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Nate's probabilities are based on the electoral college, not the popular vote, so calling which way individual states goes is by definition necessary for a good
by sauwan 6y ago
Nate's probabilities are based on the electoral college, not the popular vote, so calling which way individual states goes is by definition necessary for a good evaluation.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoConsider states like Maine who specifically allocate their electors by vote share rather than in a block to the winner. Again, calling individual states is neither necessary for a good evaluation nor even helpful to it. It is a further processing step that runs on top of a finished prediction. If you have a vote share distribution, you can convert that into victor probabilities with basic algebra. You cannot operate in the reverse direction, and you cannot develop a good model that directly produces victor probabilities as its output.
- joshuamorton 6y agoNates model calls the individual electors in maine and nebraska. As we saw in 2016, trying to predict vote share is actually a bad idea for a presidential model, and predicting states is more useful.