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Trump down to a 14% chance on Betfair as the post election battles continue – politicalbetting.com

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  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Barnesian said:

    I've just done a county by county model for Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
    Simply uprating each county by the % votes still be counted for that county gives an overall result of:
    Georgia Trump by 13,700
    Arizona Biden by 76,500
    Nevada Biden by 11,400

    However that doesn't take into account the order in which votes are being counted.
    I believe Arizona and Nevada count mail-ins first and Georgia count them last. (Correct me if I'm wrong).
    On that basis, apportioning the outstanding votes pro-rata to their type (mail-in or not) I get:
    Georgia Trump by 10,900
    Arizona Trump by 70,000
    Nevada Biden by 7.600

    So overall I'm estimating that the chances of a Biden victory are:
    Georgia <10%
    Arizona 50%
    Nevada >90%

    I haven't modelled Pennsylvania. Betfair suggests Biden has a 75% chance.

    Uisng those probabilities on my model of all 16 possible outcomes for those four states, I get a 87% chance that Biden will get 270+. This equates to a Biden price of 1.14.

    If anyone wants to propose a different set of probabilities for the four states, I'm happy to run them through my model to estimate the overall probability of a Biden win.

    Hi @Barnesian thanks for that. The one point I would make is on NV. The Rs are suggesting that, in Clark, a lot of people signed up on the day to them, which is why they are so confident of a R win so I would put NV in the same camp as AZ
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137
    IanB2 said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Hy doesn't do analysis; he ramps the conservative. That the conservative came closer than anticipated this time says nothing about his predictions.

    Here's a prediction of my own. Between now and the next election HY will present us with every fragment of evidence and a whole variety of scenarios, ranging from reasonably credible to utterly ludicrous, as to how the Tories are going to win the next GE. During the next GE campaign he'll be doing this, daily. All of this will be independent of the outcome of said election, the accuracy of his predictions essentially being random, before the event.
    I don't always ramp the conservative, for instance last year I said Trudeau would be re elected even when a few on here said the Canadian Conservatives had a chance.

    All I will predict for GE2024 is it will be a lot harder to win than GE19 was, who will win remains to be seen, obviously I hope as a Tory it will be my party
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,999
    edited November 2020
    Nigelb said:

    Meanwhile the BBC still haven't updated Biden's ECV from 243 to 253. They haven't put Wisconsin in.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/us2020/results

    Their election lag compared to the US networks is pitiful. They still play the benevolent Aunty, sadly.

    I'm a left-leaner but the BBC needs to be cut off from its licence tax as soon as possible. They need to find their commercial footing (iplayer global subscription was an appalling missed opportunity).

    Again, not a natural BBC basher, but the coverage of the election has been unwatchable. Talk about dumbing down. And the election coverage on R2 bulletins this morning focused almost exclusively on Trump's proposed litigation. Absolute junk!
    I've been trying to work out why it is that I find BBC politics coverage and its style increasingly unpalatable (apart from me being an evil Cybernat of course). There's their constant amplifying of unpleasant reactionaries with little or no democratic mandate in aid of 'balance' of course, but I think it's more their rigidity, a tendency to decide what the story is and then look for evidence to support it. The foreign political coverage is the worst for this.
    That's a convincing critique (though some of their overseas correspondents are very good indeed).
    Sopel seems just to uncritically regurgitate whatever narrative he's been last fed.
    Definitely agree re. overseas correspondents, From Our Own Correspondent is a still must listen for me.That format appears to give reporters free range to choose whatever areas on which they want to expand.

    I wonder if the problem is an editorial culture that decides what the story is and then expects the whole reporting structure to fall into line? The reporters that are most amenable to this will of course be looked upon most favourably (by the Beeb).
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,594

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    Trafalgar were closer to the results in many states than the other pollsters.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    edited November 2020

    nichomar said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Charles said:

    Looking at the shocking scenes in Arizona and elsewhere, as mobs of Trump supporters seek to stop vote counts and intimidate election workers, I am reminded once more of how many Tories inside and outside the government are desperate for him to win.

    It’s very dull watching you flex your moral superiority all the time
    Says the man who called women pundits on TV “screeching harpies”.

    To be fair to Charles he has been very supportive of Dido Harding and other women in public life who are personal friends of his.
    Thats why he supports them it’s actually quite sickening to read his praise for them.
    I think the criticism of Dido Harding has been reasonable based on a relatively poor career track record, the failure of TT and T to deliver a 'world beating' service, and the failure to consider adopting the local based model. I'm not so sure that the criticism of Kate Bingham is fair - she has a long career in exactly the field that is required, and as far as I know she has been successful. The criticism seems based on who she is married to.
    So was the appointment. Probably. Hence the criticism.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    Yes it is. The actual outcome looks like being a fairly comfortable Biden win. No glory either for the predictors of a landslide (like yours truly) or for predictors of a Trump win or a knife edge scenario. But no egg on face either. And kudos to HYUFD and one or two others for being correct on one very important specific - the polls were underestimating the Trump vote.
    I think it will be one of the following PBers who gets closest in the end:

    Andy
    Mal
    JackW
    OnlyLivingBoy

    The current favourite is OLB I think – he has a real chance to get the EC vote spot on – albeit with a slightly incorrect mix of states.

    But, Andy or Mal are also in with a good shout.
    If we're doing self masturbation, I will point out that I predicted that Georgia would likely go Blue even if Florida would stay red. That's likely to be the case now! B)

    However this is not really a competition, and most people made multiple predictions over many weeks so this is entirely pointless really.
  • MrEd said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Biden has not won a landslide.

    I am not surprised you won't admit you got it wrong, as usual hypocrisy on this site knows no bounds.
    Thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your kind words earlier. Much appreciated. I see the revisionism is starting in earnest. For that reason alone, I will laugh my ass off if Trump actually does pull this off and wins or, as @HYUFD, predicted, it is a tie (especially as the last would also make me a lot of money, thanks @HYUFD for the tip).
    You're welcome, I know we don't see eye to eye ideologically but you most certainly don't deserve the abuse you have received from some here.

    We all know full well if this was a UK election those who got it wrong would have it brought up continuously, those same people can give but they cannot take it.

    Anyway, you'll have the last laugh whatever happens. Well done to you.
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662
    One thing I would add in regards those who thought Trump would win, it did occur strongly to me that he might, but I didn't have the same level of conviction on why he might win that HYUFD and Mr Ed do so went with my slightly more instinciive feel that Biden would win narrorly (i put him on 281). So fair play to those two and one or two others who stuck with their reading of Trumps position. And the fact that so many hours on after voting ended it's still a slim chance they could be right means their reading of things was not that far out in many ways
  • kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    Yes it is. The actual outcome looks like being a fairly comfortable Biden win. No glory either for the predictors of a landslide (like yours truly) or for predictors of a Trump win or a knife edge scenario. But no egg on face either. And kudos to HYUFD and one or two others for being correct on one very important specific - the polls were underestimating the Trump vote.
    I think it will be one of the following PBers who gets closest in the end:

    Andy
    Mal
    JackW
    OnlyLivingBoy

    The current favourite is OLB I think – he has a real chance to get the EC vote spot on – albeit with a slightly incorrect mix of states.

    But, Andy or Mal are also in with a good shout.
    Oooo is it too late for me to join in? I’ve seen the latest polls and I am pretty confident of my prediction in about 46 states because of the large sample size.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,814
    edited November 2020
    If Barnesians predictions are correct, there must be a route for Trump to still get this over the line. It essentially comes down to how confident you are that PA will go Biden. So it might be worth a flutter?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,291
    Donald's Twitter has been very quiet for 10 hours. Has the GOP sent round the "men in grey suits" with the whisky and the revolver? ;)
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Mal557 said:

    Good morning all. Just got up to see nothings really changed from when I went to bed. As I thought GA is going to be razor close, which in itself is incredible. AZ still looking all but there for Biden, NV still some votes to be counted later but checked Ralstons feed and he seems confident so I am too. PA also looking like it will flip comfortably.
    The scenes in GA at the counting station with those Trump supporters bit worrying , lets hope its not a portent of all to come.
    As expected Nat Vote up and Biden over 70 million, which is impressive. I have to say that Trump only being 2.5% or so behind still is also impressive, he clearly has inspired his followers and many new ones to vote. Not sure what the projected final difference will be but clearly Trump is much closer in the NV than many expected including me.

