disgusting and goes way beyond bias. It was a targeted campaign with the goal of undermining and removing him from office from the moment he won the election. Propping up and protecting Biden was a means to an end.

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#47

Post by wbsss4412 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 6:00 PM UTC

timapplesauce wrote: post #39

wbsss4412 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the candidate with the more impassioned voters got significantly fewer votes in both 2016 and 2020.

I would argue in 2020 Biden had more of the passion votes. It was passion AGAINST Trump of course, not FOR Biden. The entire media apparatus with only a few notable exceptions worked tirelessly to undermine Trump at every opportunity and suppress negative stories about Biden. There was almost no media coverage of Biden’s obvious mental decline, lack of energy to campaign, low rally turnout, his son’s incriminating la…

For the record, I passionately voted against trump because of things that I watched him do, not because of media spin.

I and a lot of other people strongly disagreed with both his policies and his character, which were on plain display constantly and unfiltered on Twitter.

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#48

Post by egberts1 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #37

timapplesauce wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Electoral College exists because popular vote would lead to just a handful of our largest cities holding all of the political power. Switching to popular vote would lead to presidents completely ignoring or worse enacting policies that harm smaller cities, suburbs, and rural Americans.

This is oft repeated, but it does hold up to even minor scrutiny. 1. More Americans live in suburbs than in urban areas, so they actually represent a larger share of the popular vote. 2. The electoral does not actually bias small states that significantly. California’s share of the popular vote was 11.0% in 2020, while it cast 10.2% of EVs. 3. The electoral college primarily biases large, tipping point states. Biden…

or instead of a “tyranny of he minority”, we have a functioning Republic where minorities are less oppressed than in a pure democracy.

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#49

Post by wbsss4412 » Thu, Jun 30, 2022, 7:23 PM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #48

wbsss4412 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is oft repeated, but it does hold up to even minor scrutiny. 1. More Americans live in suburbs than in urban areas, so they actually represent a larger share of the popular vote. 2. The electoral does not actually bias small states that significantly. California’s share of the popular vote was 11.0% in 2020, while it cast 10.2% of EVs. 3. The electoral college primarily biases large, tipping point states. Biden…

or instead of a “tyranny of he minority”, we have a functioning Republic where minorities are less oppressed than in a pure democracy.

1. You’re replying to the wrong comment.

2. As my comment outlines, the electoral college actually does very little to protect minority interests.

3. Further, it has almost never actually worked as the founders intended. They didn’t predict the existence of political parties and expected the electoral college to actually involved real debates and voting within the body itself, not as it works today where they are essentially decided before they attend. The founders intended for the EC to be a filtering step among a multitude of candidates before the final election was decided by the house, voting as state level blocs.

What you’re arguing is post hoc rationalization that doesn’t even fit the facts on the ground.

Re: FiveThirtyEight 2022 Election Forecast

#50

Post by meatsauce » Fri, Jul 01, 2022, 5:35 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #25

meatsauce wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President Trump won the popular vote in 30 of 50 states.

And 0 out of 1 countries. Here's a map showing where all the votes were cast: https://engaging-data.com/county-electoral-map-land-vs-popul...

Do baseball teams win the world series based on how many fly balls they catch in a given year?

Does NASCAR bestow awards based on how much fuel you used?

Does Wimbledon award prize money for how fast you smack a tennis ball?

Using an irrelevant metric to claim a make-believe victory is simply childish and emotional.

Presidential candidates win elections based on the electoral college votes, themselves decided by the popular vote outcome in each state. In 2016, Trump won more states, thusly more EC votes. Therefore he became president and Hillary was sent back to the over-priced lecture circuit.

Any other metric you use to decide who won is simply self-delusion.