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In this case the candidates were very close. Fivethirtyeight's estimate had Hillary at 48.5% of the vote and Trump at 44.9% (and the rest on other canditates),

by Nition 3y ago

In this case the candidates were very close. Fivethirtyeight's estimate had Hillary at 48.5% of the vote and Trump at 44.9% (and the rest on other canditates), only 3.6% apart.[1] Usually, when things aren't quite so close, polls are a more useful gauge since they're more likely to be correct about who'll win as the gap widens. [1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast

khazhoux 3y ago
Why are you looking at the %vote, though? In that very link, 538 has Hillary as 71% chance of winning. That is not close at all. I'm not arguing that something can ever be treated as a certainty, just that there's "no point" in following the polls since even a lopsided 71-28% prediction will go either way, and is indistinguishable from a 50-50 prediction on election night.
- Nition 3y ago
  What I mean is, the reason it's 71%-28% is that the actual % difference between predicted votes is very small. Once the estimated votes are say 10% apart, then you start getting a prediction that's more like 99%-1%, and the polls are much more likely to be telling you accurately who will actually win. In this case the prediction is pretty close to just a 50/50 coin flip, but that's quite unusual and reflective of the chance legitimately being close to 50/50. Therefore I wouldn't say it invalidates polls in general.
  - beerpls 3y ago
    The whole point of a poll/stat prediction from the intuitive human standpoint is to get a good gauge on how likely outcomes are Silver, as well as all other mainstream polls/predictions in the race had Hillary winning by “the greatest margin in presidential history” You can try and whitewash it but we all remember that. We all remember how hopeless trump looked and how bulletproof hillary’s victory was To say Silver and all the other polls weren’t framing this as a landslide victory for hillary and a humiliating defeat for trump is just living in a false alternate reality in one’s mind. And judging by these responses that seems to be the more common state of mind for folks here to be in…
    - Nition 3y ago
      > Silver, as well as all other mainstream polls/predictions in the race had Hillary winning by “the greatest margin in presidential history.” You can try and whitewash it but we all remember that We don't need to remember though; we have the Internet Archive. We can look back at Silver's prediction page on the morning of the election[1], where it's predicting Hillary winning by only 3.5% of the vote. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20161108000845/http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161108000845/http://projects.f...
      - beerpls 3y ago
        Yea, cherry picking is an excellent way to claim you’re right when reality doesn’t agree Go back and get an aggregate sense of everything he said. Look at 90%+ if the articles he wrote saying what I said compared to the one or two that y’all want to keep referring to For people discussing stats there’s a very strong inability to grok averages here…
        Nition 3y ago
        I only linked that one because it's the main page where they posted their data. Its easy to check what he was saying too, we can just look at the archive from the same day of Nate Silver's posts : https://web.archive.org/web/20161108082405/https://fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/nate-silver https://web.archive.org/web/20161108082405/https://fivethirt... They're all about how it's a very close, uncertain race. You might point out that the top one is "Clinton Gains...", but even that one is just talking about "Clinton’s projected margin of victory in the popular vote has increased to 3.5 percent from 2.9 percent." I did try looking up your quote - "greatest margin in presidential history" - but the only Google result was your comment.
        re5i5tor 3y ago
        I was there watching. Maybe Silver doesn’t understand how to communicate verbally, only through numbers designed for consumption by statisticians. The impression he gave in his comments, if not these exact words — Hillary in a landslide. Communication is a skill. Like the skill of a great sportscaster like Scully. Election reporting is, I’m sure, a similar unique skill set. Silver doesn’t have it, and I never want to listen to him again.

by Nition 3y ago

khazhoux 3y ago

Why are you looking at the %vote, though? In that very link, 538 has Hillary as 71% chance of winning. That is not close at all. I'm not arguing that something can ever be treated as a certainty, just that there's "no point" in following the polls since even a lopsided 71-28% prediction will go either way, and is indistinguishable from a 50-50 prediction on election night.

Nition 3y ago
What I mean is, the reason it's 71%-28% is that the actual % difference between predicted votes is very small. Once the estimated votes are say 10% apart, then you start getting a prediction that's more like 99%-1%, and the polls are much more likely to be telling you accurately who will actually win. In this case the prediction is pretty close to just a 50/50 coin flip, but that's quite unusual and reflective of the chance legitimately being close to 50/50. Therefore I wouldn't say it invalidates polls in general.
- beerpls 3y ago
  The whole point of a poll/stat prediction from the intuitive human standpoint is to get a good gauge on how likely outcomes are Silver, as well as all other mainstream polls/predictions in the race had Hillary winning by “the greatest margin in presidential history” You can try and whitewash it but we all remember that. We all remember how hopeless trump looked and how bulletproof hillary’s victory was To say Silver and all the other polls weren’t framing this as a landslide victory for hillary and a humiliating defeat for trump is just living in a false alternate reality in one’s mind. And judging by these responses that seems to be the more common state of mind for folks here to be in…
  - Nition 3y ago
    > Silver, as well as all other mainstream polls/predictions in the race had Hillary winning by “the greatest margin in presidential history.” You can try and whitewash it but we all remember that We don't need to remember though; we have the Internet Archive. We can look back at Silver's prediction page on the morning of the election[1], where it's predicting Hillary winning by only 3.5% of the vote. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20161108000845/http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ https://web.archive.org/web/20161108000845/http://projects.f...
    - beerpls 3y ago
      Yea, cherry picking is an excellent way to claim you’re right when reality doesn’t agree Go back and get an aggregate sense of everything he said. Look at 90%+ if the articles he wrote saying what I said compared to the one or two that y’all want to keep referring to For people discussing stats there’s a very strong inability to grok averages here…
      - Nition 3y ago
        I only linked that one because it's the main page where they posted their data. Its easy to check what he was saying too, we can just look at the archive from the same day of Nate Silver's posts : https://web.archive.org/web/20161108082405/https://fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/nate-silver https://web.archive.org/web/20161108082405/https://fivethirt... They're all about how it's a very close, uncertain race. You might point out that the top one is "Clinton Gains...", but even that one is just talking about "Clinton’s projected margin of victory in the popular vote has increased to 3.5 percent from 2.9 percent." I did try looking up your quote - "greatest margin in presidential history" - but the only Google result was your comment.
        re5i5tor 3y ago
        I was there watching. Maybe Silver doesn’t understand how to communicate verbally, only through numbers designed for consumption by statisticians. The impression he gave in his comments, if not these exact words — Hillary in a landslide. Communication is a skill. Like the skill of a great sportscaster like Scully. Election reporting is, I’m sure, a similar unique skill set. Silver doesn’t have it, and I never want to listen to him again.