    So the nationwide popular vote polls were also wrong this time? They were predicting a huge lead for Biden in the PV.
    Don't forget the full extent of Hillary's PV win took a few weeks to shake down.
    I always forget about how inept CA is at counting, sorry.
    Well why would the state spend millions in fast voting when the result is never in doubt there?
    Because when it is it is going to be a shitshow.
    Why? If and when it ever looks close, invest a few years before. Otherwise, it's a complete waste of money for a state that is very cash-strapped.
  • The most astonishing thing is people still supporting No Deal.

    Even the Government is trying to avoid No Deal, hence why they rejoined the negotiations five seconds after they "left"

    Who supports No Deal.

    No Deal is better than a bad deal but if the EU are prepared to compromise and give us what we want why would we reject that? Negotiations resumed five days later after the EU backed down.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    Trafalgar were closer to the results in many states than the other pollsters.
    Lol. Not if you're using the @HYUFD school of thought, that pollsters should be judged on who they *call* to win a state, not the percentages.

    So let's see:

    Georgia - probably wrong
    Trump 50%
    Biden 43%

    Pennsylvania - probably wrong
    Trump 48%
    Biden 46%

    Michigan - wrong
    Trump 48%
    Biden 46%

    Arizona - probably wrong
    Trump 49%
    Biden 46%
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    Pulpstar said:
    Two people actually counting, one doing some checking, a few wandering aimlessly around, in a large mostly empty hall.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,427

    Hear hear, well done @HYUFD and I hope those of whom were rude to you will apologise.

    On the metric that HYUFD decided counted the so-called polls from Trafalgar have been found wanting. Why the praise?

    And it's always been the absolute nature of his statements, with no argument or doubt, that has been provoking.

    I much more value contributions from others, such as MrEd, who provide plausible arguments. Cargo cult punditry is always going to annoy me.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,604
    edited November 2020
    MrEd said:

    Barnesian said:

    I've just done a county by county model for Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
    Simply uprating each county by the % votes still be counted for that county gives an overall result of:
    Georgia Trump by 13,700
    Arizona Biden by 76,500
    Nevada Biden by 11,400

    However that doesn't take into account the order in which votes are being counted.
    I believe Arizona and Nevada count mail-ins first and Georgia count them last. (Correct me if I'm wrong).
    On that basis, apportioning the outstanding votes pro-rata to their type (mail-in or not) I get:
    Georgia Trump by 10,900
    Arizona Trump by 70,000
    Nevada Biden by 7.600

    So overall I'm estimating that the chances of a Biden victory are:
    Georgia <10%
    Arizona 50%
    Nevada >90%

    I haven't modelled Pennsylvania. Betfair suggests Biden has a 75% chance.

    Uisng those probabilities on my model of all 16 possible outcomes for those four states, I get a 87% chance that Biden will get 270+. This equates to a Biden price of 1.14.

    If anyone wants to propose a different set of probabilities for the four states, I'm happy to run them through my model to estimate the overall probability of a Biden win.

    Hi @Barnesian thanks for that. The one point I would make is on NV. The Rs are suggesting that, in Clark, a lot of people signed up on the day to them, which is why they are so confident of a R win so I would put NV in the same camp as AZ
    OK. Reducing Biden's chance in Nevada from 90% to 50% in line with Arizona, gives Biden a 82% chance overall (1.26).
    Nevada only has 6 ECs of course but they can be important in some scenarios.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137
    edited November 2020

    HYUFD said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    No, it's not. They were much closer than most of us in the teeth of of a tidal wave of pro-Biden over-optimism, some of it from myself.

    Hat-tip where hat-tips are due.
    Thankyou Peter for your comments, I think it is fair to say I did not get it spot on if it is a solid Biden win rather than neck and neck as I was predicting but certainly did better than those who were predicting a Biden landslide, as did Mr Ed although he was the most heavily predicting a Trump win on here so was not spot on either
    Laughable. You were completely and utterly wrong. You were consistent in your belief that Trump would have no problem holding states in the Mid-West, relying heavily on Trafalgar. That turned out to be misplaced, exactly as people said it likely would be.
    Trafalgar had Biden winning Wisconsin, Biden has won Wisconsin, I said in my final predictions Biden would win Wisconsin and indeed I also said in my final 269 269 prediction he would win Michigan so went against Trafalgar on that.

    Trump is still ahead in the count in Pennsylvania at this stage, so not certain Trafalgar was wrong in their final poll with Trump ahead in PA yet and they did produce polls with Biden ahead there and in Michigan earlier in the campaign. Trafalgar also correctly had Trump ahead in Ohio and Iowa and Trump has won both.

    Trafalgar were also far better in the South than most pollsters, having Trump ahead in Texas, North Carolina and Florida consistently when other pollsters had Biden ahead, especially in the latter, Trump has certainly won Florida and Texas and North Carolina likely too, Georgia we will wait and see.

    Trafalgar were wrong in Nevada and Arizona where Biden is ahead in both and they had Trump ahead in both in their final polls but I always said they were less reliable in the West in 2016 and likely would be again and so it proved
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    Yes, I was trying to work out last night which swing states they called correctly.

    I'm not sure they called any correctly did they? Maybe Arizona if Trump wins there.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    MrEd said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Biden has not won a landslide.

    I am not surprised you won't admit you got it wrong, as usual hypocrisy on this site knows no bounds.
    Thanks @CorrectHorseBattery for your kind words earlier. Much appreciated. I see the revisionism is starting in earnest. For that reason alone, I will laugh my ass off if Trump actually does pull this off and wins or, as @HYUFD, predicted, it is a tie (especially as the last would also make me a lot of money, thanks @HYUFD for the tip).
    You're welcome, I know we don't see eye to eye ideologically but you most certainly don't deserve the abuse you have received from some here.

    We all know full well if this was a UK election those who got it wrong would have it brought up continuously, those same people can give but they cannot take it.

    Anyway, you'll have the last laugh whatever happens. Well done to you.
    Thank you @CorrectHorseBattery and to you too. It is a pleasure to be on the same forum as people like you.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    No, it's not. They were much closer than most of us in the teeth of of a tidal wave of pro-Biden over-optimism, some of it from myself.

    Hat-tip where hat-tips are due.
    Thankyou Peter for your comments, I think it is fair to say I did not get it spot on if it is a solid Biden win rather than neck and neck as I was predicting but certainly did better than those who were predicting a Biden landslide, as did Mr Ed although he was the most heavily predicting a Trump win on here so was not spot on either
    Laughable. You were completely and utterly wrong. You were consistent in your belief that Trump would have no problem holding states in the Mid-West, relying heavily on Trafalgar. That turned out to be misplaced, exactly as people said it likely would be.
    Trafalgar had Biden winning Wisconsin, Biden has won Wisconsin, Trafalgar also did produce polls showing Biden ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania even if their final polls there had Trump ahead and Trump is still ahead in the count in Pennsylvania at this stage. Trafalgar also correctly had Trump ahead in Ohio and Iowa and Trump has won both.

    Trafalgar were also far better in the South than most pollsters, having Trump ahead in Texas, North Carolina and Florida consistently when other pollsters had Biden ahead, especially in the latter, Trump has certainly won Florida and Texas and North Carolina likely too, Georgia we will wait and see.

    Trafalgar were wrong in Nevada and Arizona where Biden is ahead in both and they had Trump ahead in both in their final polls but I always said they were less reliable in the West in 2016 and likely would be again and so it proved
    Laughable arrogance as usual. Just completely deluded.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    Hear hear, well done @HYUFD and I hope those of whom were rude to you will apologise.

    On the metric that HYUFD decided counted the so-called polls from Trafalgar have been found wanting. Why the praise?

    And it's always been the absolute nature of his statements, with no argument or doubt, that has been provoking.

    I much more value contributions from others, such as MrEd, who provide plausible arguments. Cargo cult punditry is always going to annoy me.
    This.

