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I don't know what you mean by this. Are you referring to "Obama wins" as a potential coin flip? Because Silver's prediction was more nuanced than that. Are yo

I don't know what you mean by this. Are you referring to "Obama wins" as a potential coin flip? Because Silver's prediction was more nuanced than that. Are you talking about his predictions for the 50 states, which represented a potential (albeit naive) 2^50 combinations? Because he called some very close states, including a Florida election that he forecasted as an Obama victory by hundredths of a percent. Or are you just trolling?

hayksaakian 14y ago
The only highly uncertain states were Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. (Based on the time before results started coming in). So really there were 9 safe predictions, having picked one of them does not make the OP's story spectacular.
- seanalltogether 14y ago
  And yet no serious publications were willing to admit this info. I think the biggest value of fivethirtyeight has been to cut through all the partisan and non-committal predictions coming from the media and rest of the web.
- achompas 14y ago
  2^3 == 8 So there's the pundit response or the data response. The pundit response: "this election is a toss-up!" In which case we'll just reject your assertion outright. No one really buys the pundit response, though! Okay, the data response to your assertion: pollster.com kind of rejects this if you scroll right on the top row of charts.[0] Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina all polled closely, bumping us to 2^8 = 256 possible outcomes. This ignores the absurd accuracy of Silver's predictions. My favorite is his prediction for Florida: https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/265835769934012416 https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/26583576993401241... Florida sat at 49.8% to 49.4% for the majority of the night until it recently opened up to a chasm-sized 49.9/49.2 for Obama. Silver had it at 49.79/49.72 for Obama. So...yeah. If you look at his predictions it's not just monkeys on a typewriter. His results are incredibly accurate from a discrete or a continuous point of view. [0] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidential-race http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidenti...
- btilly 14y ago
  You clearly were not following the polls very closely. An average of the polls going into the election put 2 of the three that you name as "highly uncertain" at likely polling within 3%. According to the average of polling data at http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Nov06.html http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Nov06.html all of Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Carolina should also be on your list of "highly uncertain states". So now you have 128 potentially reasonable combinations by your criteria. (Admittedly the one that happened is in the top 4 outcomes. But a naive analysis would not have seen that Florida would be a photo finish while North Carolina would not. However Nate's analysis clearly did see that.)
cjensen 14y ago
In this particular election, so far there have been zero surprises. In other words, an idiot who simply read the polls could have made the correct prediction simply by being unclever. This election is not a validation of Silver's models because this particular election did not need a model.

hayksaakian 14y ago

The only highly uncertain states were Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. (Based on the time before results started coming in). So really there were 9 safe predictions, having picked one of them does not make the OP's story spectacular.

seanalltogether 14y ago
And yet no serious publications were willing to admit this info. I think the biggest value of fivethirtyeight has been to cut through all the partisan and non-committal predictions coming from the media and rest of the web.
achompas 14y ago
2^3 == 8 So there's the pundit response or the data response. The pundit response: "this election is a toss-up!" In which case we'll just reject your assertion outright. No one really buys the pundit response, though! Okay, the data response to your assertion: pollster.com kind of rejects this if you scroll right on the top row of charts.[0] Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina all polled closely, bumping us to 2^8 = 256 possible outcomes. This ignores the absurd accuracy of Silver's predictions. My favorite is his prediction for Florida: https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/265835769934012416 https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight/status/26583576993401241... Florida sat at 49.8% to 49.4% for the majority of the night until it recently opened up to a chasm-sized 49.9/49.2 for Obama. Silver had it at 49.79/49.72 for Obama. So...yeah. If you look at his predictions it's not just monkeys on a typewriter. His results are incredibly accurate from a discrete or a continuous point of view. [0] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidential-race http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster#2012-presidenti...
btilly 14y ago
You clearly were not following the polls very closely. An average of the polls going into the election put 2 of the three that you name as "highly uncertain" at likely polling within 3%. According to the average of polling data at http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Nov06.html http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Nov06.html all of Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Carolina should also be on your list of "highly uncertain states". So now you have 128 potentially reasonable combinations by your criteria. (Admittedly the one that happened is in the top 4 outcomes. But a naive analysis would not have seen that Florida would be a photo finish while North Carolina would not. However Nate's analysis clearly did see that.)

cjensen 14y ago

In this particular election, so far there have been zero surprises. In other words, an idiot who simply read the polls could have made the correct prediction simply by being unclever. This election is not a validation of Silver's models because this particular election did not need a model.