Summary

Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight has named Vice President Kamala Harris as the narrow favorite to win the presidential race on Election Day, shifting from former President Donald Trump for the first time since October 17.

Harris’s lead is razor-thin, with FiveThirtyEight’s model showing her winning 50 out of 100 simulations compared to Trump’s 49. Similarly, Nate Silver’s model in The Silver Bulletin also slightly favors Harris, giving her a win in 50.015% of cases.

Both forecasts emphasize the unprecedented closeness of this race, with Pennsylvania as a key battleground.

  • Beacon@fedia.io
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    16 days ago

    50.015% literally means that neither candidate is favored to win. Take out a coin, assign Harris as heads and trump as tails, now flip the coin a bunch of times - and that’s exactly how often Harris or trump is likely to win the election

    EDIT

    Nate Silver just posted his final pre-election blog post and he explains very clearly that this is a dead even race. Either candidate is just as likely to win as the other candidate.

    https://www.natesilver.net/p/a-random-number-generator-determined

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      16 days ago

      I heard that Nate was also being critical of pollsters who were “herding” their results to not get caught too far on the wrong side, and yet he’s doing it. I’m just going to watch the results come in and not worry about trying to predict the future that will be known soon enough.

      The only good thing with all these “tied” poll reports is that it may encourage voting to break a perceived tie. So vote like it’s tied, and hope for a blowout.

      • Beacon@fedia.io
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        16 days ago

        He’s not doing anything. His model is setup many months before the election, and then it stays completely unchanged until the election is over. He doesn’t do any polling, he just runs his pre-set simulation model on the data that the pollsters release

        • scarabine@lemmynsfw.com
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          16 days ago

          His model and 538s have both produced outcomes where one candidate gets 520+ EVs.

          He assigns the quality ratings to polls himself and publicly announces them. They’re based on whether or not they predicted the outcome of the election.

          It’s his very poll scoring system that causes polls to herd. Because even if they’re wrong, they’re wrong together.

          He determines the weights of those polls and chooses how to apply them.

          Nate has done plenty.

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    16 days ago

    The headline is misleading.

    Out of 80,000 simulations, Harris won in 50.015 percent of cases, while Trump won in 49.65 percent of cases, per Silver’s model. Some 270 simulations resulted in a 269-269 Electoral College tie.

    So a better headline would be “Simulations show Harris and Trump are equally likely to win the election.” The difference between them is insignificant.

    And when you factor in all the underhand cheating tactics the Republicans have up their sleeve, the Democrats’ tendency to cave, and the Supreme Court’s bias, Trump looks a lot more likely to win than Harris.

    • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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      16 days ago

      So a better headline would be “Simulations show a high likelihood of political violence and another SCOTUS stolen election a la 2000”.

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    In 2016, Trump needed to win three states that were coin flips to win the race. With that, pollsters said he had a 1 in 8 chance. Trump took those coins, glued them together (the states had correlated outcomes) and then flipped the 3-coins-glued-together and got all three to land heads. So instead of a 1 in 8, it was a 1 in 2.

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    “Suddenly”. Mainstream media is realizing they are at a risk of becoming irrelevant due to their blatant lies and disparity in their coverage for Kamala vs Trump.

  • TipRing@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    The safest prediction of 50/50. No matter who wins they can claim to have called it.

    • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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      15 days ago

      Like fine milk.

      This was one of the last things I read before going to sleep. I thought it might be true.

  • JWBananas@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    The fucking media!

    Look at this.

    These two posts are about the exact same data from the exact same source:

    Notice the subtle difference?

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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    16 days ago

    Polls be dammed. If Kamala doesn’t win a significant victory today, I’ll be shocked and my faith in humanity will be shaken. Again.

    • NineMileTower@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I cannot wait to stop seeing this comment. “Doesn’t matter. Go vote.” Like people on Lemmy or even reddit for that matter are unaware of the impact of voting.

        • NineMileTower@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.Doesn’t matter. Go vote.

          pls upvote me

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
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      16 days ago

      Everyone’s been talking to grandma this cycle. The grandmas are out in force.

      Respect granny and go do the same.