It wasn't that extraordinary a call. There was evidence from Brexit and the General Election in Britain that far right votes weren't being picked up by the pollsters. Trump appealled to the far right.

When the candidates pulled close in the polls that small bias made Trump favourite due to that bias.

Note you didn't even have to be that certain there was a polling bias. This is betting: a small shift in the true odds relative to the price equates to a profitable betting opportunity.

Most people pay way too much value on public information like polls: these are already factored into the price. A bettor is only interested in reasons why public information when it is wrong.

I think 70/30 Clinton was a fair line that last week tbh

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookies4u

what are the odds that Clinton loses one of PA/NV (or both)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by goofball

PA: 0
NV: like 1%

Entertaining reads. Figures that someone named "The Don" would be on the right track! #hubris

no one wants to give me monery because my family knows im nottakingmy medication . so i sent 250 of the1000 i owe to alex wice.

lol

Spaceman, that was a real dick move making bets that you aren't able to pay.

I thought I would so now I'm raising money for it. I can't help it if no one wants to give me money anymore

Only 750 more to go I'll def get some money for Christmas at worst.

Fivethirtyeight on November 7

Bolded is highly doubtful

Wisconsin Clinton 82% favorite
Michigan Clinton 79% favorite
PA Clinton a 76% favorite
Florida Clinton 51%
North Carolina Clinto 51%

She loses all 5? Come on, the implication that this is like due to randomness is absurd. The modeling of the electorate by the pollsters was just not that accurate IE major polling error.

.

Losing all 5 isn't some incredibly rare event like you're implying because they're highly correlated. That 20% of the time she loses WI is much the same 20% of the time that she's losing MI.

Also, I'm not saying it was "randomness" in the sense you mean. Much of that 20% that 538 gave Trump was based on the possibility that polling was inaccurate. When I say there's nothing wrong with Hillary 70% even in hindsight, I mean given the information that was known at the time.

Apparently this was news to some bookies also...

Ok say that there is a 25% chance she loses MI, WI, and PA (which is being very generous actually) that coupled with 538's probabilities for FL and NC makes the 70% number absurd. I guess my point is that people vastly underestimated the possibility of major polling errors. I'm pretty sure 538 did but I will concede Nate had a suspicion.

I'm no fan of Nate Silver, and I think he's a hack when it comes to punditry. But I would say he did a pretty good job of accounting for uncertainty of the polls.

Going off polls alone, predicting a 70-75% chance of Clinton victory was pretty reasonable.

Though making a prediction based almost purely on polling information while ignoring other available info is pretty dumb. Easy to make it objective, though.

Is it just right wing voters that aren't being picked up? Could it be voters in rural areas that aren't picked up?

It would be nice to know exactly where the polling is going wrong. I've heard many times that it's right wing voters who aren't picked up, but no source to confirm this.

I guess 2020 is too far ahead for a new thread, but still

Trump 2.5, anyone taking it.

If he does half of what he plans for restarting the economy and repubs go along with it, next 4 years are a given and democrats having literally no one to oppose him, I expect this will go down bellow 2 fairly quickly.

He won't be running against Hillary, though

It's way too early to think about this.

About 26 months before its practical to think about 2020. Get back to me then. I mean 26 months from now I could have a college degree , be flush with cash own a business , be skinnier than noodle Wazlib.

The main thing Trump has going for him is that it takes a while for the economy to actually crash once harmful agendas have been put into place. If/When mortgage lenders are back to doing exactly what they were pre-2008 crash, the housing market won't tank immediately, it'll take a few years at least, at which point it's basically a repeat of the Bush timeline.

If he does half of what he plans, the economy (that's already been restarted for ~6 years btw) will get a lot worse. Honestly, if the economy is EQUAL to what it is today, he's a big favorite for re-election as it's clear no scandal can take him down.

In terms of who will oppose him, Warren is the clear favorite at this point (way too early obv) and would be the perfect person to run against him.

A rural voting bias would be picked up very quickly by the pollsters. They aren't stupid. The samples are demographically representative.

The one thing they can't do is analyze people who are reflexively opposed to being polled yet still vote. However we can measure the polling vs the actual result and determine that is the source of the problem.

we've got 3 years and 11 months left, but it'll be very hard to top this for worst 2020 prediction post

I think you'd be struggling to find a person in the Democratic Party who would be a worse choice to run against Trump than Warren.

Betfair seems to currently agree with them, giving her odds of about 1/13, though very low liquidity. Only people currently higher are possibly Pence (spread 11 - 1000) and Trump himself ( 1/2.45).

Warren seems like a reasonable possibility. Appeals to a lot of people angry about the current election but probably enough of a sellout not to piss off the establishment too much. Still definitely an underdog for the establishment to line up behind her though without somewhat of a shakeup in the Dem Party. Probably not a profitable bet but it's not crazy.

Other leading possibilities are Biden and Cory Booker. Biden is probably too old though. I'd probably give a slight edge to Booker over Warren because of age. Not an expert on his politics, but he seems like he'd be pretty much an attempt to repeat B. Obama (charismatic black man supported by the establishment who won't rock the boat). I don't think Michelle Obama is likely unless the Dems really want to maximize their diversity points (black AND a woman?!?) - which I wouldn't put past them tbh. (Edit: I may be underestimating this, particularly against Trump where many normal political considerations go out the window.) You've still got Sanders around, but like Biden, he'll be incredibly old.

Still a pretty high chance (maybe 50-60%) the Dem nominee will be none of those people. I'd guess very high chance the dem nominee will be either a minority or a woman though - they basically see that as free votes, and honestly they're probably right, even if it's only a few percent.

Thanks! Go ahead and post yours then we can compare later on.

FWIW my reasoning on Warren doing well in a general election:

She harnesses most of the Bernie movement and is anti-Wall Street which people seem to like, is a better public speaker imo, and doesn't appear to have the random baggage that uninformed voters could latch onto as a reason to not vote for her.

I say this as someone who thinks Bernie likely would've beaten Trump, but I also assume Bernie wouldn't want to run as much in 2020 at age 79. You basically need someone who lower-middle income voters feel are fighting for them, and being far from Wall Street and relatively new to government would help her there.

A possible solution runs an effective joint candidacy with Warren as VP, the clear suggestion being if he gets sick then there is a ready-made president in waiting.

I'm not sure I trust Warren though. She backed Hilary. A lot of people will remember that. Harsh perhaps but the left is in zero mood to compromise about anything.

Additionally the best candidate would be a young man with Bernie's policies that no one knows as of this moment. The "blank canvas" candidate is always the best.