2016 elections - because it's never too early

[The Minsky Moment]

I think Biden could have won.

Biden would have been a Trump killer - his main weakness (gaffe prone speaking) would have been neutralized by Trump's bigger issues in that area.  Alas, didn't happen.

[FunkMonk]

Christ, Biden was crying.

He knows he made the wrong decision. I feel really bad for him. 

[celedhring]

I've had 3 losses. It also isn't going to affect my voting behavior but just cause me distress yes that homophobes, misogynists and racists will now have a stronger sway in policy. I think it is a bit rational as someone who evokes the ire of two of those groups, to feel a bit emotional.

I've had 5 losses.  Just 2 wins.

Same.

I have had 1 win, 5 losses, and one where I abstained. I'm a pretty good loser, lots of practice in it.

[DGuller]

Saw a bunch of stories talking up the USC/LA Times poll claiming that it accurately forecast the results.

The poll has its virtues, but the reality is that it got the national numbers just as wrong as the mainstream polls.  The mainstream polls were giving HRC a 3 point national lead going in, USC/LA Times was giving Trump a 3 point lead nationally.  It looks like the national vote will be a virtually tie so both sets of polls had a 3 point error.

I agree with some of the comments above that Silver and his people probably came out the best even though their call was wrong.  Silver's position re state correlated error in particular has been vindicated as against the aggregators (notably Sam Wang) that downplayed this.

I really dislike the "got their call wrong" talk.  If I told you you have 83% chance of surviving the game of Russian roulette, and you blow your brains out, did I get the call wrong?  Validating predictions is a very difficult challenge that requires a lot fo data. 

[derspiess]

I think Biden could have won.

Biden would have been a Trump killer - his main weakness (gaffe prone speaking) would have been neutralized by Trump's bigger issues in that area.  Alas, didn't happen.

The debates would have been pure gold.

[Caliga]

Alas, I wish Hansie was still around.  He would have been forced to admit for once that Michael Moore was right about something.

[Admiral Yi]

I really dislike the "got their call wrong" talk.  If I told you you have 83% chance of surviving the game of Russian roulette, and you blow your brains out, did I get the call wrong?  Validating predictions is a very difficult challenge that requires a lot fo data.

I'm having trouble following your logic.  Are you saying if we re-ran the election many times, Hillary would win 5 out of 6 (or whatever)?  That the actual outcome was just the tailish result of certain people staying home, that kind of thing?

[Berkut]

Saw a bunch of stories talking up the USC/LA Times poll claiming that it accurately forecast the results.

The poll has its virtues, but the reality is that it got the national numbers just as wrong as the mainstream polls.  The mainstream polls were giving HRC a 3 point national lead going in, USC/LA Times was giving Trump a 3 point lead nationally.  It looks like the national vote will be a virtually tie so both sets of polls had a 3 point error.

I agree with some of the comments above that Silver and his people probably came out the best even though their call was wrong.  Silver's position re state correlated error in particular has been vindicated as against the aggregators (notably Sam Wang) that downplayed this.

I really dislike the "got their call wrong" talk.  If I told you you have 83% chance of surviving the game of Russian roulette, and you blow your brains out, did I get the call wrong?  Validating predictions is a very difficult challenge that requires a lot fo data. 

So this is a true story.

I am playing a game of Triumph of Chaos, a card driven wargame based on the Russian Civil War.

The game is early, and nobody has any advantage yet.

I make a particular move. And the conversation goes like this:

Opponent: You should not do that.
Me: Why not?
Opponent: If you do that, I can do this. Which will then let me attack you. And if I win that attack, I almost certainly win the game.
Me: Yes, but I know that, and I also know that if you make that attack and fail, you will almost certainly lose the game.
Opponent: But why risk the game?
Me: It is not a risk at all, since I don't think you will make the attack, since you only have a 1/3 chance of winning. So you won't make the attack anyway, which makes my initial move safe. Why would you take a 1/3 shot at winning, when the penalty is losing in a game that presumably is still 50-50?

I make the moves, he makes the attack, and gets his 1/3rd result. Game over.