    Predictions of desired outcomes, without any rationale, argumentation or explanation, supported by palpably weak evidence, are of limited value.
  • The only pollster who comes out of this with any credit is that lady in Iowa who got the state result very close IMHO. The other polls were both fairly off, one way or the other. They got some contests a bit closer than others but none can claim any credit for being close everywhere.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935
    Alistair said:

    I cannot believe we are going "The people who predicted a Trump win did best". What is happening? Have I teleported back to 3am on Wednesday morning?

    If you have, what are you doing on here and why aren't you at the bookies?
  • Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    Yes it is. The actual outcome looks like being a fairly comfortable Biden win. No glory either for the predictors of a landslide (like yours truly) or for predictors of a Trump win or a knife edge scenario. But no egg on face either. And kudos to HYUFD and one or two others for being correct on one very important specific - the polls were underestimating the Trump vote.
    I think it will be one of the following PBers who gets closest in the end:

    Andy
    Mal
    JackW
    OnlyLivingBoy

    The current favourite is OLB I think – he has a real chance to get the EC vote spot on – albeit with a slightly incorrect mix of states.

    But, Andy or Mal are also in with a good shout.
    If we're doing self masturbation, I will point out that I predicted that Georgia would likely go Blue even if Florida would stay red. That's likely to be the case now! B)

    However this is not really a competition, and most people made multiple predictions over many weeks so this is entirely pointless really.
    If GA does go Blue and Biden wins PA , Im well out..Mine was based on PA but no GA but I would love to see GA flip , as even if Trump will dispute it (newsflash he will) it will be more impressive than him flipping AZ too. So I'm rooting for your prediction Gallowgate (and i remember you making it)
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468

    The only pollster who comes out of this with any credit is that lady in Iowa who got the state result very close IMHO. The other polls were both fairly off, one way or the other. They got some contests a bit closer than others but none can claim any credit for being close everywhere.

    I'd agree with this.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,366
    IanB2 said:

    Pulpstar said:
    Two people actually counting, one doing some checking, a few wandering aimlessly around, in a large mostly empty hall.
    So they hired a UK road works crew to do the counting? On the upside, they would have come with their own hi-viz....

  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited November 2020

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Biden has not won a landslide.

    I am not surprised you won't admit you got it wrong, as usual hypocrisy on this site knows no bounds.
    Except I never said that Biden would win a landslide! I said that Biden would win. No more, no less than that he would win and he has won.

    I said that a landslide was more likely than a Trump victory but given I was rating a Trump victory as 3% that doesn't mean that I was predicting there would be a landslide. That's saying there is more than a 3% chance of a landslide.
    This you?

    Has this prediction site been covered? https://leantossup.ca/us-presidency/

    I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.

    Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%

    Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9

    Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3087095#Comment_3087095
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    Yes it is. The actual outcome looks like being a fairly comfortable Biden win. No glory either for the predictors of a landslide (like yours truly) or for predictors of a Trump win or a knife edge scenario. But no egg on face either. And kudos to HYUFD and one or two others for being correct on one very important specific - the polls were underestimating the Trump vote.
    I think it will be one of the following PBers who gets closest in the end:

    Andy
    Mal
    JackW
    OnlyLivingBoy

    The current favourite is OLB I think – he has a real chance to get the EC vote spot on – albeit with a slightly incorrect mix of states.

    But, Andy or Mal are also in with a good shout.
    Oooo is it too late for me to join in? I’ve seen the latest polls and I am pretty confident of my prediction in about 46 states because of the large sample size.
    :)
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    Mal557 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    Yes it is. The actual outcome looks like being a fairly comfortable Biden win. No glory either for the predictors of a landslide (like yours truly) or for predictors of a Trump win or a knife edge scenario. But no egg on face either. And kudos to HYUFD and one or two others for being correct on one very important specific - the polls were underestimating the Trump vote.
    I think it will be one of the following PBers who gets closest in the end:

    Andy
    Mal
    JackW
    OnlyLivingBoy

    The current favourite is OLB I think – he has a real chance to get the EC vote spot on – albeit with a slightly incorrect mix of states.

    But, Andy or Mal are also in with a good shout.
    If we're doing self masturbation, I will point out that I predicted that Georgia would likely go Blue even if Florida would stay red. That's likely to be the case now! B)

    However this is not really a competition, and most people made multiple predictions over many weeks so this is entirely pointless really.
    If GA does go Blue and Biden wins PA , Im well out..Mine was based on PA but no GA but I would love to see GA flip , as even if Trump will dispute it (newsflash he will) it will be more impressive than him flipping AZ too. So I'm rooting for your prediction Gallowgate (and i remember you making it)
    However I made that prediction by simply pulling it out my ass, so really it's just luck than anything else.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    Interesting to see if the Senate ends up 51-49 to the GOP. If it does then PR statehood may yet happen as Rubio is in favour of it, and with Biden president the Dems can win a 50-50 tie.

    Would be really exciting to see.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Trump is currently ahead by 164,000 votes.

    There are 763,000 mail ballots outstanding.

    Biden needs to win them 60/40 to win

    This is not in doubt.
  • HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    Foxy said:

    All of a sudden, Trump seems like a figure of ridicule. Safe to mock, as his power over us has collapsed.

    As goes Trump, so will Boris/Cummings/Brexit.

    They could be finished with the counting of the next US Presidential election before we have the chance to vote against Johnson/Cummings. Whatever they want to do on Brexit will long since have happened.
    We already have de jure Brexit, and we are about to get de facto Brexit. But “Brexit” as a force with any driving vitality is over.

    Re-integration (though not rejoining) will be the theme of the 2020s.
    For the Lib Dem membership. No-one else will want to hear about it.
    Rejoin is not LD policy, at least at present, though close alignment is.
    If Remainers had united around EFTA or 'Norway for Now' instead of futile nonsense we might have had a sane outcome. The opportunity is still there to unite gradualist Brexiteers and Remainers behind a 'join EFTA' option.

    Ignoring your “sore winner” snipe at Remainers, the “join EFTA (or something that looks very much like EFTA)” campaign effectively starts 1 January.

    However it will take place in think tanks and the bowels of Whitehall rather than being an overtly public campaign.

    By 2024 it will be considered simple common sense. I don’t expect “Brexit” to dominate those elections.
    A Biden win certainly makes it far more likely Boris will compromise with the EU to get a FTA with no US deal in the offing from Biden unless he does so
    No, we will compromise because No Deal is impossible for us to implement on New Year's Day. So we have to have a deal. And the deal on offer is the current deal in a pretty dress and a new name.
    Would not that be a disgraceful betrayal of everything Leavers voted for?

    Asking for a friend.
    Yes.

    Rochdale is projecting what he wants to happen.

    There will almost certainly be a deal because it is in both parties interests but it won't be what we have now.
    I am stating - not predicting - that there has to be a deal. Because we cannot exit on No Deal or indeed any significant variance of what we have now due to our inaction in creating the capability to separate ourselves off. We cannot enter into customs standards and tariffs checks on 1st January which means we will have to continue with the existing EU standards and tariffs unless we want to extend which we legally cannot do.

    What I wanted was for us to join EFTA and be a player. Instead we will be an addendum.
    We absolutely can go to No Deal if that is what we choose to do. If there's some disruption we can live with that and do whatever is required to cope.

    You are talking naively about tariff checks as if they need to happen, they don't. If we have no deal and the cost of doing tariff checks is more than the benefit of doing them then simply not doing them or streamlining them is an alternative option you are ignoring.
    "Some disruption". OK. We start doing customs checks from 1st January on Food & Drink with no deal. That's according to what this government have decreed.
    The customs agents to check the forms don't exist
    The customs infrastructure to house the customs agents doesn't exist
    The computer system to process the forms doesn't exist
    The integration of the computer system into haulier's systems doesn't exist

    Yet you claim that we absolutely can do all of this if we choose. How? Specifics please.

    At the very least we will go "No Deal" but not actually change anything. Because it will take a long time to do all of the above. Until we do, we keep with the EU. And yet according to the government we won't extend any of the existing arrangements beyond midnight on New Year's Eve.

    As we cannot go no deal at 00:01 on 1st January we therefore must have a deal. And we know what is on the table. A choice of names and a choice of pretty frocks and lipsticks for the pig.
    If on 1 January 2021 we have left with No Deal and technical reasons mean we can't do customs checks then the solution is simple: don't do the customs checks!

