HorsesAss.Org

The “This could be the last Thanksgiving ever” open thread

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How to cook a Royal Thanksgiving turkey.

James Corden: Thanksgiving edition of Side Effects May Include.

Thanksgiving Classic: Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving Massacre (with a side of word salad):

Stephen Colbert’s Turkey Tips, Part I.

Stephen Colbert’s Turkey Tips, Part II.

Late Night: What we are thankful for.

Turkeys try Thanksgiving food.

Obama pardoned the Turkey that killed my family. (Thanks, Obama!)

Late Show: How to draw a turkey by hand.

Congress talks turkey, turkey ham, and other food.

Daily Show: “U Name It” challenge for a stressful Thanksgiving:

James Corden: Friendsgiving—Thanksgiving with weed.

Stephen: The Late Show’s post-election Thanksgiving survival tips.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottlePlease join us Tuesday for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. This is the place to go for some post-election discussions of the future.

We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Can California form its own country?

Alex meets the President.

Adam Conover: The sinister reason weed is illegal:

David Pakman: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Трамп by more than one million votes.

Sam Seder: Can Obama make a Supreme Court recess appointment?

The Sexual Predator, Путин Puppet, President Elect:

David Pakman: NSA Chief, Russia hacked the 2016 election.

Mental Floss: 39 U.S. City Name origins.

Minute Physics: Is the moon held up by a spring? How perspective shapes reality.

David Packman: Racist assholes call Michelle Obama an “ape in heals”.:

Joe Biden: Building on a record of economic progress.

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

The election is over, and one thing is clear: we have a lot of work to do! Please join us Tuesday evening at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally for a post-election debriefing and discussions about the future.

We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle on Tuesday night? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

Poll and prediction postmortem podcast

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curmudgeonscornerLast Thursday, I was a guest on the Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast post-election edition. The host, Sam Minter, does his own polling aggregation site at ElectionGraphs.com. Along with co-host Iván Bou, we discuss the polling results from the election, our own final predictions and how they fared with other such sites for the first part of the podcast.

For the second part of the podcast, we explored the causes and consequences of the “greatest upset in electoral history,” and examine some possible responses to a single-party government.

Listen to the podcast here.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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John Oliver: Multilevel Marketing.

Young Turks: So…George Zimmerman walks into a bar…

Samantha Bee: A beautiful, faraway dream.

VSauce: Is it okay to touch Mars?

White House: West Wing Week.

David Pakman: Marijuana wins in 5 more states.

Catastrofuck 2016. America Elects a Racist, Sexist, Groping, Philandering, Swindling Narcissist:

Mental Floss: 28 facts about The Beatles.

Slate: The election in facial expressions.

Do Presidents get paid after leaving office?

Young Turks: GOP gloats about suppressing Black vote.

Bill Maher with Eric Holder: Abolish the electoral college.

Daily Show: Bringing America together again.

Get ready for an extra special supermoon.

Late Show: Choke it down.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

2016 National Polling

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How did the pollsters do for the 2016 election? That is a big and complicated question, because there are many different types and levels of polling done. In this post, I’ll look at the national polling in the Clinton—Trump race.

If my Twitter feed is any indication, the media seems hell-bent on the meme that “the polling was terrible” or “this is the end of polling.” But, as I show below, it wasn’t completely terrible for the national polling.

Yesterday, I heard a story on KUOW (I don’t remember the show, but perhaps All Things Considered or Here & Now) about the national polls. The story had things exactly wrong. They interviewed the director of the LA Times/USC poll (you know, the one that consistently had Trump leading Clinton), introducing it as “the one that got it right.” In fact, the LA Times/USC poll was the one that got it wrong.

Remember, national polls only tell us about the popular vote. And, as of this morning, Clinton leads in the popular vote. The LA Times/USC poll does use very interesting methods, asking their internet panel of respondents the probability of voting for each candidate. That is very cool (except for the internet panel part). But ultimately something about their poll led them to, almost uniquely, pick the wrong winner.

There are other criteria besides picking the right/wrong winner that are useful for evaluating the polls. A natural criterion is to ask which poll gets the percentages closest. That is what I have done. I’ve taken the national polling data as posted by Real Clear Politics and statistically evaluated “goodness of fit” between the poll result and the actual election outcome (as of this morning). The test I use is call a G-test of Goodness of Fit.

