Did Nate Silver nail it or what?

Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?

What would have been Silver's projection in 2000 and 2004? He surely would have had Bush as the favorite in both years, right? Wouldn't that have made Democrats less likely to go out to the polls? While it would not have made a difference in the presidential race, it might have had major consequences in the down-ticket contests. Remember, this was the criticism that the Democrats leveled against the networks in 1980; that by declaring the election (and many states) for Reagan before the polls had even closed, they artificially deflated turnout, hurting Democratic candidates for lower offices.
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The solution is to get people to understand math and probability theory. Because of that you may have a point. We couldn't even get so called skeptics and critical thinkers to grasp why it was that Silver's model was solid. And here's what a lot of people also don't won't get. Had Romney won it would not have meant that Silver was wrong as Silver's model held that there was a 9% chance of Romney winning. 9% != 0% (I think some people will honestly never fully grasp that).

Her's a little thought experiment to help. You won't win the lottery because the odds are so atrocious you virtually cannot win. That doesn't mean that no one will win. It just means that in all likelihood YOU won't win (yeah, I know, it makes the head hurt).

The proof of Silver's model is the overall rate of success across the board. Even Sylvia Browne gets a hit from time to time. The measure of prognostication success is in repeatability.
 
Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?
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There's been some danger of that as long as there's been widespread polling. I'm sure there were some liberals who stayed home in 1984 because of what the polls were showing about that election. I don't think it's much of a problem if the race is reasonably close. The main difference with people like Silver and Sam Wang is that they're able to give a better picture of what the polls are really saying.
 
Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?
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Hasn't this always been a possibility? I personally don't believe it is a significant effect. Most people who are going to vote will do so regardless of the odds. I dutifully vote in all Texas elections, knowing good and well that most of my candidates are going to lose.
 
ANTPogo said:
Networks actually and definitively declaring things on election day itself, though, has a huge impact, because it's one thing to be told your candidate is down in the polls a month before the election, and quite another to learn your candidate has already lost in the key battleground state you live in just as you're getting ready to drive down to the polling station to cast your ballot.
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Or, as happened to me in 1980 -- to learn, as you're standing in line at the polling place, that one candidate has already conceded.
 
Tricky said:
Hasn't this always been a possibility? I personally don't believe it is a significant effect. Most people who are going to vote will do so regardless of the odds. I dutifully vote in all Texas elections, knowing good and well that most of my candidates are going to lose.
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I voted in Georgia, and got to write in "Your Mom"* against a lot of the unopposed (R)'s running. Of which there were many. Georgia went Romney; I could have stayed home for all the impact my votes had. But there will come a time when I _will_ have an impact, and I'd rather not be out of the habit.




* Occasionally, I give in to childish tendencies. Who knew, huh?
 
Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?

What would have been Silver's projection in 2000 and 2004? He surely would have had Bush as the favorite in both years, right? Wouldn't that have made Democrats less likely to go out to the polls? While it would not have made a difference in the presidential race, it might have had major consequences in the down-ticket contests. Remember, this was the criticism that the Democrats leveled against the networks in 1980; that by declaring the election (and many states) for Reagan before the polls had even closed, they artificially deflated turnout, hurting Democratic candidates for lower offices.
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If Nate Silver had been around in 2000, it's far less likely that liberals in Florida would have voted for Nader.
 
Brainster said:
Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?
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On the flip side, in that scenario, might a lot of Republicans stay home since their vote isn't needed to win?

ETA: I'm thinking that a lot of people on both sides will stay home if the race is seen as not being at all close.
 
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Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?

What would have been Silver's projection in 2000 and 2004? He surely would have had Bush as the favorite in both years, right? Wouldn't that have made Democrats less likely to go out to the polls? While it would not have made a difference in the presidential race, it might have had major consequences in the down-ticket contests. Remember, this was the criticism that the Democrats leveled against the networks in 1980; that by declaring the election (and many states) for Reagan before the polls had even closed, they artificially deflated turnout, hurting Democratic candidates for lower offices.
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The risk of what you propose is the same on both sides. You are dealing with two different drivers. All Silver did was aggregate polls (albeit very well). They changed daily throughout the election period, so the changing landscape of who was winning at a given moment really tracking fairly well in realtime.

As far as getting the voters to the polls, that is all about the ground game and GOTV activities. It's pretty obvious, especially looking at the final week of Nate's tracking versus the actual turnout that Obama's increasing momentum did not deter voters. That was due to the ground game, especially in Florida, where even in Nate's model it was a toss-up, so you had voters standing in line in excess of 7 hours, to make sure their vote was counted.

I think your point is real, but I don't think it's going to be a Nate Silver that causes deflated turnout, it will be a poor campaign. Both parties need to study the way Obama's team (Axelrod and Plouffe) ran this campaign. Realistically, even though unseating a sitting president is difficult, given the divide in this country and the current economic conditions, Obama should have lost. Every indication was that younger voters were not going to show up in the same numbers as 2008, the glow of the possibility of voting the first black president was not there, unemployment was at the same place it was when Obama took office (I know things were in free fall and not in his control on day one, but for the sake of argument here), and the opposing candidate was a successful business man with a record of saving companies and even an Olympic Games. You had Republican election officials working to increase the complexity of the voting process in key battlegrounds. Romney should have won, but frankly Obama's team was so much better, and in far better tune with the pulse of the electorate, and they knew how and where to canvass and build excitement.
 