    You are making out like this is an impossibility. It is entirely possible.

    As for your claim nothing will have changed you are wrong. What will have changed is we are not doing checks because we don't want to, rather than not doing them because we are not allowed to.

    Just because we are allowed to do checks doesn't mean we will either want to do them or be obliged to do them. But it will be our choice going forwards, nobody else's.
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,449
    edited November 2020

    The only pollster who comes out of this with any credit is that lady in Iowa who got the state result very close IMHO. The other polls were both fairly off, one way or the other. They got some contests a bit closer than others but none can claim any credit for being close everywhere.

    The polling is a real mixed bag.

    Going by the 538 averages, some states were very accurately predicted: GA, MN, TX, AZ
    Some states where the polling was off but within a normal range: MI, NV, IA
    States where the polling was completely wrong: FL, OH, WI

    It's not clear yet which category PA falls into - I suspect it will end up being the first

    It's particularly odd how the polls seem to have got Wisconsin completely wrong but got the rest of the mid-West more or less accurate
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    Alistair said:

    Trump is currently ahead by 164,000 votes.

    There are 763,000 mail ballots outstanding.

    Biden needs to win them 60/40 to win

    This is not in doubt.

    But Trafalgar said Trump would win in Pennsylvania? I don't understand.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    CNN saying 30% of Philadelphia county votes are still uncounted and those counted split for Biden 80:20
  • Barnesian said:

    I've just done a county by county model for Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.
    Simply uprating each county by the % votes still be counted for that county gives an overall result of:
    Georgia Trump by 13,700
    Arizona Biden by 76,500
    Nevada Biden by 11,400

    However that doesn't take into account the order in which votes are being counted.
    I believe Arizona and Nevada count mail-ins first and Georgia count them last. (Correct me if I'm wrong).
    On that basis, apportioning the outstanding votes pro-rata to their type (mail-in or not) I get:
    Georgia Trump by 10,900
    Arizona Trump by 70,000
    Nevada Biden by 7.600

    So overall I'm estimating that the chances of a Biden victory are:
    Georgia <10%
    Arizona 50%
    Nevada >90%

    I haven't modelled Pennsylvania. Betfair suggests Biden has a 75% chance.

    Uisng those probabilities on my model of all 16 possible outcomes for those four states, I get a 87% chance that Biden will get 270+. This equates to a Biden price of 1.14.

    If anyone wants to propose a different set of probabilities for the four states, I'm happy to run them through my model to estimate the overall probability of a Biden win.

    AZ and NV do count all the mail in first as they are allowed to count before election day. However any that arrive after that are counted after on the day from what I have read. There seems to have been a large amount of mail/drop offs arrive on the day or after so that's why people are saying Trump needs to catch up by a certain amount as Biden will likely start to have favourable counts again.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    The only pollster who comes out of this with any credit is that lady in Iowa who got the state result very close IMHO. The other polls were both fairly off, one way or the other. They got some contests a bit closer than others but none can claim any credit for being close everywhere.

    Never go against Selzer with an election on the line.

    I would be a richer man if I had followed betting on American politics if I had only followed rule 1.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Andy_JS said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I know from experience that when making predictions the most difficult thing is not to allow what you want to happen to influence your prediction. It's very difficult not to be guided in that way.
    My problem is the opposite.

    Obama vs McCain – long on McCain
    Obama vs Romney – long on Romney
    Biden vs Trump – long on Trump.

    Thankfully the wins I made on Brexit and Trump vs Clinton mitigate my losses on the above.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 14,354
    edited November 2020

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    Yes, I was trying to work out last night which swing states they called correctly.

    I'm not sure they called any correctly did they? Maybe Arizona if Trump wins there.

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    Yes, I was trying to work out last night which swing states they called correctly.

    I'm not sure they called any correctly did they? Maybe Arizona if Trump wins there.
    My beef with Hyufd was that he treated Trafalgar as if it were a pollster and I maintained it wasn't. I stand by that.

    What I do concede now is that it's owner (and possibly sole employee) Richard Cahaly did have a point in his identification of Trump voters who were not being picked up by the pollsters. Now whether he quantified these by some expert but unrevealed method or by wetting his finger and sticking it in the air we will never know. It matters little however. The substantive point is that he was right in principle, and so was Hyufd.

    We should acknowledge that graciously.

    I see Hyufd is present. I am not ignoring him, it's just that I have much I need to say, and I really do have to go now.

    Laters folks. Play sweetly.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    No, it's not. They were much closer than most of us in the teeth of of a tidal wave of pro-Biden over-optimism, some of it from myself.

    Hat-tip where hat-tips are due.
    Thankyou Peter for your comments, I think it is fair to say I did not get it spot on if it is a solid Biden win rather than neck and neck as I was predicting but certainly did better than those who were predicting a Biden landslide, as did Mr Ed although he was the most heavily predicting a Trump win on here so was not spot on either
    Laughable. You were completely and utterly wrong. You were consistent in your belief that Trump would have no problem holding states in the Mid-West, relying heavily on Trafalgar. That turned out to be misplaced, exactly as people said it likely would be.
    Trafalgar had Biden winning Wisconsin, Biden has won Wisconsin, Trafalgar also did produce polls showing Biden ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania even if their final polls there had Trump ahead and Trump is still ahead in the count in Pennsylvania at this stage. Trafalgar also correctly had Trump ahead in Ohio and Iowa and Trump has won both.

    Trafalgar were also far better in the South than most pollsters, having Trump ahead in Texas, North Carolina and Florida consistently when other pollsters had Biden ahead, especially in the latter, Trump has certainly won Florida and Texas and North Carolina likely too, Georgia we will wait and see.

    Trafalgar were wrong in Nevada and Arizona where Biden is ahead in both and they had Trump ahead in both in their final polls but I always said they were less reliable in the West in 2016 and likely would be again and so it proved
    Laughable arrogance as usual. Just completely deluded.
    There was nothing 'laughable arrogance' about it, if anything the only 'laughable arrogance' around this morning is coming from you and Philip Thompson
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137
    edited November 2020

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    The only pollster who comes out of this with any credit is that lady in Iowa who got the state result very close IMHO. The other polls were both fairly off, one way or the other. They got some contests a bit closer than others but none can claim any credit for being close everywhere.

    How you poll Iowa, I just don't know. The huge amount of countryside is peopled by all manner of folks from regular conservatives through some of the bizarrest fruitcakes on the planet. Yet over half of the population lives in cities, and places like Iowa City and Des Moines are surprisingly liberal. People there apologise for the rest of the state and the crazies that give it such a bad rap.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,164
    IanB2 said:

    Meanwhile the BBC still haven't updated Biden's ECV from 243 to 253. They haven't put Wisconsin in.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/us2020/results

    Their election lag compared to the US networks is pitiful. They still play the benevolent Aunty, sadly.

    I'm a left-leaner but the BBC needs to be cut off from its licence tax as soon as possible. They need to find their commercial footing (iplayer global subscription was an appalling missed opportunity).

    Again, not a natural BBC basher, but the coverage of the election has been unwatchable. Talk about dumbing down. And the election coverage on R2 bulletins this morning focused almost exclusively on Trump's proposed litigation. Absolute junk!
    Jim Naughtie on Radio 4 has been quite good over the last few days ; reflective, slightly literary, adding perspective. He has a lifetime of experience. Overall, though, I agree with you.
    Watch CNN and Fox, and then be grateful we have the BBC.

    Something it is staggering that a fair few leading Conservatives dont seem to appreciate.
    As a Tory - I do agree but would say that the BBC has improved considerably in the last year - it did seem to be heading in the wrong direction like SKY at one time. CNN is actually worse than Fox these days - not something I ever expected to say.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,191
    The longer this goes on, and the more tricks Trump tries to pull, and the more incitement he indulges in, the stronger the case gets for scrapping the ridiculous electoral college system. If they, you know, just counted the votes and the person with the most votes won, we would have been sure of the result a long time ago. And much harder to claim that someone found several million votes down the back of the sofa to change the result, than the few thousand that might be needed in Pennsylvania.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    Andy_JS said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I know from experience that when making predictions the most difficult thing is not to allow what you want to happen to influence your prediction. It's very difficult not to be guided in that way.
    And it works both ways. Some people have a natural 'sunny side up' tendency to predict that something they want to happen will happen. And with others it's the opposite - an innate pessimism causes them to predict that something they fear will indeed come to pass.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    What the absolute hell.