First I begin with the polls that did 2-way Clinton–Trump match-ups. Here are the polls from 31 Oct on, sorted newest to oldest (click for a larger image):

table1

The “fit” of the poll is better for smaller numbers in the X^2 column, and the last column gives, essentially, the probability of observing deviations from the actual outcome at least this large given the sample size, assuming the poll was a true reflection of the outcome. I’ve highlighted the best fitting with darker colors (orange). The shades of yellow denote other polls that do not differ significantly. The worst fitting, those that differ significantly from the results, are shown in white.

The best polls are the four highlighted in orange, in order: The Gravis poll taken on 31 October, the FOX News poll taken from 1-3 Nov, IBD/TIPP Tracking poll taken 4-7 Nov, and the McClatchy poll taken 1-3 Nov. Odd that the three oldest polls are the closest.

The worst poll, by far, was the NBC News/Survey Monkey online tracking poll. This poll was way too optimistic for Clinton.

The LA Times/USC poll was middling. There is only a 6% probability of observing results this bad by chance. And, of course, the poll got the wrong winner.

But we see, using 4-way races, most of the national polls were, statistically, in the ball park. Ten of 14 weren’t had outcomes that were not statistically different from the actual election.

Here is the polling for the 4-way race. The extra two categories (Johnson and Stein) provides for more ways a poll can “deviate” from the observed election results, so the polls don’t fit as well overall. Many polls are heavily penalized for doing a lousy job in the Johnson or Stein percentages, even if the Trump and Clinton percentages are okay.

table2

The best poll was by Gravis on 1-2 Nov. A later Gravis poll taken 3-6 Nov was actually one of the worst polls.

We see that, looking at a four-way race, the pollsters did not do that well. Only two of 19 polls did the results not differ significantly from the actual four-candidate distribution.

But what if we only consider the races that matter—Clinton and Trump? I’ve taken the four-way races and turned them into 2-way races. Mathematically, when doing the test, I “normalize” the results so that the sum of Clinton and Trump percentages are now 100%.

table3

We see that for 14 of the 19 polls, the results did not differ from the actual outcome. Again, the worst poll, by far, was the NBC News/Survey Monkey online tracking poll. With such a large sample, they should have been much closer than they ended up being.

So, whatever you’ve heard, the national polls were generally not that far off in predicting two outcomes of the popular vote: The winner of Clinton v. Trump, and the relative proportions of Clinton v. Trump votes.

Election 2016 Open Thread

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Here we go!

4:00: Georgia is too close to call! Trump takes Indiana and Kentucky. Hillary takes Vermont (thanks, Bros!)

4:01: South Carolina is slightly Trump leaning, but too close to call (really…not enough returns.)

4:03: Tim Scott (R), Pat Lehey (D) and Rand Paul (R) are going back to Washington D.C.

4:09: Dear MSNBC: Keep fucking Ghoul Giuliani off the fucking TV, for fuck sakes!

4:10: (p.s. if you could minimize Tweety’s time on the TV, we’d appreciate that, too.)

4:18: In my opinion, if Trump loses either Florida or North Carolina, he will lose.

4:50: SC has been called for Trump! Not a big surprise. I predicted 100% with BS polls and 77% chance without for Trump winning.

4:55: Shit’s gonna start happen’ soon.

4:45: North Carolina was called at 7:53pm PST in 2012. But, I believe a judge just extended the poll close time in some areas on account of erroneous announcements. Expect later call.

5:00: CALLS: FL, PA, NH, MO, ME, GA, NC, VA too early to call. IL, MA, CT, RI, DE, DC goes Clinton. MS, OK, AL, TN goes to Mr. Drumpf

5:03: Duckworth takes IL SEN!!!!!!!

5:05: The Duckworth win isn’t a surprise, but it is significant. Without this win, there is no way Dems would take the Senate. As it is, Dem control of the Senate is iffy.

5:09: Steve Kornacki, “…with Hillary Clinton cleaning up with Black voters in Florida….” Ummm…maybe rephrase that?

5:25: As I predicted, Young takes Indiana! That is a blow to Dem’s taking the Senate, but not unexpected given the recent polling.

5:30: Virginia has moved from “too early to call” to “too close to call”. Frankly, I don’t view that as a good sign.

5:44: Some networks call the House for the GOP. Probably true, but AP hasn’t called it yet.

5:45: Georgia is too close to call. Really?!? Georgia could go for Clinton?

5:46: On the other hand, Florida isn’t looking good for Clinton.

5:47: Clinton has a +7% lead in Ohio right now, but really the lead may not be representative.

5:55: Hassan leads Ayotte in NH, but it is too close to call.

