"In his latest debacle, Nate Silver was among many pollsters/pundits who in 2016 forecasted a super-high probability for a Hillary Clinton win (after giving Donald Trump only 2% probability to make it through his primaries).
This high “probability” was of course mistaken, and sets an extraordinarily high bar for actual delivery of outcomes.
And he was in the high 80% range, for a couple months prior to the election.
These high probabilities are nothing new to Nate Silver, but also provides an opportunity to examine how poor polling works and how we might be better served ignoring them and instead listening to one another.
...So what would be a good baseline for presidential elections?
The “dumb forecaster” in journal literature from the American Statistical Association, where I have served on their editorial panel, is simply guessing the same election results as what just happened in the previous election.
No more, no less.
Put differently, one doesn’t need to think any further than to state that all the 2016 state’s electoral results will be the same as in 2012!
Lots here, read on!!
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