538 projections for the House elections 2022

[speak easy]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/house/?cid=rrpromo

[TDale313]

1. I seriously don't get how anyone can vote Republican at this point

I mean, I do… it’s tribalism and hate mongering and a handful (but not many) where it is in their financial best interest… and gerrymandering and voter suppression… but seriously, they shouldn’t be favored to win shit.

[brush]

3. 538 got it right once. They haven't been that accurate since.

[TDale313]

4. If they're assuming this is any type of "normal" election cycle

Just sayin’

[brush]

6. Right. It's nowhere near normal.

[Demsrule86]

7. I posted a link on Tim Ryan...a 538 polling. Hewas up by 4,3,3 respectively. The 4 was from

an A+ poll. The write-up said Ryan was up by a half point.

[Deminpenn]

12. 538 uses polling average

That method is poor at showing current movements in the polls.

[Demsrule86]

13. True...but when you average 4,3 and 3...you don't get 1/2 point...they got something else going.

[Deminpenn]

14. Their polling average uses all the polls no matter

when they were done. All polling averages work the same way. An average smooths, it doesn't weight more recent polls more heavily than old polls.

[caraher]

15. They don't rely exclusively on polling averages

It's an element of the formula (and for some districts they don't use any polls at all) but polling is weighted less in their House projections than in Senate or presidential forecasts:

As compared with the presidential model, the House model is less polling-centric. (This is less the case for the Senate and governor models.) The House, Senate and gubernatorial models use a broad variety of indicators in addition to polling. With 435 separate House races every other year — plus races for each of the 100 Senate seats once every six years and each of the 50 governorships at least once every four years5 — it’s possible to make robust empirical assessments of which factors really predict congressional and gubernatorial races well and which ones don’t. Nonetheless, our models default toward using polling once there’s a lot of high-quality polling in a particular state or district. In Senate and gubernatorial races, most states have abundant polling. But this is less true in the House, where districts are polled sporadically and polling can be an adventure because of small sample sizes and the demographic peculiarities of each district.

There are gobs of other tweaks, based on things like national polling on generic Dem vs. Rep house preferences, presidential approval ratings, likely voter adjustments, etc. All of which means there are lots of ways for 538 predictions to contradict polling.

[Deminpenn]

16. Nate Silver started his life as a fantasy baseball stats guru

He really has no expertise in politics but he does run a bunch of simulations that produce different outcomes. That's the basis of his forecasts. For ex, he has no idea of the dynamics in play in the Fetterman-Oz race. The models are based on past-is-precedent more than anything else no matter what his website claims.

[caraher]

19. True, it is past-is-precedent

I'm just pointing out that the inputs include more than just polls, so it's to be expected that 538 will sometimes conflict with polling data

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. He has two models and in the Light model the good guys have a 41% chance of winning the House?

[Deminpenn]

21. One is just polling data, the other includes

538's unique "secret sauce".

I personally do not believe Silver and his group have any actual idea how to interpret the data they gather, they are just statisticians running models. I haven't looked at 538 in a long time. I could be wrong, but I don't think they employ anyone who does polling or analyzes public opinion for a living and could bring real expertise to their forecasts.

[Dave says]

5. 2023-2024 will be a s**tshow

Nothing will get done as 226 Repubs in the House exact what they’ll see as revenge.

[Demsrule86]

8. No it won't because we will win.

[Polybius]

11. The House will be hard to win

We'll pick up a seat or two in the Senate though, so all federal appointees will be confirmed.

[Elessar Zappa]

17. It will be hard.

It’s doable though. Even if we only have a 30% chance of winning, that’s not insurmountable.

[nuxvomica]

9. That's the "deluxe"; the "lite" forecast is R59/D41

The "lite" is just polls, the "classic" is fundraising, voting patterns, history, etc., while the "deluxe" is the "classic" plus "expert" opinions, so, "deluxe" is simply a reinforcement of "classic", which includes all the factors the "experts" look at anyway.

Their disclaimer: "Upset wins are surprising but not impossible." Gee, these guys really know what words mean.

[Fiendish Thingy]

10. Dems are up from 20% just a month ago

At that rate, it could be 50/50 by Election Day.

[Xolodno]

18. Remember, every forecast is wrong.

They only imply direction based on previous data. The fact that its narrowing is a good thing. Lets hope it narrows even further.