5:56: It took four days to get a call in Florida in 2012. It looks like FL is going to fuck with America again in 2016.

6:07: Clinton wins NY. Trump takes IN, ND.

6:08: Trump takes NE. Not sure about the NE CDs, but he probably takes them, too.

6:11: Trump takes Texas. Maybe President Hillary Clinton can arrange for Trump to become president of an independent nation called Texas.

6:16: I understand FAUX News has called Arizona for Sen. McCain. Could be.

6:18: Feingold is looking strong in WI.

6:45: Frankly, it is pretty disappointing that the election is this close.

7:17: Virginia is going to Clinton. This is a “must win” for Clinton in case she loses NC and FL. She’ll need NV, WI, MI, and MN too…

7:20: The Donald takes OH. Totally expected, but an important development.

7:28: Okay…Two swing states called: OH Trump and VA Clinton.

7:36: PA is looking better. Clinton is up by 5%, although “calling” the state requires knowledge of what precincts have reported.

7:38: Are we having fun yet?

7:49: Looks like some media is callin NC for Trump…

7:52: Pennsylvania is looking good for Clinton. So here is the deal. If Trump wins FL and NC (as seems likely), Clinton needs VA and PA, which she probably has. Then she needs to sweep WI, MI, and MN, which is likely (even if Trump leads in WI right now). The critical state will be NV. It will likely determine the winner. If Trump takes one of WI MI and MN, bad news for Clinton. I had NV likely going for Trump, but I am told by a campaign doing internal polling in NV that NV will be in Clinton’s column. I’d be happy to be wrong.

BTW: Alaska is a 3-vote wild card. Last non-internet poll in AK had Clinton leading by +4% (or something). On the other hand, it is the ONLY poll that found her leading. And it was from an unknown pollster, so don’t bet the farm on AK.

7:59: Another point about NV: Most polling is likely to underestimate Clinton support because most polls don’t do Spanish versions.

8:00: Clinton takes CA, WA, and HI. Trump gets ID.

8:03: Unbelievable: Johnson is called in WI. No Senate for the Dem’s.

8:04: A couple of other points: First, I am assuming Trump will win IA, but Clinton seems to be running Strong there.

8:05: Trump takes NC.

8:22: Wisconsin is going to be VERY close. Humanity as we know it may depend on the cheesehead vote.

8:32 Trump takes Iowa and Utah. So it all comes down to MI (looking good for HRC), WI (too close) and NV.

9:20: Okay…Kathy has called and said we’ve lost power at the house, estimated until 11:00. I’m heading home.

11:32: AP has just called the election for Donald Drumpf. Should thing go as expected by Inauguration Day in January, we will be in for chaos.

Image of Trump as President of KAOS

Follow-up: Poll aggregation and more on bogus pollsters

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I was hoping for a bunch of last minute polls being released today, but nada. Perhaps they were all released all last night.

I’m a bit unhappy with the way this election cycle is ending. Since I started aggregating state presidential polls in 2007, one of my objectives has been to see how accurate a simple binomial model can be at predicting the presidential election, using only polls as the data. The model did very well in the 2008 and 2012 cycles.

It is also a more difficult business in 2016. Obviously, the demise of the norm that there be a landline in nearly every home is an emerging problem. Many pollsters supplement landline polls with a cell phone sub-sample. This is expensive, because these calls must be done by people. Interactive voice or digit response polls aren’t permitted for cell phones.

A more difficult problem for my analyses is that there has been a proliferation of internet-based polls. You’ve probably seen them: YouGov, Insights West, Google Analytics, Ipsos/Reuters, SurveyMonkey, to name a few. Most of these polls work by surveying from a very large opt-in panel, and then mathematically adjust the results to match a demographic profile. So, if not enough 50-60 year old White women respond, the few who do respond are, essentially, cloned.

I’m sure this technology can work very well with a huge panel and careful background work to perfect the methods. It may be that some internet pollsters, say YouGov, have done so. But for every YouGov, there are probably a dozen internet polls that haven’t, and they frequently have bizarre results. I don’t want to be in the business of making subjective judgments about whose polls are “good enough” to accept. Therefore, I simply exclude polls that survey internet panels.

Another problem is that internet polls generally don’t have well defined sample sizes. My analyses need to know the “effective” size of each poll to work. “Effective” means the equivalent number of individuals who, if live-polled, would generate the same statistical information as the internet poll. This should, in principle, be easy to estimate using simulation methods like bootstrap resampling, but I am not aware of direct analytical solutions (which would, at a minimum, have to use the distribution of weights). In any case, “effective” sample sizes don’t see to have made it in internet polls yet.