    Dems have lengthened for winning the national election but shortened for winning Pennsylvania.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Ahhhh, the odds have equalised. Should have shifted more when I had the chance
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,002
    If Pennsylvania tips Biden over the line that would be immensely satisfying
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    Trafalgar were closer to the results in many states than the other pollsters.
    I'd add a few other points.
    1. Trump could still win, very unlikely yes but possible.
    2. Rasmussen , another of HYUFDs go to pollsters will end up being MUCH closer to the NV than pretty much everyone else though IBD had days they were pretty close too.
    3. I understand this is a betting site so its win or lose and on that basis, if Trump loses so do those posters here but my mention of them in a previous post was more how they set out the case for Trump to win against a wave of data saying otherwise and many of those points they made are valid, and for that I admire the position they took.
  • I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Biden has not won a landslide.

    I am not surprised you won't admit you got it wrong, as usual hypocrisy on this site knows no bounds.
    Except I never said that Biden would win a landslide! I said that Biden would win. No more, no less than that he would win and he has won.

    I said that a landslide was more likely than a Trump victory but given I was rating a Trump victory as 3% that doesn't mean that I was predicting there would be a landslide. That's saying there is more than a 3% chance of a landslide.
    This you?

    Has this prediction site been covered? https://leantossup.ca/us-presidency/

    I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.

    Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%

    Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9

    Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
    https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3087095#Comment_3087095

    Yes and I was right. Do you understand probabilities?

    If you roll two dice your average roll is a seven, rolling a 2 is possible but unlikely, rolling a five is entirely possible.

    To me the roll is five. Below average but good enough.
  • If Barnesians predictions are correct, there must be a route for Trump to still get this over the line. It essentially comes down to how confident you are that PA will go Biden. So it might be worth a flutter?

    It might be but since the odds have now drifted, maybe the value is back with Biden (out to 1.2 on Betfair) based on Barnesian's estimates. It is odd there is so much volatility this morning based on no new data.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137

    Didn't RCP turn out to be pretty accurate in the end?

    Regarding previous comments, I do think HYUFD is pretty astute on reading the mood and on that he is interesting to read comments from. I find him difficult to argue with at times and often frustrating but there's no doubt he's smart. And unlike some others, he has never been abusive to anyone that I can see and is always, always polite, never just to those he agrees with.

    I think he's one of the best contributors to this site, I really do.

    Thanks Horse
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    Pulpstar said:

    Biden is 2.8% behind in Pennsylvania with 89% in
    Trump is 2.6% behind in Arizona with 86% in.

    PA Timing of results:The remaining mail ballots are expected to favor Democrats. PA

    AZ Timing of results:Officials in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, said they would release another results update after 9 p.m. Eastern.

    Arizona's remaining results are unlikely to be as skewed as Pennsylvania given the greater propensity for mail in voting in Arizona by both sides ?

    From what I have been reading is it will still lean Biden so people are expecting a narrowing then a slight Biden gain again. "Experts" feel its going to be close but remain a Biden flip

    PA still quite strongly looking to be a Biden win but maybe not quite by the margin talked about yesterday.

    For the record, my forecast on PA was Biden winning by 97,480.

    I was (quite reasonably) mocked and (rather less reasonably) praised in equal measure on here for my rather silly over-precision.

    In any case, happy to stand by the forecast and see where I land!!
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    Trafalgar were closer to the results in many states than the other pollsters.
    Lol. Not if you're using the @HYUFD school of thought, that pollsters should be judged on who they *call* to win a state, not the percentages.

    So let's see:

    Georgia - probably wrong
    Trump 50%
    Biden 43%

    Pennsylvania - probably wrong
    Trump 48%
    Biden 46%

    Michigan - wrong
    Trump 48%
    Biden 46%

    Arizona - probably wrong
    Trump 49%
    Biden 46%
    It seems that HYUFD's "everything or nothing metric" was only applicable up to 2nd November. Since yesterday it is the difference between predicted size of win and actual size of win that we should be using as the metric.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    IanB2 said:

    Hear hear, well done @HYUFD and I hope those of whom were rude to you will apologise.

    On the metric that HYUFD decided counted the so-called polls from Trafalgar have been found wanting. Why the praise?

    And it's always been the absolute nature of his statements, with no argument or doubt, that has been provoking.

    I much more value contributions from others, such as MrEd, who provide plausible arguments. Cargo cult punditry is always going to annoy me.
    This.

    Predictions of desired outcomes, without any rationale, argumentation or explanation, supported by palpably weak evidence, are of limited value.
    And someone is necessarily always going to be "right" in that one pin is necessarily going to be closest to the donkey's actual tail. "Predictions" rather than assessments of probabilities have a place on PB, but only as fun competitions for PBers with, say, a radiohead live CD as the prize (and a a radiohead live double CD set as the second prize).
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Stocky said:

    kinabalu said:

    Roger said:

    Dems now favourite to win GA.

    Doesn't that push them over the line?
    Nope. Gets Biden to 269. Agonisingly close.
    I wouldn't get too agonized.

    In terms of ECVs this is comfortable for Biden. He's taking Pennsylvania and probably Georgia. Nevada too and the latest batch from Arizona looks okay for him to hold on there.
    That’s quite bullish - would be 306 in the Electoral College, not even close.
    No, not a massively close election really. A PV win by maybe 5m and comfortable in the EC. The super closeness is an illusion fostered by the sequence of the count and the split between mail and in person voting. It's actually an Obama 2012 type affair. But it was quite close. I was hoping for (and expecting) more of an Obama 2008. Ah well, never mind. Like you (I sense) my main feeling is utter relief that Donald Trump is out. I don't get to experience the visceral joy of seeing him crushed, but that doesn't matter so much. He's leaving office. The election was a Referendum on him and by 52/48 the American people said No. This time the 52% got it right. The good guys won this one.
    Sums up my own views, Kina.

    Be back later. Must congratulate Hyufd and MrEd personally.
    The most likely result is 306 - 232. Is that really that close?

    MrEd was predicting a Trump win and HYUFD vacillated between a very narrow Trump win and very narrow Biden win.

    If the end result is +74 I`ll row back my praise from election night of HYUFD just a touch I think.

    Is that fair?
    No, it's not. They were much closer than most of us in the teeth of of a tidal wave of pro-Biden over-optimism, some of it from myself.

    Hat-tip where hat-tips are due.
    Thankyou Peter for your comments, I think it is fair to say I did not get it spot on if it is a solid Biden win rather than neck and neck as I was predicting but certainly did better than those who were predicting a Biden landslide, as did Mr Ed although he was the most heavily predicting a Trump win on here so was not spot on either
    Laughable. You were completely and utterly wrong. You were consistent in your belief that Trump would have no problem holding states in the Mid-West, relying heavily on Trafalgar. That turned out to be misplaced, exactly as people said it likely would be.
    Trafalgar had Biden winning Wisconsin, Biden has won Wisconsin, Trafalgar also did produce polls showing Biden ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania even if their final polls there had Trump ahead and Trump is still ahead in the count in Pennsylvania at this stage. Trafalgar also correctly had Trump ahead in Ohio and Iowa and Trump has won both.

    Trafalgar were also far better in the South than most pollsters, having Trump ahead in Texas, North Carolina and Florida consistently when other pollsters had Biden ahead, especially in the latter, Trump has certainly won Florida and Texas and North Carolina likely too, Georgia we will wait and see.

    Trafalgar were wrong in Nevada and Arizona where Biden is ahead in both and they had Trump ahead in both in their final polls but I always said they were less reliable in the West in 2016 and likely would be again and so it proved
    Laughable arrogance as usual. Just completely deluded.
    There was nothing 'laughable arrogance' about it, if anything the only 'laughable arrogance' around this morning is coming from you and Philip Thompson
    Yes there was. You are always arrogant and lack any humility whatsoever.

    Me and Philip Thompson always argued that all evidence should be considered and appraised. We were right to question Trafalgar and you were wrong.

    All the evidence pointed to a Biden win, and it looks like Biden will win.

