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2018 Midterm Elections

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  • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
    Well horse odds are determined by betting, so it means that like in a poll, more people bet on the horse to win than lose, so the track adjusts the payout to accommodate it. You can think of it as a poll of the betters. If a lot of people bet on the horse to win, it's payout will be less. Crowdsourcing in a way. The track is betting the people know what they are doing as a group.
    No, the track is tallying the bets they receive and attempting to adjust their odds so that the total amount they pay out is less than the total amount paid in. That's why the odds change during the day.
    Most times they are right, but sometimes they are wrong. If the odds are 100/1 that would indicate that the track (based on betting) thinks that horse will lose.
    No, it means that less than 1% of the bets placed were for that horse.
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    • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
      Yes - the adjustment is based on the betting - not on the capabilities of the horse, nor the probability of winning. It has more to do with the house controlling their win/loss ratio. Ergo, the link to the election process is essentially nonexistent.

      Look, Sparko, I know it's a major meme that the "polls were wrong." A lot of people buy it and it's an easy meme to put out there because most people do not understand polling and probability concepts. It just won't convince someone who actually does.

      Last word to you. Opportunity to practice my carpescape!
      What do you think polls do? They are gauging the chances of which candidate will win based on what the people they interview say. Just like the track does. They are based on popularity. The problem with the polls is that the pollsters are biased in the questions they ask and how they ask them. Sometimes in who they call. They use those results to predict a winner. They predicted Clinton would win. They were wrong. There is no "mostly right" - they chose Clinton as the winner and they were wrong. You still haven't addressed why such an overwhelming majority of these polls predicted Clinton would win if it was within the margin of error. If the margin was so close why did the error always fall on the Clinton side? You may avoid your carpescape to answer that.

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      • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        What do you think polls do? They are gauging the chances of which candidate will win based on what the people they interview say. Just like the track does. They are based on popularity. The problem with the polls is that the pollsters are biased in the questions they ask and how they ask them. Sometimes in who they call. They use those results to predict a winner. They predicted Clinton would win. They were wrong. There is no "mostly right" - they chose Clinton as the winner and they were wrong. You still haven't addressed why such an overwhelming majority of these polls predicted Clinton would win if it was within the margin of error. If the margin was so close why did the error always fall on the Clinton side? You may avoid your carpescape to answer that.
        Well, I was going to leave your question unresponded to, until that last sentence. Your post here shows that you are again conflating two things: a) a poll that predicts the distribution of the vote, and b) a statement of probability of a win. Election polling is usually not prone to "misleading questions" in the way other polls can be because they tend to ask simple, "do you plan to vote" and "which candidate do you plan to vote for" types of question. The error they are prone to has more to do with whom is being asked rather than what is being asked. So a poll will come up with numbers like, "44.1% vote for Trump and "48.2%" will vote for Clinton. The margin of error simply says what the range is around that number, so if that poll had a 3% margin of error, it suggests Trump will see between 41.1 and 47.1% of the vote and Clinton will see between 45.2 and 51.2% of the vote. Note the overlap. If a state showed such polling numbers, Trump could get 47% of the vote and Clinton 45% of the vote, and it would still be within the poll's margin of error.

        The predictions about "likelihood of winning" then look at the polls across all of the states, and assign a probability value of a win to each state based on the polling. For the above example, Clinton has a higher probability of winning, but there is a possibility that the actual vote could fall in the overlap, so Trump is not "out of the picture" for that state. It might therefore produce a probability of a Clinton win at 72% and a Trump win at 28% (in that state). Montana, on the other hand, had 56.5% Trump and Clinton 36% with a 3% margin of error, which produces NO overlap. Trump can get 53.5%-59.5% and Clinton can get 33%-39% and be within the margin of error, but the polling suggests there is almost no way Clinton can get this state. The probability of Trump winning Montana was probably 99% to Clinton's 1%. Then those state-level probabilities are worked into a larger model for the country as a whole, factoring in the electoral college issue. Most of those models gave Clinton a higher probability of a win than Trump.

        And here is where you make a mistake. The margin of error is about the polls - not the probabilities of the win. And you further make a mistake to assume that someone saying Clinton probability of win is 78.1% and Trump is 21.9% is "wrong" if Trump wins. You are reading it as, "whoever has the higher number will win, or the statement is wrong." That is not how probability works. I have shown you this several times, and you have never responded to it. So I'll repeat:

        If you have two coins, and you flip both of them, there are four possible outcomes: HH, HT, TH, TT. This means the probability of two tails is 1/4 or 25%. The probability of at least one head is 75%. If you actually DO this experiment and it lands TT, you have not proven that the predicted probabilities are wrong. TT has a 25% chance of turning up - and it did.

        If you have a die and roll it, the probability of rolling a six is 1/6 or 16.6% and the probability of NOT rolling a six is 5/6 or 83.4%. If you roll the die and it comes up six, no one would say "the probabilities were wrong!" It simply means the 16.6% probability "hit."

        This is what you are trying to do with Trump/Clinton. Most gave Clinton a higher probability of winning. NYT had it as extreme was 95% to 5%. Trump won. That doesn't make them wrong. It means the 5% hit. If you are going to apply "wrong" to this scenario, you HAVE to apply "wrong" to the previous two scenarios. That suggests you do not understand probabilities. If you cannot apply it to the previous two scenarios, you cannot apply it to the Clinton/Trump scenario either.

        We CAN ask, "why did the lower probability pan out?" Four of the states had inaccurate polls, and those four states happened to go for Trump when the polling suggested Clinton would take them, but by a fairly narrow margin. After all, Trump squeaked out hs win by less then 100,000 votes out of over 125M cast. So his margin was about 0.08% of the vote.