Unfortunately, a number of pollsters switched—sometimes right in the middle of the election season—to using an internet panel. Pollsters that come to mind include Rasmussen, Gravis, and Public Policy Polling. These three pollsters make up a substantial fraction of the total state polls done in any season. I suppose I should accept an internet panel as an approximation of the cell phone sub-sample in a poll, but I didn’t this year. Rules and all that….

Finally, there is the bogus pollsters. Regular readers may recall my fisking of a bogus Pennsylvania poll earlier this year. That was easy…they were amateurs. But the issue could be difficult to identify in real time with a bit more competence.

If you haven’t read Goldy’s takedown of Remington Research and, to a lesser extent, Trafalgar Group, read it now. This development has me down, because I am now in the predicament of ignoring suspicious polls, or playing “poll cop,” something I detest.

I frequently laugh (and mock) right-wingers and their beefs with individual polls or pollsters—think “Unskewed Polls” from 2012. The charges usually amount to nothing but hating the fact that their candidate is losing. Get a grip!

But now, that is what I seem to be doing—calling out a pollster (or two) for bogus polls. There is one difference: my motivation is to be as accurate as possible. Bogus polls fuck with me, whether they come up showing the Democrat up or the Republican up. If lefties launched an effort to dump bogus pro-Democrat polls on the market in order fuck up the aggregated results, I would call the out as well, because their bogus polls would fuck with the accuracy of my polling analyses.

As an aside, remember Birther Queen Orly Taitz? She wrote a blog post a couple of days ago calling upon both Remington Research and Trafalgar Group to swoop into New Hampshire to stop the polling trend there. Here is part of her screed:

However, Democratic Party came up with an absolutely bogus poll from WMUR/UNH, showing Trump behind by 11%, which lowered his average from winning to being 0.6% behind and his total electoral votes from winning 270 to 266. This is a clear psy-op. You can see that all the polls showed Trump leading from 5% to Clinton leading by 1%. This poll showing Clinton ahead by 11% in NH is a complete farce. By the way, Republican senator, Kelly Ayotte, is leading by the same margin and the same WMUR/UNH came with a similar bogus poll to show her far behind.
Remington and Trafalgar pollsters need to post a true poll for New Hampshire ASAP. This poll will move Trump into the lead in NH and his total electoral votes will go up from 266 to winning 270!
Readers of Taitz report are asked to call Remington and Trafalgar pollsters and urge them to publish asap a true poll for New Hampshire

Huh…

So, now I am in a position of having TWO sets of results. One set based on my stated rules and assumptions set out over a year ago. And I have the results excluding Remington Research and Trafalgar Group, whose polls I strongly suspect are bogus. Fuck, I hate that!

  • If these two pollsters are legit (full write-up): Clinton wins with 84.5% probability with, on average, 282 votes. The most likely outcome is 276 electoral votes with a 9.03% probability
  • If they are bogus, as I suspect (full write-up): Clinton wins with 98.7% probability with, on average, 310 votes. The most likely outcome is 305 electoral votes with a 5.09% probability

With any luck, we’ll know which version corresponds most closely to reality very soon. Finally, here are the relevant graphics, side by side. Click for a larger image.

bothdists

bothmaps

bothpmaps

bothtrendplots

Drinking Liberally — Seattle, Election Edition

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DLBottleIt’s election day! So, first, make sure you vote. You can find a ballot box (before 8pm) here or get your ballot in the U.S. mail and postmarked by midnight. Find out if you can vote here. In King County, accessible voting options (on-line ballot-marking and in-person voting centers) can be found here.

Then, please join us for an election-watching party at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. We usually start at 8:00pm, but some of us will be their early to watch the election coverage.





Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

Poll Analysis: Democrats make gains

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Senate Democrats*
Senate Republicans
39.2% probability
60.8% probability
Mean of 49 seats
Mean of 51 seats

Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Saturday’s analysis showed control of the Senate to likely remain in the hands of the Republicans. The Democrats had only a 12.1% probability of taking the Senate. I’ve added about 20 new polls since then. I’ve also shortened the “current poll” window to 10 days (if only to match the Presidential election).

Two days later, after 100,000 simulated elections, Democrats have a Senate majority 12,350 times, there were 26,823 ties), and Republicans control the Senate 60,827 times. In other words, Democrats have a 39.2% probability of controlling the Senate and Republicans have a 60.8% probability of controlling the Senate.

There has been a few interesting changes.

