Comments on: Data doesn’t play politics — and most of it suggests Obama will win

By: Britney Johnson

Britney Johnson — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 19:53:32 +0000

Politicit is based in Logan not Provo.

By: eojsmada

eojsmada — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:19:34 +0000

But the issue is that 97% of the experts do not agree on GW, but rather 97% of the experts that you read. Hence, why polling and date are skewed. If I put out a biased poll, it makes no difference the size of the sampling it is simply a defective data set. And to borrow your meteorological analogy, if I have only 1 place that I “trust” to give me weather information but they are consistently wrong, but I still pay attention to what they say, then what conclusion do you draw? The rest of the logical world blames both parties, the one who consistently gives the incorrect information and the person who continues to believe that information. Polling is all about an intended answer. The polls that have asked the more “neutral” questions tend to get panned by the media for doing so, and consequently don’t get reported or get tossed aside as a “high/low” in the average assessment of polls. So not only are you dealing with the majority of polling being heavily determinant, but then you have to add the other factor of biased reporting.

And no…not a troll. Just merely a student of logical reasoning. That anyone thinks the majority of political polling is not skewed is living in some bizarre reality that simply is not the case.

By: Danox

Danox — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 19:27:33 +0000

Single Payer, Same Sex Marriage, no ice at the North Pole, and the benefits of Stem Cell Research is coming deal with it all within 20 years.

By: Derrick Harris

Derrick Harris — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 07:34:52 +0000

Thanks for noting the additional models. You’re definitely right about the polls vs. economy distinction. I haven’t done an analysis, but it would be interesting to see which ones perform better historically.

By: howard

howard — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 04:00:57 +0000

Two additional prominent poll aggregation models are provided by (1) Pollster / Huffington Post and (2) Princeton Election Consortium. The former’s models are built by Simon Jackman (Stanford) and rely on both national & state polls, the latter’s by Sam Wang (Princeton) rely solely on state polls. These models’ probabilities of an Obama victory are 88% and > 95% respectively. Generally it looks like poll aggregation-based models like these and Nate Silver’s are assigning a high probability to an Obama victory, while models that heavily rely on economic fundamentals favor Romney.

By: Taylen Peterson

Taylen Peterson — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:05:26 +0000

Assuming you’re not trolling* let me help you out. These data models come from hundreds (and some) of polls across both national and state samples. They have right-leaning and left-leaning polls. They take into account MoE. They recognize our Electoral College system and factor that into their estimates (which explains how Romney could be leading the national polls but still losing in a landslide in EVs). They ask questions in an assortment of ways. They even each other out by using so much data that outliers are smoothed out by the rest of the data (and outliers in the opposite direction). They use cold hard numbers, not emotions or feelings, to predict the likelihood of each winning. I get your comment that the numbers come from people with opinions/feelings on the matter, but that’s why pollsters don’t ask only 5 people, pollsters ask thousands of people, and those thousands of people across thousands of polls adds up to a very large sample size.

Let’s say your local weatherman says there’s a 30% chance of raining. If it rained, you wouldn’t be entirely surprised, but the data says that it most likely won’t. If a basketball player is shooting 90% from the free-throw line and he misses, it’d be out of the ordinary, but not completely surprising. So just because the polls don’t look the way you want them to, doesn’t mean that they’re biased.

(Note: not a single one of these is saying they are 100% going to be right. It’s pundits who are paid to have ridiculous partisan opinions who say that.)

And I guess you could say GW isn’t settled…but when 97% of the experts in a field agree on it, I’m going to trust their scientific research, not Bill O’Reilly’s opinion.

*As Fry would say: Not sure if trolling…or just stupid.

By: ella

ella — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:48:32 +0000

with obamacare you will have cancer coverage but you will receive no treatment…got it??

By: eojsmada

eojsmada — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:01:38 +0000

Getting those data points is absolutely political in nature. Because the question asked, and the format of the response, elicits a particular pattern that is wanted from the individual(s) asking the question.

Nice try, though. It’s like saying that Global Warming is “Settled Science”.

By: alexmedawayhasleftthebuilding

alexmedawayhasleftthebuilding — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:42:07 +0000

there can’t be enough super-rich people in america to elect romney. anybody who is concerned that someday they might go broke because of cancer in their family has an obvious choice