"See, I told you you should not have done that!"

[DGuller]

I really dislike the "got their call wrong" talk.  If I told you you have 83% chance of surviving the game of Russian roulette, and you blow your brains out, did I get the call wrong?  Validating predictions is a very difficult challenge that requires a lot fo data.

I'm having trouble following your logic.  Are you saying if we re-ran the election many times, Hillary would win 5 out of 6 (or whatever)?  That the actual outcome was just the tailish result of certain people staying home, that kind of thing?

I'm saying it's possible.  And if that's what it really was, then in fact he got the call as right as possible given the inherent uncertainty.  I'm also saying that we will never really know with any degree of certainty whether his probabilities were right, at least based on numbers alone.

[Valmy]

I am hearing rumors Harambe got something like 15,000 votes. Maybe that threw off the election predictions.

[CountDeMoney]

I think Sanders would have won.

I think he'd have gotten torn to pieces in the general, unless he somehow repudiated socialism.

I agree;  Trump and Sanders were both technically 3rd party candidates, but the DNC machine did a better job locking their 3rd partier out.
People like my Dad, who loathes Trump, would've never voted for that commie.

[Martinus]

Ok, guys, I wanted to post something and I will post it only once, as I don't want to rub it in. For the last 5 or 6 months, I have been listening to shows by Bill O'Reilly, Milo Yiannopoulous, as well as David Rubin, Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow, the Young Turks, and John Oliver - you could say the whole spectrum.

The sentiment on the right wing shows - especially Bill O'Reilly (as Milo is a blow hard and a troll) and David Rubin which is a "disaffected liberal" show who invites very different people from right and left, was that (i) Trump stands a chance to win but it's going to be hard, (ii) he has a good chance to get a substantial minority of ethnic minority, especially Latino, voters, and (iii) he may end up carrying Pennsylvania etc.

The sentiment on the left wing shows was that, largely (until very recently), Hillary has this in the bag, there is no way any minority voters will vote for Trump, it just won't happen.

Why the hell did the left get it so wrong while pretty much every prediction of the right came to pass? Is this because the left is confined to the bubbles of LA, NY and Chicago, while the right actually goes out into the country?

[Berkut]

Someone posted something on facebook about how historically, each party had their ugly little populist segment they counted on.

The Dems had their blue collar union people, and the Reps their blue collar religious guys.

The left thinks that an appeal to populism is no longer necessary, and has largely abandoned any effort to cater to their populists.

The right....has not done that.

So we have the American Brexit. The Trexit.

It kind of rang true to me....

[Barrister]

Oh, I forgot:

CountDeMoney said Trump would carry Pennsylvania.  I said that would never happen.

CDM was right and I was wrong. 

[Zoupa]

Ok, guys, I wanted to post something and I will post it only once, as I don't want to rub it in. For the last 5 or 6 months, I have been listening to shows by Bill O'Reilly, Milo Yiannopoulous, as well as David Rubin, Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow, the Young Turks, and John Oliver - you could say the whole spectrum.

The sentiment on the right wing shows - especially Bill O'Reilly (as Milo is a blow hard and a troll) and David Rubin which is a "disaffected liberal" show who invites very different people from right and left, was that (i) Trump stands a chance to win but it's going to be hard, (ii) he has a good chance to get a substantial minority of ethnic minority, especially Latino, voters, and (iii) he may end up carrying Pennsylvania etc.

The sentiment on the left wing shows was that, largely (until very recently), Hillary has this in the bag, there is no way any minority voters will vote for Trump, it just won't happen.

Why the hell did the left get it so wrong while pretty much every prediction of the right came to pass? Is this because the left is confined to the bubbles of LA, NY and Chicago, while the right actually goes out into the country?

It's because the polls got it wrong, you fucking idiot. Leftists and Democrats believe in science while GOPhers believe in feelings and the tooth fairy.

Fox News had her up 5%. Breitbart had her up 4%. The polls were wrong, white losers didn't want to admit they were going to vote for Trump, Clinton and everybody else believed it and Trump won. End of story.

Can you go suck some toes now?