  • Florida: Democrat Patrick Murphy is trying to oust Sen. Marco Rubio (R). Rubio has held the lead in recent polls, but his margins have shrunk. Rubio’s chances have shrunk from near certainty to a 96% probability. This is still quite good, of course.
    senate07oct16-07nov16florida2

  • Missouri: Democrat Jason Kander is going after Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R) seat. We lose three old polls and gain two new ones for a total of 6 polls. Two are tied; Blunt leads by small margins in three polls. One poll has Kander up by +0.7%. This has shifted the Democrat’s chances from 6.6% to 42.9%.
    senate07oct16-07nov16missouri2

  • Nevada: We have 2 current NV polls in the open seat race between Catherine Cortez Masto (D) and Joe Heck (R). The most recent poll has Cortez Masto up +1%; the other poll has Heck up by +2%. So The Democrat’s chances have risen from 7% to 43%.

    senate07oct16-07nov16nevada1

  • New Hampshire: The state is just close, close, close. Of 7 current polls Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) leads by small margins in four, and Maggie Hassan (D) leads by small margins in three. The analysis suggests Hassan has a 33% chance of taking the seat.

    senate07oct16-07nov16new_hampshire2

  • North Carolina: This is another very close state. The four current polls give two to Sen. Richard Burr (R) and one to Deborah Ross (D); the last one is a tie. Consequently, Burr’s chances of keeping his seat has dropped from 85% to 72%.

    senate07oct16-07nov16north_carolina1

  • Wisconsin: This is the only significant gain for Republicans. Democrat Russ Feingold has been leading Sen. Ron Johnson (R) for the great majority of polls. The three “current” polls have Feingold up, but with smaller margins than the past (+1%, +2%, and +3%). Johnson’s chances have increased from 14% last Saturday to 22% now.

    senate07oct16-07nov16wisconsin1

Here is the distribution of Senate seats from the simulations:*

This graphs shows the probability of at least each number of seats controlled by the Democrats:*

  • 100000 simulations: Democrats control the Senate 39.2%, Republicans control the Senate 60.8%.
  • Average ( SE) seats for Democrats: 49.2 ( 1.1)
  • Average (SE) seats for Republicans: 50.8 ( 1.1)
  • Median (95% CI) seats for Democrats: 49 (47, 51)
  • Median (95% CI) seats for Republicans: 51 (49, 53)

Expected outcomes from the simulations:

  • Democratic seats w/no election: 35
  • Independent seats w/no election: one
  • Republican seats w/no election: 30
  • Contested Democratic seats likely to remain Democratic: nine
  • Contested Republican seats likely to remain Republican: 21
  • Contested Democratic seats likely to switch: one
  • Contested Republican seats likely to switch: three

This table shows the number of Senate seats controlled for different criteria for the probability of winning a state:* Safe>0.9999, Strong>90%, Leans>60%, Weak>50%

Threshold Safe + Strong + Leans + Weak
Safe Democrat 43
Strong Democrat 4 47
Leans Democrat 1 1 48
Weak Democrat 0 0 0 48
Weak Republican 1 1 1 52
Leans Republican 4 4 51
Strong Republican 5 47
Safe Republican 42

This table summarizes the results by state. Click on the poll number to see the individual polls included for a state.

# Sample % % Dem Rep
State @ polls size Dem Rep % wins % wins
AL 0 0 (0) (100)
AK 1& 320 23.4 76.6 0.0 100.0
AZ 6 4147 43.6 56.4 0.0 100.0
AR 1& 608 38.2 61.8 0.0 100.0
CA 1 552 63.4 36.6 100.0 0.0
CO 3 1681 54.3 45.7 99.3 0.7
CT 1& 872 61.7 38.3 100.0 0.0
FL 4 2739 47.6 52.4 3.7 96.3
GA 3 2008 44.1 55.9 0.0 100.0
HI 0 0 (100) (0)
ID 1& 823 29.5 70.5 0.0 100.0
IL 1 450 60.0 40.0 99.9 0.1
IN 2 884 48.3 51.7 23.6 76.4
IA 3 1804 37.1 62.9 0.0 100.0
KS 1 535 36.4 63.6 0.0 100.0
KY 1& 566 41.5 58.5 0.2 99.8
LA 1& 794 34.6 65.4 0.0 100.0
MD 1& 614 66.6 33.4 100.0 0.0
MO 6 4595 49.0 51.0 17.1 82.9
NV 2 1332 49.6 50.4 42.9 57.1
NH 7 4312 49.5 50.5 32.6 67.4
NY 1 567 72.8 27.2 100.0 0.0
NC 4 2777 49.2 50.8 28.2 71.8
ND 0 0 (0) (100)
OH 3 2342 38.6 61.4 0.0 100.0
OK 0 0 (0) (100)
OR 1& 558 62.7 37.3 100.0 0.0
PA 8 4945 52.4 47.6 99.3 0.7
SC 1& 941 38.4 61.6 0.0 100.0
SD 1& 534 39.3 60.7 0.1 99.9
UT 2 778 28.7 71.3 0.0 100.0
VT 1& 559 69.1 30.9 100.0 0.0
WA 1 641 56.8 43.2 99.2 0.8
WI 3 2778 51.0 49.0 78.1 21.9

