It’s been over a week since Romney’s continuing involvement in Bain in 1999-2002 have been in the spotlight, how they make money, and whether he will ever fully release his tax returns (see also Fallows here). The effect on the race so far…none. Contra Sullivan, Obama is ahead, but it’s tight. Summer polls are sparse, […]
Entries from July 19th, 2012
Romney hit hard on Bain/taxes…where’s the effect?
July 19th, 2012, 9:55am by Sam Wang
Tags: 2012 Election · Politics · President
Can voter ID laws affect the Presidential election?
July 14th, 2012, 7:13am by Sam Wang
In a very close race, voter ID measures could affect the outcome. In the extreme scenario, it could flip the Presidential election. How? About 10% of Americans currently lack government-issued ID. This is a Democratic-leaning population. The percentage is higher among African-Americans. States that have new voter requirements include Pennsylvania, Florida, Iowa, Virginia and Ohio. […]
Tags: 2012 Election · Politics · President
On Citizens United’s true impact in 2012
July 11th, 2012, 5:01pm by Sam Wang
The largest effect of the Citizens United ruling is probably not the Presidential race, which is sufficiently well-funded for messages to get out on both sides. And, for the moment, that race looks hard to flip. However, Congressional and state races are another story. Imagine if you had $50 million to distribute to 5 critical Senate races […]
Tags: 2012 Election · House · Politics · Senate
Weaknesses of InTrade – and opportunities
July 11th, 2012, 9:29am by Sam Wang
Failures of InTrade to accurately estimate probabilities are frequent. The reasons are obvious, but perhaps unappreciated by market-worshippers. Some of those reasons lead to inefficiencies…which could be exploited.
Tags: 2012 Election · Uncategorized
A GOP primary for Democrats (!) to donate
July 10th, 2012, 4:54pm by Sam Wang
As I’ve written before, if you are looking for wise ways to deploy your campaign donations, an effective strategy is to look for races where the outcome is on a knife edge, then give to push the probability in one direction or the other. For the moment, that’s not the Presidential race, where Obama is […]
Tags: 2012 Election
Analysis issues (part 1)
July 9th, 2012, 9:43am by Sam Wang
Most of you won’t notice the details, but here are some issues on my mind.
Tags: 2012 Election · Site News
Obama 318 EV popular +3.0% Meta +3.7%; House Dem win 91%; Senate toss-up!
July 8th, 2012, 8:53am by Sam Wang
Update: Presidential charts are live! All credit is due to our own Andrew Ferguson, as well as Pollster.com, whose high-quality data feed we rely on. Stay tuned for Senate/House… Poll-based “forecasts” add gratuitous uncertainty that make a race look closer than it really is. This leads to underestimates of the EV estimator and the current […]
Tags: 2012 Election
New jobs report – Journalists and statistics
July 6th, 2012, 2:10pm by Sam Wang
It’s unfortunate that many journalists lack good intuitions about how to look at data. Here’s the latest example: via Andrew Sullivan, a claim that jobs are on a downward trend based on this chart. Can you see the problem? Here’s the answer:
Tags: 2012 Election · Politics
A belated happy 4th of July
July 5th, 2012, 9:58am by Sam Wang
Greetings, and thank you to all those who serve our nation: teachers, doctors, mailmen and mailwomen, scientists, construction workers, policemen, soldiers… This is a good occasion to (re)read General McChrystal’s inspiring essay on national service. Happy 4th!
Tags: Uncategorized