Never underestimate the power of turnout. During the last federal elections, my county was historically Gilles Duceppe's county (he's the leader of the Bloc Québécois party) and everyone was sure that it'd go to him so that it's pointless to vote.

Well, I, and many others, voted NDP, and Duceppe actually lost his seat to a no-name NDP lady. So even when you think "clearly this seat/state/county/etc. will go to X", well... usually, that's true, but sometimes it's not. ;)
 
Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?

What would have been Silver's projection in 2000 and 2004? He surely would have had Bush as the favorite in both years, right? Wouldn't that have made Democrats less likely to go out to the polls? While it would not have made a difference in the presidential race, it might have had major consequences in the down-ticket contests. Remember, this was the criticism that the Democrats leveled against the networks in 1980; that by declaring the election (and many states) for Reagan before the polls had even closed, they artificially deflated turnout, hurting Democratic candidates for lower offices.
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Only if people think that the projection is a forgone conclusion of a future that is immutable. Silver's analysis is showing a projection based on the polls at the time. Political campaigns are the ones that need to take the most notice of it, it will tell them when they are doing things right, and when they are doing it wrong.

The polls simply tell us what people are thinking currently and provide a window into what will happen, if things stay the same. That means that poll results can be changed if people make an effort to change them, and that could be either way.

The fear you express can happen from any polling though, for instance here at our election last year the opposition got less votes than expected from the polls and numbers voting were down dramatically. That indicates that people did think their party was so far behind that they didn't bother voting. However if we want to avoid that, then we need to stop polling altogether.

The moral of all this is, we should take what the polls are telling us seriously, and if it's telling us we're likely to lose, try and change it by changing strategy or making sure that you can get as many of your voters out and voting regardless of if a loss is coming or not.
 
Brainster said:
Okay, so Silver was right and I was wrong. It strikes me, however, that there is a risk to accepting Silver, and it is higher on the liberal side than it is on the conservative side. Suppose in 2016, Silver's method projects a pretty easy win for the GOP. Isn't there a strong risk that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as liberals, dispirited by Silver's projections, stay home from the polls in droves?
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Is there any data to support this in a two party system (in a three party plus system tactical voting becomes a lot more significant)?
 
remirol said:
I voted in Georgia, and got to write in "Your Mom"* against a lot of the unopposed (R)'s running. Of which there were many. Georgia went Romney; I could have stayed home for all the impact my votes had. But there will come a time when I _will_ have an impact, and I'd rather not be out of the habit.
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The thing to remeber is that not bothering to support a canidate because they can't win is only rational over a single election cycle. Once you take multiple election cycles into account it becomes more rational (although voting at all remains generaly irrational).
 
ZirconBlue said:
On the flip side, in that scenario, might a lot of Republicans stay home since their vote isn't needed to win?

ETA: I'm thinking that a lot of people on both sides will stay home if the race is seen as not being at all close.
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Conservatives vote come hell or high water. In fact, it is considered an axiom of politics that bad weather is good for Republican candidates because their voters will turn out, while the liberals decide to stay warm and dry.
 
johnny karate said:
Once again, math trumps ideology.
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FYI, when someone applies math and gets an incorrect answer it implies they made a mistake, not that the credibility of mathematics is in question. Silver deserves all of the kudos he is getting for a job extremely well done but the validity of mathematics wasn't dependent on that.
 
Brainster said:
Conservatives vote come hell or high water. In fact, it is considered an axiom of politics that bad weather is good for Republican candidates because their voters will turn out, while the liberals decide to stay warm and dry.
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Didn't all those guys quoting that axiom just lose on what was (at least in Georgia) a rainy Tuesday? Yeah, that one's been fiction for at least two Presidential elections now, I think we can discard it in the dustbin of history.
 
respect said:
FYI, when someone applies math and gets an incorrect answer it implies they made a mistake, not that the credibility of mathematics is in question. Silver deserves all of the kudos he is getting for a job extremely well done but the validity of mathematics wasn't dependent on that.
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I was speaking of the application of math, not the validity of it. (I would hate to think that conservatives were so far gone they denied math altogether.)

Silver triumphed because he applied math and was proven correct. The conservative pundits ended up looking like idiots because they denied the application of math and, I don't know... went with their gut feelings, I guess.

It was a triumph for math, science and rational thought over the "gut feelings" of irrational ideologues.
 
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johnny karate said:
I was speaking of the application of math, not the validity of it. (I would hate to think that conservatives were so far gone they denied math altogether.)

Silver triumphed because he applied math and was proven correct. The conservative pundits ended up looking like idiots because they denied the application of math and, I don't know... went with their gut feelings, I guess.

It was a triumph for math, science and rational thought over the "gut feelings" of irrational ideologues.
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Yes, some of them have egg on their face. Nonetheless, statisticians sometimes make mistakes. My point is that if Silver had made a mistake it would not have been a triumph of ideology over math.
 
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