    The big miss was everyone not appreciating the significance of that Selzer poll in Iowa, and we should have known considering how respected she is.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,604

    If Barnesians predictions are correct, there must be a route for Trump to still get this over the line. It essentially comes down to how confident you are that PA will go Biden. So it might be worth a flutter?

    The most likely route is Trump gets Georgia (90%), Arizona (50%) amd Penn (25%) so an 11% chance overall.
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited November 2020
    This is utterly embarrassing for you Philip, it really is.

    Just be a man and admit you got it wrong, like I did after 2019. I really would have a lot more respect for people if they were just able to hold their hands up some times.

    The quote got messed up but it's clear what I am referring to, I hope.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    So when do the militias turn up in PA counting centres to destroy the "illegal" ballots?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Biden has not won a landslide.

    I am not surprised you won't admit you got it wrong, as usual hypocrisy on this site knows no bounds.
    Except I never said that Biden would win a landslide! I said that Biden would win. No more, no less than that he would win and he has won.

    I said that a landslide was more likely than a Trump victory but given I was rating a Trump victory as 3% that doesn't mean that I was predicting there would be a landslide. That's saying there is more than a 3% chance of a landslide.
    That is true – I remember reading several posts from you saying precisely that.

    You made a very, very good call I think.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    You STILL don't understand probabilities, so what's the point of even discussing this?

    Nate Silver doesn't *make a prediction*, his model does based on polls. If the polls are wrong, the prediction is wrong.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,002
    edited November 2020

    My beef with Hyufd was that he treated Trafalgar as if it were a pollster and I maintained it wasn't. I stand by that.

    What I do concede now is that it's owner (and possibly sole employee) Richard Cahaly did have a point in his identification of Trump voters who were not being picked up by the pollsters. Now whether he quantified these by some expert but unrevealed method or by wetting his finger and sticking it in the air we will never know. It matters little however. The substantive point is that he was right in principle, and so was Hyufd.

    We should acknowledge that graciously.

    I have an American colleague who happens to support Trump, and on Tuesday he was making the point that what he called "outlier polls" were much better for Trump than the "regular polls" and we should not ignore them.

    He was also right
  • PS I understand completely CorrectHorseBattery that their average projection of 385.1 wasn't intended to mean that the actual results would be exactly 385.1 and no variance from that. Do you understand that? Or did you think they were suggesting the actual results would be exactly 385.1 for Biden?

    Obviously 385.1 is actually impossible to occur, but that is the point of being an average and not an exact prediction.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    edited November 2020

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    In fairness to HYUFD his final forecast was in fact a 269-269 tie – now if he were trying to win a prediction game he wouldn't have done that because it was always a very long shot.

    I have pulled his leg but he wasn't widely off the mark on his numbers.

    Where he was certainly wrong was with his boostering of Trafalgar – they were absolutely useless, calling several key states wrongly.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    You STILL don't understand probabilities, so what's the point of even discussing this?

    Nate Silver doesn't *make a prediction*, his model does based on polls. If the polls are wrong, the prediction is wrong.
    Which I never disputed
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,885

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    Foxy said:

    All of a sudden, Trump seems like a figure of ridicule. Safe to mock, as his power over us has collapsed.

    As goes Trump, so will Boris/Cummings/Brexit.

    They could be finished with the counting of the next US Presidential election before we have the chance to vote against Johnson/Cummings. Whatever they want to do on Brexit will long since have happened.
    We already have de jure Brexit, and we are about to get de facto Brexit. But “Brexit” as a force with any driving vitality is over.

    Re-integration (though not rejoining) will be the theme of the 2020s.
    For the Lib Dem membership. No-one else will want to hear about it.
    Rejoin is not LD policy, at least at present, though close alignment is.
    If Remainers had united around EFTA or 'Norway for Now' instead of futile nonsense we might have had a sane outcome. The opportunity is still there to unite gradualist Brexiteers and Remainers behind a 'join EFTA' option.

    Ignoring your “sore winner” snipe at Remainers, the “join EFTA (or something that looks very much like EFTA)” campaign effectively starts 1 January.

    However it will take place in think tanks and the bowels of Whitehall rather than being an overtly public campaign.

    By 2024 it will be considered simple common sense. I don’t expect “Brexit” to dominate those elections.
    A Biden win certainly makes it far more likely Boris will compromise with the EU to get a FTA with no US deal in the offing from Biden unless he does so
    No, we will compromise because No Deal is impossible for us to implement on New Year's Day. So we have to have a deal. And the deal on offer is the current deal in a pretty dress and a new name.
    Would not that be a disgraceful betrayal of everything Leavers voted for?

    Asking for a friend.
    Yes.

    Rochdale is projecting what he wants to happen.

    There will almost certainly be a deal because it is in both parties interests but it won't be what we have now.
    I am stating - not predicting - that there has to be a deal. Because we cannot exit on No Deal or indeed any significant variance of what we have now due to our inaction in creating the capability to separate ourselves off. We cannot enter into customs standards and tariffs checks on 1st January which means we will have to continue with the existing EU standards and tariffs unless we want to extend which we legally cannot do.

    What I wanted was for us to join EFTA and be a player. Instead we will be an addendum.
    We absolutely can go to No Deal if that is what we choose to do. If there's some disruption we can live with that and do whatever is required to cope.

    You are talking naively about tariff checks as if they need to happen, they don't. If we have no deal and the cost of doing tariff checks is more than the benefit of doing them then simply not doing them or streamlining them is an alternative option you are ignoring.
    "Some disruption". OK. We start doing customs checks from 1st January on Food & Drink with no deal. That's according to what this government have decreed.
    The customs agents to check the forms don't exist
    The customs infrastructure to house the customs agents doesn't exist
    The computer system to process the forms doesn't exist
    The integration of the computer system into haulier's systems doesn't exist

    Yet you claim that we absolutely can do all of this if we choose. How? Specifics please.

    At the very least we will go "No Deal" but not actually change anything. Because it will take a long time to do all of the above. Until we do, we keep with the EU. And yet according to the government we won't extend any of the existing arrangements beyond midnight on New Year's Eve.

    As we cannot go no deal at 00:01 on 1st January we therefore must have a deal. And we know what is on the table. A choice of names and a choice of pretty frocks and lipsticks for the pig.
    If on 1 January 2021 we have left with No Deal and technical reasons mean we can't do customs checks then the solution is simple: don't do the customs checks!

    You are making out like this is an impossibility. It is entirely possible.

    As for your claim nothing will have changed you are wrong. What will have changed is we are not doing checks because we don't want to, rather than not doing them because we are not allowed to.

    Just because we are allowed to do checks doesn't mean we will either want to do them or be obliged to do them. But it will be our choice going forwards, nobody else's.
    "technical reasons" is as fine an example of euphemism, Brexiter or otherwise, as I have ever seen.
  • I'm getting back to work but I'm incredibly disappointed that some are still abusing HYUFD and MrEd, just lay off them please, it's awful to watch this site descend into this kind of behaviour.

    We could all just be a bit more gracious, would be so much better.
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662

    Pulpstar said:

    Biden is 2.8% behind in Pennsylvania with 89% in
    Trump is 2.6% behind in Arizona with 86% in.

    PA Timing of results:The remaining mail ballots are expected to favor Democrats. PA

    AZ Timing of results:Officials in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, said they would release another results update after 9 p.m. Eastern.

    Arizona's remaining results are unlikely to be as skewed as Pennsylvania given the greater propensity for mail in voting in Arizona by both sides ?

    From what I have been reading is it will still lean Biden so people are expecting a narrowing then a slight Biden gain again. "Experts" feel its going to be close but remain a Biden flip

    PA still quite strongly looking to be a Biden win but maybe not quite by the margin talked about yesterday.

    For the record, my forecast on PA was Biden winning by 97,480.

    I was (quite reasonably) mocked and (rather less reasonably) praised in equal measure on here for my rather silly over-precision.

    In any case, happy to stand by the forecast and see where I land!!
    Around 100,000 in PA looks about right to me perhaps slightly less, I think the projections of 200,00 etc are way too high
  • I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    I'm standing by my predictions and think I was right.

