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2016 Postmortem

AZ Progressive

(3,411 posts)

20. Nate Silver is not a flawless prophet

Reply to workinclasszero (Original post)

Sat Jan 30, 2016, 11:12 PM

Jan 2016

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.

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New...Nate Silver...Hillary 80% chance to win Iowa [View all] workinclasszero Jan 2016 OP

I aggregated the last five polls. The MOE is 1,73. Hillary's lead is 3.3%. That's outside the MOE DemocratSinceBirth Jan 2016 #1

She has been in the lead the last 5 polls workinclasszero Jan 2016 #8

Add up the amount of respondents to the last five polls... DemocratSinceBirth Jan 2016 #9

The lead has to be twice the MOE to be outside the MOE jfern Jan 2016 #18

Fingers crossed! Agschmid Jan 2016 #2

Fingers working phone banks so that corporate woman doesn't win. Fawke Em Jan 2016 #10

You assume I'm not out doing the same? Agschmid Jan 2016 #12

Please be right, nate arely staircase Jan 2016 #3

Otherwise you are going to have some 'spalini to do - nt KingCharlemagne Jan 2016 #6

There was a 20% chance of rain the other day and we got it Quixote1818 Jan 2016 #4

What would it say about Bernie if he just barely wins workinclasszero Jan 2016 #7

Sure, I suspect Hillary will probably win Quixote1818 Jan 2016 #23

Good luck with that. Fearless Jan 2016 #5

K&R! stonecutter357 Jan 2016 #11

His charts don't seem to account for the shift of O'Malley voters if he can't reach 15% threshold. thesquanderer Jan 2016 #13

I read that at best that would be a 1 or 2% difference workinclasszero Jan 2016 #15

Her chances of winning the nomination are even better than that!! :-D NurseJackie Jan 2016 #14

Oh yeah! workinclasszero Jan 2016 #16

Message auto-removed Name removed Jan 2016 #17

Time will tell workinclasszero Jan 2016 #19

Nate Silver is not a flawless prophet AZ Progressive Jan 2016 #20

The poll that matters is Monday night workinclasszero Jan 2016 #21

K&R. I.m counting on Nate being right, as usual lunamagica Jan 2016 #22

DU rec...nt SidDithers Jan 2016 #24

how does he come up with 80 percent with the poll being as close as it is JI7 Jan 2016 #25

geography hill2016 Jan 2016 #27

how are they wasted ? if they are in college towns and will not vote JI7 Jan 2016 #28

it's like the electoral system in the general election hill2016 Jan 2016 #29

This is why caucuses are undemocratic. joshcryer Jan 2016 #31

doesn't it depend on how many show up ? JI7 Jan 2016 #32

no hill2016 Jan 2016 #33

Nate Silver is good at what he does. Agnosticsherbet Jan 2016 #26

He's very good at reading polls. But, he is very bad at understanding trends. w4rma Jan 2016 #30