@ Current party in office
& An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
*Analysis assume that the two independent candidates will caucus with the Democrats.

Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.

Poll Analysis: Playing with questionable polls

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Clinton
Trump
84.5% probability of winning
15.5% probability of winning
Mean of 282 electoral votes
Mean of 256 electoral votes


Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Yesterday’s analysis showed Sec. Hillary Clinton (D) leading Donald Trump (R) with 290 EVs to 248 EVs. If the election was held yesterday, we would expect Clinton to win with an 86.8% chance.

Since that analysis there have been about 28 new polls release that satisfy my inclusion criteria. I should point out, that the new polls include eight new polls from Remington Research (R) and four from Trafalgar Group (R). If the significance of this escapes you, read Goldy’s post.

One of the things I am going to do in this analysis is do two analyses: one with these two pollsters included, and one that excludes all Remington and Trafalgar polls. Pick the one you wish.

Which one is right? It is hard to say. I hate accusing a pollster of producing bogus polls. I’ve had numerous people complain about including this poll or that poll, and I ignore them. The entire premise of my effort is that by aggregating polls broadly, any “house effects” will cancel. But the oddities of Remington are clear. Trafalgar polls also seem quite dodgy.

Okay…Here we go. Scroll down or click here for the alternative analysis.

Analysis with All Polls

Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 84,508 times and Trump wins 15,492 times (including the 2,449 ties). Clinton received (on average) 282 (-8) to Trump’s 256 (+8) electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 84.5% probability of winning and Trump would have a 15.5% probability of winning. Thus, Clinton slips a bit, but the race isn’t changing much.

The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 07 Nov 2015 to 07 Nov 2016, and including polls from the preceding ten days (FAQ).

An animated sequence of maps and electoral vote distributions can be seen here

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]

Poll Analysis: Clinton slips a little more

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Clinton
Trump
86.8% probability of winning
13.2% probability of winning
Mean of 290 electoral votes
Mean of 248 electoral votes


Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

On Friday, my analysis showed Sec. Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump with a mean of 295 to 243 electoral votes. If the election had been held on Friday, Clinton would have won with a 94.2% probability.

There were only a few new polls released on Saturday. On Sunday a few more were released and I found a few missing from the database. We now have eleven new polls added since the last analysis. Of course, some polls will “age-out” on account of being more than ten days old.

Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 86,835 times and Trump wins 13,165 times (including the 2,645 ties). Clinton received (on average) 290 (-5) to Trump’s 248 (+5) electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 86.8% probability of winning and Trump would have a 13.2% probability of winning.

The biggest changes occur in ten states + Maine’s two Congressional districts. Five of these changes favor Clinton and six favor Trump.