    My prediction was that Biden was so far in the lead and turnout was up so high that his odds of winning was 3+ on a pair of dice. That a Biden landslide was more likely than a Trump victory of any margin.

    I stand by that. It looks like when all counting is done that it will be a fairly comfortable victory for Biden.

    In dice terms it looks like the two dice landed on a 1 and a 4 so below mean expectations for Biden and the 1 gave some false hope to Trump but it was frankly more than enough.
    You most certainly attacked HYUFD for his predictions. I recall you mentioning Biden would walk away with it which to be implied a landslide.
    Biden has walked away with it. After all the counting is done, Biden is President Elect.

    And I criticised HYUFD for treating Trafalgar as the gospel truth because they fluked two states right last time while getting other states wrong last time (but that was getting ignored). The results show that to be correct, Trafalgar are all over the place they are not seers.
    Biden has not won a landslide.

    I am not surprised you won't admit you got it wrong, as usual hypocrisy on this site knows no bounds.
    Except I never said that Biden would win a landslide! I said that Biden would win. No more, no less than that he would win and he has won.

    I said that a landslide was more likely than a Trump victory but given I was rating a Trump victory as 3% that doesn't mean that I was predicting there would be a landslide. That's saying there is more than a 3% chance of a landslide.
    That is true – I remember reading several posts from you saying precisely that.

    You made a very, very good call I think.
    Thank you.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 435
    edited November 2020
    kinabalu said:



    Yes it is. The actual outcome looks like being a fairly comfortable Biden win. No glory either for the predictors of a landslide (like yours truly) or for predictors of a Trump win or a knife edge scenario. But no egg on face either. And kudos to HYUFD and one or two others for being correct on one very important specific - the polls were underestimating the Trump vote.

    There was one poster - sorry I forget the name - who predicted a 269-269 tie that not so long ago looked like being spot on (not just the final number, but every individual state race) except for NE2. Now Biden looks like getting PA and possibly GA, it doesn't look quite as good, but I'd say whoever it was emerges with credit.

    It seems there's lots of antagonism because of the assumption that people predict the outcome they want. True of some, of course, but others are simply saying what they think or even have a cognitive bias in the opposite direction. Or just being cautious. I thought the narrative of a landslide was overplayed here not because I foresaw any particular polling error, but just because I thought the uncertainty was greater than many were admitting.

    Unfortunately, many see uncertainty as weakness. See e.g. the ridiculing of SAGE's large uncertainty in the number of lives that would have been saved by a circuitbreaker. Therefore they are dishonest about it, even with themselves.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    IanB2 said:

    CNN saying 30% of Philadelphia county votes are still uncounted and those counted split for Biden 80:20

    80/20 will be and understatement. Alleghenny was 85%/12% Biden/Trump for mail in

    Alleghenny vote for Clinton by a far lower margin than Philly did.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,468
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    You STILL don't understand probabilities, so what's the point of even discussing this?

    Nate Silver doesn't *make a prediction*, his model does based on polls. If the polls are wrong, the prediction is wrong.
    Which I never disputed
    Yes you did. You arrogantly made out that he should be ignored and you know more about polls and stats than he does and you clearly do not. You even admitted today that you know nothing about statistics.

    Your theory that you banged on about, for months, that Trafalgar are brilliant when Trump is on the ballot, was complete and utter bollocks.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,315

    Cyclefree said:

    Charles said:

    Looking at the shocking scenes in Arizona and elsewhere, as mobs of Trump supporters seek to stop vote counts and intimidate election workers, I am reminded once more of how many Tories inside and outside the government are desperate for him to win.

    It’s very dull watching you flex your moral superiority all the time
    Says the man who called women pundits on TV “screeching harpies”.

    To be fair to Charles he has been very supportive of Dido Harding and other women in public life who are personal friends of his.
    “Who you know” eh......?

  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    Trafalgar were closer to the results in many states than the other pollsters.
    Not by HYUFD's own chosen metric – which was picking the winner not the shares.
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662
    Barnesian said:

    If Barnesians predictions are correct, there must be a route for Trump to still get this over the line. It essentially comes down to how confident you are that PA will go Biden. So it might be worth a flutter?

    The most likely route is Trump gets Georgia (90%), Arizona (50%) amd Penn (25%) so an 11% chance overall.
    Is Arizona really as tight as 50/50? I know Trumps closing and has a chance but that much? If Trump wins I suspect he will not be talking to Murdoch for a while for letting the Fox calling it for Biden stand!
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,222
    I`ve not been following the Senate race at all. Can someone please summarise where we are? GOP still hold the Senate yes?
  • HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    Foxy said:

    All of a sudden, Trump seems like a figure of ridicule. Safe to mock, as his power over us has collapsed.

    As goes Trump, so will Boris/Cummings/Brexit.

    They could be finished with the counting of the next US Presidential election before we have the chance to vote against Johnson/Cummings. Whatever they want to do on Brexit will long since have happened.
    We already have de jure Brexit, and we are about to get de facto Brexit. But “Brexit” as a force with any driving vitality is over.

    Re-integration (though not rejoining) will be the theme of the 2020s.
    For the Lib Dem membership. No-one else will want to hear about it.
    Rejoin is not LD policy, at least at present, though close alignment is.
    If Remainers had united around EFTA or 'Norway for Now' instead of futile nonsense we might have had a sane outcome. The opportunity is still there to unite gradualist Brexiteers and Remainers behind a 'join EFTA' option.

    Ignoring your “sore winner” snipe at Remainers, the “join EFTA (or something that looks very much like EFTA)” campaign effectively starts 1 January.

    However it will take place in think tanks and the bowels of Whitehall rather than being an overtly public campaign.

    By 2024 it will be considered simple common sense. I don’t expect “Brexit” to dominate those elections.
    A Biden win certainly makes it far more likely Boris will compromise with the EU to get a FTA with no US deal in the offing from Biden unless he does so
    No, we will compromise because No Deal is impossible for us to implement on New Year's Day. So we have to have a deal. And the deal on offer is the current deal in a pretty dress and a new name.
    Would not that be a disgraceful betrayal of everything Leavers voted for?

    Asking for a friend.
    Yes.

    Rochdale is projecting what he wants to happen.

    There will almost certainly be a deal because it is in both parties interests but it won't be what we have now.
    I am stating - not predicting - that there has to be a deal. Because we cannot exit on No Deal or indeed any significant variance of what we have now due to our inaction in creating the capability to separate ourselves off. We cannot enter into customs standards and tariffs checks on 1st January which means we will have to continue with the existing EU standards and tariffs unless we want to extend which we legally cannot do.

    What I wanted was for us to join EFTA and be a player. Instead we will be an addendum.
    We absolutely can go to No Deal if that is what we choose to do. If there's some disruption we can live with that and do whatever is required to cope.

    You are talking naively about tariff checks as if they need to happen, they don't. If we have no deal and the cost of doing tariff checks is more than the benefit of doing them then simply not doing them or streamlining them is an alternative option you are ignoring.
    "Some disruption". OK. We start doing customs checks from 1st January on Food & Drink with no deal. That's according to what this government have decreed.
    The customs agents to check the forms don't exist
    The customs infrastructure to house the customs agents doesn't exist
    The computer system to process the forms doesn't exist
    The integration of the computer system into haulier's systems doesn't exist

    Yet you claim that we absolutely can do all of this if we choose. How? Specifics please.

    At the very least we will go "No Deal" but not actually change anything. Because it will take a long time to do all of the above. Until we do, we keep with the EU. And yet according to the government we won't extend any of the existing arrangements beyond midnight on New Year's Eve.

    As we cannot go no deal at 00:01 on 1st January we therefore must have a deal. And we know what is on the table. A choice of names and a choice of pretty frocks and lipsticks for the pig.
    If on 1 January 2021 we have left with No Deal and technical reasons mean we can't do customs checks then the solution is simple: don't do the customs checks!

    You are making out like this is an impossibility. It is entirely possible.

    As for your claim nothing will have changed you are wrong. What will have changed is we are not doing checks because we don't want to, rather than not doing them because we are not allowed to.

    Just because we are allowed to do checks doesn't mean we will either want to do them or be obliged to do them. But it will be our choice going forwards, nobody else's.
    Yes, thats the having the right to have babies even if we won't have babies option. I've been saying this for ages. We will gain the Sovereign Right to impose checks and do different deals and stop people coming in. The EU won't be making us any more.

