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Well, I don’t know. Calling it a tossup is very wrong, but Romney’s odds don’t seem that bad to me. Nate Silver, for example, gives Romney a twenty percent cha
by arrrg 14y ago
Well, I don’t know. Calling it a tossup is very wrong, but Romney’s odds don’t seem that bad to me.
Nate Silver, for example, gives Romney a twenty percent chance. That’s not bad. I would gladly pay $1,000 for a twenty percent chance to win a million.
- btmorex 14y agoNate Silver gives Romney a ~20% chance of winning because there's a chance that the polls are systematically wrong. Each polling firm comes up with their own likely voter model and participation model. If they're are correct in the aggregate, there's essentially a 0% chance of Romney winning, but they might not be correct (and there were times in the past where they were systematically wrong). Basically, don't confuse uncertainty about whether the polls are accurate with uncertainty about the election if they are accurate because if they're accurate then Obama will win.
- arrrg 14y agoWell, obviously. But twenty percent are twenty percent. It doesn’t really matter where they come from. The net result is that Romney (according to Nate Silver) has a pretty good chance of winning.
- Evbn 14y agoYou know what is a huge factor in turnout? Likelihood of victory being close to 50%.