  • Florida (+Clinton): No new polls in Florida, but five polls slightly favoring Trump “age out”. This shifts Clinton’s chances from 43% to 53%. Florida is still a toss-up, but now Clinton has a tiny edge.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16florida
  • Georgia (+Clinton): We lost one and gained one poll. The four current polls are slightly better for Clinton. Trump drops from a 96% chance to a 91% chance of taking the state.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16georgia
  • Iowa (+Trump): Two new polls, including one Trump+7% poll shifts Trump’s chances from 70% to 89%.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16iowa
  • Maine (+Trump): No new polling, but one poll ages out. In the state overall, Clinton drops from 90% to 79% chance of winning the state.
  • Maine CD-1 (+Trump): Maine’s CD-1 has changed as well. Clinton drops from 98% to 82% chance.
  • Maine CD-2 (+Clinton): The dropped poll favored Trump. Now we have one poll that favors Clinton. Her chances have gone from 44% to 62%, flipping ME-2 from red to blue.
  • Nevada (+Trump): We lose a poll and gain a poll since Friday for a total of four current polls. The new poll, from the Trafalgar Group, is a Republican pollser. Remington Research, another Republican pollster, contributes as well. The net result is that Trump has gone from 86% to 96% chances in the state. Yes…I’ve read about the early voting, and even read the piece about how Harry Reid has put Nevada out of reach for Trump. Still, my analyses are driven by polls.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16nevada
  • New Hampshire (+Trump): One poll has aged out. It is Clinton+3%, so Trump goes from a 51% chance on Friday to a 58% chance today.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16new-hampshire
  • New Mexico (+Clinton): We had a Clinton+3% poll on Friday, and the addition of a second poll, with Clinton at +5%, so Clinton goes from chances of 77% to 86%.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16new-mexico
  • North Carolina (+Trump): Four polls drop out, and three favored Clinton, plus a tie. Here is another case where we have a pair of polls from Remington Research and The Grafalgar Group, both G.O.P. pollsters. The result is Trump moves from a 46% probability to a 91% probability of taking North Carolina.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16north-carolina
  • Ohio (+Clinton): We lose two old polls (a tie and a Trump+4.4% from Trafalgar Group) and gain one new poll (Clinton+1% from a mail-in Columbus Dispatch poll). The result is that Trump’s chances have dropped from 96% to 86%.
    clintontrump06oct16-06nov16ohio

The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 06 Nov 2015 to 06 Nov 2016, and including polls from the preceding ten days (FAQ).

An animated sequence of maps and electoral vote distributions can be seen here

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:

The distribution takes on an interesting bimodal (or even trimodal) form. The major modes at 301 and 272 are caused by the fact that Florida is nearly a toss-up (272 + Florida’s 29 EVs = 301). If tonight was election night, an early call in Florida would tell us whether Clinton walks away with the election or whether it is going to be a long night!

The small variability around the two major modes is largely driven by the fact that New Hampshire is almost a toss-up.

That third mode to the right is largely driven by Ohio, which isn’t quit a toss-up at an 86% chance of going to Trump.

[Read more…]

Poll Analysis: Control of the Senate shifts to the GOP

by — ,


Senate Democrats*
Senate Republicans
12.1% probability
87.9% probability
Mean of 49 seats
Mean of 51 seats

Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

My analysis last Sunday showed control of the Senate to be a toss up at 48% probability for Democrats and 52% for Republicans. The expected outcome was a 49 to 51 split in favor of the Republicans.

Since then, I’ve added something exceeding 50 polls to the mix. As we saw in the Presidential race, the polls since last Sunday have tended to be more favoriable to Republicans.

Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Democrats have a Senate majority 1,762 times, and I’ll assume they control the Senate with the 10,293 ties. The Republicans control the Senate 87,945 times. This suggests Democrats have a 12.1% probability of controlling the Senate and Republicans have a 87.9% probability of controlling the Senate. So, indeed, the Democrat’s chances have fallen.

The Republican candidate has primarily gained in five states.

In Indiana, Democrat Evan Bayh’s once solid lead has vanished. Last Sunday, he had an 88.5% probability of defeating Todd Young (R). Today he would win with a 24.1% probability. The polling picture pretty much tells the story.

senate05oct16-05nov16indiana1

Sen. Roy Blunt (R) has strengthened his lead over Jason Kander (D) in Missouri. Last analysis Blunt was at a 77.8% probability of winning, but five new polls, including two ties and three with Blunt up, puts the probability at 92.8% today. On the other hand, two months ago, there was little evidence that Blunt would lose.

senate05oct16-05nov16missouri2

In Nevada, five polls aged out, and these mostly favored Catherine Cortez Mastro (D) over Joe Heck (R). Heck leads in four of the five current polls. Consequently, the Republican has gone from a 54% to a 93% probability of winning today.

senate05oct16-05nov16nevada1

The story is somewhat similar in New Hampshire. Four polls aged out, including one that had Maggie Hassan (D) up by +9 over Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R). The new polling has mostly been more favorable to Ayotte. We now have ten current polls, six that favor Ayotte, two that favor Hassan, and two ties. The net result is that Ayotte has gone from a 67% chance to an 86% chance of winning an election today.

senate05oct16-05nov16new_hampshire2

In Wisconsin, four polls aged out, including one with Russ Feingold leading Sen. Ron Johnson by +12%. The four current polls have Feingold up by +8%, +5%, +1%, and +2%. As a result, Feingold’s chances have dropped from 99.8% to 85.9%.

senate05oct16-05nov16wisconsin1

Democrats have made a couple of notable gains.

