November 5, 2016

Interesting trends by region I noticed tonight comparing 2012 and 2016

I was toggling back and forth between today's Electoral-Vote map and the one from exactly 4 years ago and what was jumping out at me was the SE states in general were not as red and the NE states were not as blue. It got me thinking about what Nate Silver said about New Hampshire being the bell-weather state that breaks down Obama's firewall. The Young Turks were making the same argument basically saying if New Hampshire goes red early in the evening it's over for Hillary. By looking at each region and how they have trended I would argue that this is a weak argument especially after I calculated the change in polling numbers by region from 2012 to 2016. Here is what I came up with:

In the West Coast states which I also include Alaska and Hawaii Hillary is up 7.4 compared to Obama. I threw out Hawaii because Obama grew up there and would have a big advantage over Hillary.

In the Mountain States Hillary came out even better at 9.7 points up compared to Obama with states like Utah's shift of 33 points and Idaho's shift of 14 making Hillary look much stronger in the Mountain states than Obama. Not competing against a Mormon or a westerner will help here out was as well.

In the Midwest Hillary is performing on average 3 points below Obama

In the NE she is performing about 2.5 points below Obama. (I included NY because Trump is also from there).

In the South East which includes Texas she is performing 3.3 points better than Obama.

So, much stronger in the West, Mountain states and SE and weaker in the Midwest and North East.



Here is my take on this and people are welcome to chime in if they disagree or have other ideas. Hillary is from Arkansas and even though she was a senator in New York the people in the South identify with her a lot stronger than Trump who may seem like too much of a Yankee. Of course there are some shifts in demographics too with the Hispanic populations growing in the South. Trump on the other hand is much more familiar to someone in New Hampshire and he is very North Eastern sounding. This is going to help him in states that are very close to NY. As for the West I think it helps her a lot in Nevada because she is doing better than Obama out west and a big part of that is the Mormon vote which is pretty big in Nevada. There will be a high % of Mormon cross-over to Hillary this round. They do not like Trump.

Not sure why she is doing so well in Alaska. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

So what this may end up meaning is Hillary out performing Obama in a state like North Carolina, Florida and Nevada, while under-performing in NH which was very close in 2012 as well. So if we see NH fall early in the night (which I still think is unlikely) remember that Hillary is polling a lot stronger in the South than Obama was so she could still very well pull out a sweep of Florida and North Carolina. Who knows, perhaps a state like Georgia or SC could surprise and end up in Hilary's column.

By the way, I didn't see much difference in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota.

November 5, 2016

Playing with the Elctoral College map, I didn't realize how hard it is for Trump to win

Hillary can lose Florida, North Carolina and Nevada and still win 273 to 265 as long as she carries everything she is already leading in by pretty safe margins. She would have to lose Nevada and NH and from what I am hearing Nevada sounds like it's almost out of reach for Trump from early voting and I am nut buying that its close in NH and neither are the betting sites. She wins Nevada or NH (not even both of them) and it's over! There is no path for Trump.

This is based on her winning Colorado but the betting odds puts Colorado as safer than even PA despite one close poll.

Have a go at it yourself:

http://www.270towin.com/

November 4, 2016

Predictwise shows bleeding has stopped and momentum shifting back to Hillary today

She bottomed out at around an 83% chance of winning yesterday and has moved up to 86% chance today. They also show states the media is sounding alarms on to be quite safe. Nevada at 84% for Hillary and New Hampshire at 77%.

http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-winner

November 3, 2016

Betting sites must like what they see in early voting in Nevada as it has jumped way up for Hillary

even as polling has shown a shift to Trump. I don't remember where it was yesterday but it wasn't near 80% which is currently showing. I have heard Nevada is very hard to poll for some reason. Anyone know why?



http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-winner

November 2, 2016

Just a reminder that the final polling average in 2012 had Obama winning by less than a point

he ended up winning by 4 points. So polling (at least in the recent past) generally has under sampled democratic voters.

http://www1.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html