I do have to say I was not fair. You do not seem to be an idiot after all. How could anyone with a CV as long as yours be an idiot? More likely I am the idiot.

However what I should have said is that you seem to mistake analysis for statistical methods. One uses judgment the other is a theoretical construct.

Despite the fact that your comments may be theoretically correct under certain assumptions, they appear ignorant to me. It seems more like you were trying to find some flaw no matter how minor rather than providing some critique of real value.

Data is full of gaps. And statistics by itself is just a tool. That is why fivethirtyeight.com is so successful. Perhaps you need to look harder at the simple analytic process they have laid out and see the gem. But then you are likely too distracted with developing theories to do that.

I am curious, in your work, do you use your hunches to direct your research or do you ask the computer to tell you where to look?

If it is the latter, you are likely to not consider the diversity of ideas that need to be brought together for breakthroughs.

Greg, look into my background and you will see that I am a developer of original statistical methods. In the meantime, I encourage people to visit http://leanstrategies.net, where Greg puts his statistical acumen and people skills to good use.

Is this the eduction you get at Princeton? Where does this stupidity come from? I used to think this was what awaited me in the community college? I had a few friends from Yale and assumed Princeton was a little more advanced.

Perhaps I should help you to understand. There is no such thing as certainty in prediction. Rather one must make a judgment about the data and form an opinion about the lack of completeness. Statistics is just a tool to help one make educated guesses.

However, unfortunately, when you do not understand the data you are also a fool if you fill the void with whatever thoughts you have at the time. Don’t mix stupidity with interpretation of gaps in the data.

I guess when you come from Princeton you can spend your life making up whatever opinions that your want regardless of the data.

I agree with virtually all of your points. However, a Monte Carlo Simulatuion of 5000 election trials based on state win probabilities provides a robust EV win probability. Obama won all 5000 trials, even assuming he captured only 40% of the undecided vote.

His expected EV of 379.49 is the sum of the products EV(i)* P (i), where i= 1,51 .
P(i) is the state win probabilty and EV(i) is the state electoral vote.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/2008ElectionModel.htm

The answer is yes. Electronic markets for political races lag polls because that’s what drives them. They are closely related, of course. The markets usually get the sign of an outcome right but tend to be less certain than polls would indicate. See my post on InTrade.

In 2006 InTrade had a contract that put the odds as 3-1 against a Democratic takeover of the Senate. The poll-based odds were 1-1. This was a good bet. I’m thinking about coming up with some odds like that as the election draws near.

That year I also made a speculation about the “incumbent rule” that made an incorrect prediction. This year there will be no such add-ons. If you want to do your own modifications, the clickable maps in the right sidebar may be of use, which give win probabilities with a swing of 2 points toward either candidate. I am also making available the code with documentation.

Electoral-vote.com has analysis indicating that using Election Eve polling data, without correction, is quite accurate. I did a similar analysis. Therefore you will not find in this calculation any of the many corrections suggested by others.

I think some commenters here are confusing this with the trend adjustment. The trend adjustment’s only meant to adjust the results for states demographically similar to recently-polled states, but that haven’t themselves been polled recently. As a state receives more polling, the trend adjustment is weighted correspondingly less.

In 2000, I was watching informally and noticed, as many people did, that it all came down to Florida. I don’t think enough polling data were available to do more.

Everyone, please don’t ask any more basic questions until you’ve read over the site.