New...Nate Silver...Hillary 80% chance to win Iowa

[workinclasszero]

According to our latest polls-plus forecast, Hillary Clinton has a 80% chance of winning the Iowa caucuses.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/primary-forecast/iowa-democratic/

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. I aggregated the last five polls. The MOE is 1,73. Hillary's lead is 3.3%. That's outside the MOE

I welcome others to check my math.

[workinclasszero]

8. She has been in the lead the last 5 polls

Is that right DSB?

I would call that a Clinton surge just days before the caucus!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Add up the amount of respondents to the last five polls...

Add up the amount of respondents to the last five polls, add em up, and calculate the margin of error. It's 1.73.


It's math, not magic.

[jfern]

18. The lead has to be twice the MOE to be outside the MOE

[Agschmid]

2. Fingers crossed!

[Fawke Em]

10. Fingers working phone banks so that corporate woman doesn't win.

[Agschmid]

12. You assume I'm not out doing the same?

Big assumption.

I must be one of those really lazy Hillary supporters...

Oh DU.

Anyways good on you for getting involved!

[arely staircase]

3. Please be right, nate

As usual

[KingCharlemagne]

6. Otherwise you are going to have some 'spalini to do - nt

[Quixote1818]

4. There was a 20% chance of rain the other day and we got it

Clearly Hillary has a better shot but it's so close anything can happen. If I was told there was a 20% chance I could have cancer I would be freaking out. I would not be surprised at all to see Sanders squeek it out.

[workinclasszero]

7. What would it say about Bernie if he just barely wins

a state tailor made for him? Like 90 some percent white northern state.

It means he's dead in the water starting in South Carolina

And he will get wasted come super tuesday.

But I'm not conceding Iowa at all! Nate says 80% chance for a Hillary victory. I will take that all day long lol

[Quixote1818]

23. Sure, I suspect Hillary will probably win

and we will be stuck with the status quo with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, more war entanglements. If that gets you excited then enjoy your wages staying stagnant and another Wall Street crash in a few years.

[Fearless]

5. Good luck with that.

[stonecutter357]

11. K&R!

[thesquanderer]

13. His charts don't seem to account for the shift of O'Malley voters if he can't reach 15% threshold.

[workinclasszero]

15. I read that at best that would be a 1 or 2% difference

So it really wouldn't affect the race.

I can't remember where but you could probably Google it sorry.

[NurseJackie]

14. Her chances of winning the nomination are even better than that!! :-D

[workinclasszero]

16. Oh yeah!

[workinclasszero]

19. Time will tell

[AZ Progressive]

20. Nate Silver is not a flawless prophet

From Politico last year:

Nate Silver fared terribly in Thursday's UK election: In his pre-election forecast, he gave 278 seats to Conservatives and 267 to Labour. Shortly after midnight, he was forecasting 272 seats for Conservatives and 271 for Labour. But when the sun rose in London on Friday, Conservatives had an expected 329 seats, against Labour's 233.

"There are lots of reasons to worry about the state of the polling industry," Silver concluded, citing a range of factors. "There may be more difficult times ahead for the polling industry."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/nate-silver-polls-are-failing-us-206799#ixzz3ymu1SBmg

Having said that, recent polls are going in Hillary's direction, but polls don't tell you exactly what will go on come the big day.

[workinclasszero]

21. The poll that matters is Monday night

I know this.

But in the meantime I'm feeling good about my candidates chances.

[lunamagica]

22. K&R. I.m counting on Nate being right, as usual

[SidDithers]

24. DU rec...nt

Sid

[JI7]

25. how does he come up with 80 percent with the poll being as close as it is

[hill2016]

27. geography

a lot of Sander's supporters are in college towns which means their votes are "wasted"

[JI7]

28. how are they wasted ? if they are in college towns and will not vote

as a result they would not be counted in the polls .

[hill2016]

29. it's like the electoral system in the general election

lots of democrats in California and New York but their votes are wasted. Much better to have them in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida etc.

Same thing here. Many of Sander's supporters are in college towns, which award proportionately less delegates than rural Iowa counties.

[joshcryer]

31. This is why caucuses are undemocratic.

If Sanders gets the popular vote but loses the delegate count, it will be interesting to see how caucus defenders react. I think it will be a bullshit outcome if that's what it comes to.

[JI7]

32. doesn't it depend on how many show up ?

[hill2016]

33. no

number of delegates is fixed at the county level.

hence the college student votes are wasted.

[Agnosticsherbet]

26. Nate Silver is good at what he does.

Man's got skills and brains.

[w4rma]

30. He's very good at reading polls. But, he is very bad at understanding trends.

He's got serious blind spots.