The North Carolina senate race largely favors Sen. Richard Burr (R) over challenger Deborah Ross (D). But the last couple of days have seen one tie and two polls that favor the Democrat. The result is that Burr has fallen from a 90% probability of winning last Sunday to an 86% chance today.

senate05oct16-05nov16north_carolina1

The biggest news for Democrats happens in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Pat Toomey (R) is being challenged by Democrat Katie McGinty. Seven polls aged-out, and these polls were pretty much a toss-up between the two candidates. Eight new polls have been added that largely favor McGinty. With the four carry-over polls, we now have two current polls that favor Toomey, eight that favor McGinty, and two ties. As a result, Pennsylvania has flipped from red to blue. McGinty was at a 45.8% probability of winning last Sunday, and she would win a race today with a 99.7% probability.

senate05oct16-05nov16pennsylvania2

Here is the distribution of Senate seats from the simulations:*

This graphs shows the probability of at least each number of seats controlled by the Democrats:*

  • 100000 simulations: Democrats control the Senate 12.1%, Republicans control the Senate 87.9%.
  • Average ( SE) seats for Democrats: 48.5 ( 0.8)
  • Average (SE) seats for Republicans: 51.5 ( 0.8)
  • Median (95% CI) seats for Democrats: 48 (47, 50)
  • Median (95% CI) seats for Republicans: 52 (50, 53)

Expected outcomes from the simulations:

  • Democratic seats w/no election: 35
  • Independent seats w/no election: one
  • Republican seats w/no election: 30
  • Contested Democratic seats likely to remain Democratic: nine
  • Contested Republican seats likely to remain Republican: 21
  • Contested Democratic seats likely to switch: one
  • Contested Republican seats likely to switch: three

This table shows the number of Senate seats controlled for different criteria for the probability of winning a state:* Safe>0.9999, Strong>90%, Leans>60%, Weak>50%

Threshold Safe + Strong + Leans + Weak
Safe Democrat 45
Strong Democrat 2 47
Leans Democrat 1 1 48
Weak Democrat 0 0 0 48
Weak Republican 0 0 0 52
Leans Republican 3 3 52
Strong Republican 4 49
Safe Republican 45

This table summarizes the results by state. Click on the poll number to see the individual polls included for a state.

# Sample Percent Percent Democrat Republican
State @ polls size Democrat Republican % wins % wins
AL 0 0 (0) (100)
AK 1& 320 23.4 76.6 0.0 100.0
AZ 6 3957 43.6 56.4 0.0 100.0
AR 2 1006 38.7 61.3 0.0 100.0
CA 3 2372 62.0 38.0 100.0 0.0
CO 3 1681 54.3 45.7 99.2 0.8
CT 1& 872 61.7 38.3 100.0 0.0
FL 13 9570 47.4 52.6 0.0 100.0
GA 6 3788 43.4 56.6 0.0 100.0
HI 0 0 (100) (0)
ID 1 823 29.5 70.5 0.0 100.0
IL 3 1973 56.8 43.2 100.0 0.0
IN 2 884 48.3 51.7 24.1 75.9
IA 4 2548 38.1 61.9 0.0 100.0
KS 1 535 36.4 63.6 0.0 100.0
KY 2 1323 43.4 56.6 0.1 99.9
LA 1& 794 34.6 65.4 0.0 100.0
MD 1& 614 66.6 33.4 100.0 0.0
MO 7 5594 48.6 51.4 7.2 92.8
NV 5 3356 48.2 51.8 6.6 93.4
NH 10 6238 49.1 50.9 14.4 85.6
NY 1 568 71.0 29.0 100.0 0.0
NC 11 7216 49.1 50.9 15.3 84.7
ND 0 0 (0) (100)
OH 3 1609 40.9 59.1 0.0 100.0
OK 0 0 (0) (100)
OR 1& 558 62.7 37.3 100.0 0.0
PA 12 9083 51.9 48.1 99.7 0.3
SC 1& 941 38.4 61.6 0.0 100.0
SD 3 2031 36.7 63.3 0.0 100.0
UT 3 1394 29.5 70.5 0.0 100.0
VT 1 559 69.1 30.9 100.0 0.0
WA 2 1103 59.4 40.6 100.0 0.0
WI 4 2465 51.6 48.4 85.9 14.1

@ Current party in office
& An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
*Analysis assume that the two independent candidates will caucus with the Democrats.

Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.

Follow me (@hominidviews) on Twitter for Senate and Presidential polling and analysis updates.

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