    And what will we do with that sovereign choice? Not do checks, not do deals, let people come in. But what you have described isn't No Deal. No deal means we *have* to do checks. What you've described to tell me I am wrong is exactly what I am saying will happen.

    A deal. That allows us to diverge from the EEA and CU at a point in the future. Which will always be off in the future somewhere. We won't be in the EU or EEA or CU. We'll have a UKEU FTA which directly replicates the EEA and CU. Thats literally all we can do now. Even you have just said that.

    The right to have babies. Even though we can't have babies. We didn't even buy the box to let the foetus gestate in.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,695
    edited November 2020
    This thread has Trumped its last.

    NEW PRESIDENT THREAD!
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Gaussian said:

    So when do the militias turn up in PA counting centres to destroy the "illegal" ballots?

    12 Trump Counties still have not counted any Mail ballots yet. Not late arriving ballots, ANY mail ballots.
  • kamski said:

    The longer this goes on, and the more tricks Trump tries to pull, and the more incitement he indulges in, the stronger the case gets for scrapping the ridiculous electoral college system. If they, you know, just counted the votes and the person with the most votes won, we would have been sure of the result a long time ago. And much harder to claim that someone found several million votes down the back of the sofa to change the result, than the few thousand that might be needed in Pennsylvania.

    It is an utterly bonkers system but hey, it gives us all a lot more excitement than just looking at vote totals. As a democratic system though I agree, completely off the wall ridiculous. But like most Institutions in America it was never intended to operate in this way. It wasn’t even a requirement that individuals voted initially, it was left to state legislatures to decide how to allocate their EVs. The idea was that you would have to have a balance between “winning” a contest and securing the approval of the states to govern (particularly with emphasis on the South who were worried the North could try to abolish slavery).

    I would say it does still have some merits in protecting rural parts of America from being overlooked at election time, but it’s increasingly broken and not a great model in a hyper partisan system.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,751

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    You STILL don't understand probabilities, so what's the point of even discussing this?

    Nate Silver doesn't *make a prediction*, his model does based on polls. If the polls are wrong, the prediction is wrong.
    And of course, Nate Silver didn't forecast 348-190.

    He explicitly gave a range of electoral college votes for each candidate, within which he thought there was an 80% probability of the result falling.

    People who don't understand probabilities really shouldn't bet.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,836
    edited November 2020

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    You STILL don't understand probabilities, so what's the point of even discussing this?

    Nate Silver doesn't *make a prediction*, his model does based on polls. If the polls are wrong, the prediction is wrong.
    He very much does make a prediction, it is correctly in the form of a range of outcomes, but it is his and his firms prediction based on their judgements in conjunction with the polls, not just the polls. Changing their input judgements could significantly alter the prediction.

    It was frequently different in distribution to other models even when they had a similar mean prediction.
  • new thread

  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Alistair said:

    I cannot believe we are going "The people who predicted a Trump win did best". What is happening? Have I teleported back to 3am on Wednesday morning?



    (with h/t to Tim if he is reading)

    Only on PB.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    Trafalgar were closer to the results in many states than the other pollsters.
    Not by HYUFD's own chosen metric – which was picking the winner not the shares.
    Apologies – I see @LostPassword has got there before me.
  • eristdooferistdoof Posts: 5,065
    kamski said:

    The longer this goes on, and the more tricks Trump tries to pull, and the more incitement he indulges in, the stronger the case gets for scrapping the ridiculous electoral college system. If they, you know, just counted the votes and the person with the most votes won, we would have been sure of the result a long time ago. And much harder to claim that someone found several million votes down the back of the sofa to change the result, than the few thousand that might be needed in Pennsylvania.

    To keep it at the state level, keep the EC system but appoint the ECvotes proportionately. That way PA would be arguing about 10:10 or 11:9 rather than 20:0 and identifying tipping states would not really be a thing.

    The problem with bith these suggestions is, it could after a few electoral cycles break the two party stystem for US president, so is unlikely to be popular with the Reps or the Dems.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,137

    HYUFD said Trafalgar were right and that Trump would win.

    Trafalgar were wrong. Trump has lost.

    And yet people are lauding HYUFD? He was wrong. Yes the counter predictions of landslide were also wrong. Its not an either / or

    In fairness to HYUFD his final forecast was in fact a 269-269 tie – now if he were trying to win a prediction game he wouldn't have done that because it was always a very long shot.

    I have pulled his leg but he wasn't widely off the mark on his numbers.

    Where he was certainly wrong was with his boostering of Trafalgar – they were absolutely useless, calling several key states wrongly.
    Trafalgar had a mixed night in their forecasts, they were less right than in 2016 but still probably slightly better than average.

    They got Florida, Texas, Ohio, Iowa and likely North Carolina right for Trump and they correctly had Biden ahead in Wisconsin.

    They got Arizona and Nevada and Michigan wrong in having them for Trump, though they had at least 1 poll with Biden ahead in Nevada and Michigan in the campaign if not their final poll and they probably got Pennsylvania wrong where they also had Trump ahead in their final poll, though again they also had Biden ahead in at least 1 poll there.

    The most accurate pollsters this campaign were probably IBD followed by Rasmussen at the national level and Stelzer at the state level based on its Iowa poll in particular
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    I'm getting back to work but I'm incredibly disappointed that some are still abusing HYUFD and MrEd, just lay off them please, it's awful to watch this site descend into this kind of behaviour.

    We could all just be a bit more gracious, would be so much better.


    They are not being abused!
  • Chris said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Alistair said:

    I think many did call a Biden landslide which obviously didn't happen and some have said they got it wrong which requires courage and respect. Sadly some others have already pretended they didn't make predictions that large or have tried to attack HYUFD and MrEd as being completely wrong when they were a lot closer than many.

    I remember the absolute barrage against those of us that predicted a Corbyn victory in 2019 and perhaps that was deserved. However some of those people equally predicted a Biden landslide and so their prediction records are now just as poor (relatively) as mine.

    Nice to be back on a level footing!

    HYUFD did a very good job on this election. He was absolutely right to take the position he did.

    Wut? He endlessly championed Trafalgar (in the face of overwhelming evidence) on the basis of correctly calling states and Trafalgar have turn be out to be incredibly wrong in calling states.
    I think people have very different views on HYUFD's analysis as they don't separate the "reading the mood" approach and "modelling from polling" approach. IMO his posts are in the top few percent on here at the former (for elections) and in the bottom quarter for the latter.

    Filter out the noise and he is very much worth listening to, but with an understanding it is often not statistically robust.
    I don't pretend to be a stats expert, yes if you want that look at others
    Yes you do. You made out that you knew more about stats than Nate Silver.
    Well at this stage I may well be closer to the final EC result than Nate Silver's final 348 Biden 190 Trump forecast was

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/
    You STILL don't understand probabilities, so what's the point of even discussing this?

    Nate Silver doesn't *make a prediction*, his model does based on polls. If the polls are wrong, the prediction is wrong.
    And of course, Nate Silver didn't forecast 348-190.

    He explicitly gave a range of electoral college votes for each candidate, within which he thought there was an 80% probability of the result falling.

    People who don't understand probabilities really shouldn't bet.
    People who think that people who don't understand probabilities shouldn't bet don't understand betting!
  • Mal557Mal557 Posts: 662
    Alistair said:

    What the absolute hell.

    Dems have lengthened for winning the national election but shortened for winning Pennsylvania.

    Strange as doesn't Donald need PA in every scenario to win? Perhaps the tightening in AZ has misled some?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486

    This is utterly embarrassing for you Philip, it really is.

    Just be a man and admit you got it wrong, like I did after 2019. I really would have a lot more respect for people if they were just able to hold their hands up some times.

    The quote got messed up but it's clear what I am referring to, I hope.

    He didn't get it wrong though.

    He was right!
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,914

    I'm getting back to work but I'm incredibly disappointed that some are still abusing HYUFD and MrEd, just lay off them please, it's awful to watch this site descend into this kind of behaviour.

    We could all just be a bit more gracious, would be so much better.

    Clearly not a veteran of the Plato/Tim days! This is snowflakery!
This discussion has been closed.