        Not sure if that helps - and I'll probably get "too wordy" (guilty), but there it is. Numbers and math are a hobby of mine.
        Last edited by carpedm9587; 04-27-2018, 10:08 AM.
        The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

        I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

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        • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
          Well, I was going to leave your question unresponded to, until that last sentence. Your post here shows that you are again conflating two things: a) a poll that predicts the distribution of the vote, and b) a statement of probability of a win. Election polling is usually not prone to "misleading questions" in the way other polls can be because they tend to ask simple, "do you plan to vote" and "which candidate do you plan to vote for" types of question. The error they are prone to has more to do with whom is being asked rather than what is being asked. So a poll will come up with numbers like, "44.1% vote for Trump and "48.2%" will vote for Clinton. The margin of error simply says what the range is around that number, so if that poll had a 3% margin of error, it suggests Trump will see between 41.1 and 47.1% of the vote and Clinton will see between 45.2 and 51.2% of the vote. Note the overlap. If a state showed such polling numbers, Trump could get 47% of the vote and Clinton 45% of the vote, and it would still be within the poll's margin of error.

          The predictions about "likelihood of winning" then look at the polls across all of the states, and assign a probability value of a win to each state based on the polling. For the above example, Clinton has a higher probability of winning, but there is a possibility that the actual vote could fall in the overlap, so Trump is not "out of the picture" for that state. It might therefore produce a probability of a Clinton win at 72% and a Trump win at 28% (in that state). Montana, on the other hand, had 56.5% Trump and Clinton 36% with a 3% margin of error, which produces NO overlap. Trump can get 53.5%-59.5% and Clinton can get 33%-39% and be within the margin of error, but the polling suggests there is almost no way Clinton can get this state. The probability of Trump winning Montana was probably 99% to Clinton's 1%. Then those state-level probabilities are worked into a larger model for the country as a whole, factoring in the electoral college issue. Most of those models gave Clinton a higher probability of a win than Trump.

          And here is where you make a mistake. The margin of error is about the polls - not the probabilities of the win. And you further make a mistake to assume that someone saying Clinton probability of win is 78.1% and Trump is 21.9% is "wrong" if Trump wins. You are reading it as, "whoever has the higher number will win, or the statement is wrong." That is not how probability works. I have shown you this several times, and you have never responded to it. So I'll repeat:

          If you have two coins, and you flip both of them, there are four possible outcomes: HH, HT, TH, TT. This means the probability of two tails is 1/4 or 25%. The probability of at least one head is 75%. If you actually DO this experiment and it lands TT, you have not proven that the predicted probabilities are wrong. TT has a 25% chance of turning up - and it did.

          If you have a die and roll it, the probability of rolling a six is 1/6 or 16.6% and the probability of NOT rolling a six is 5/6 or 83.4%. If you roll the die and it comes up six, no one would say "the probabilities were wrong!" It simply means the 16.6% probability "hit."

          This is what you are trying to do with Trump/Clinton. Most gave Clinton a higher probability of winning. NYT had it as extreme was 95% to 5%. Trump won. That doesn't make them wrong. It means the 5% hit. If you are going to apply "wrong" to this scenario, you HAVE to apply "wrong" to the previous two scenarios. That suggests you do not understand probabilities. If you cannot apply it to the previous two scenarios, you cannot apply it to the Clinton/Trump scenario either.

          We CAN ask, "why did the lower probability pan out?" Four of the states had inaccurate polls, and those four states happened to go for Trump when the polling suggested Clinton would take them, but by a fairly narrow margin. After all, Trump squeaked out hs win by less then 100,000 votes out of over 125M cast. So his margin was about 0.08% of the vote.

          Not sure if that helps - and I'll probably get "too wordy" (guilty), but there it is. Numbers and math are a hobby of mine.
          You wasted the chance I gave you to repeat yourself again, using even more words and still not answer my question. Also polls are not reporting probabilities, they are reporting what people told them in interviews and then predicting who will win. If a poll says 49 points to Clinton and 43 to Trump that is a tally of what they learned through their interviews. 49 percent said they would vote for Clinton, 43 for Trump. I believe they were accurate in reporting their numbers. But their polls were flawed in that the answers they got were skewed to Clinton making their prediction wrong.

          So again, why did such an overwhelming majority of these polls predicted Clinton would win if it was within the margin of error. If the margin was so close why did the error always fall on the Clinton side?

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          • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
            You wasted the chance I gave you to repeat yourself again, using even more words and still not answer my question. Also polls are not reporting probabilities, they are reporting what people told them in interviews and then predicting who will win. If a poll says 49 points to Clinton and 43 to Trump that is a tally of what they learned through their interviews. 49 percent said they would vote for Clinton, 43 for Trump. I believe they were accurate in reporting their numbers. But their polls were flawed in that the answers they got were skewed to Clinton making their prediction wrong.
            The polls, which you have correctly identified above, were right in all but four states. The voting fell within the poll's margins of error, which is how it works (except in those four states).

            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
            So again, why did such an overwhelming majority of these polls predicted Clinton would win if it was within the margin of error. If the margin was so close why did the error always fall on the Clinton side?
            Again - you are conflating two things: a poll predicts what the distribution of the vote is expected to be in a given state (or the country as a whole). All of these were within the poll's margins of error (except four states).

            A statement of the probability of a win (e.g., Clinton has 78% probability of winning the election, Trump a 22% probability) is NOT the direct result of the poll and the margin of error has nothing (directly) to do with this. The reason that Clinton had a higher probability of a win is because the polls in many high-electoral-count states gave her an edge in the projected vote. That Trump won the vote does not make these projections "wrong," for reasons I have now answered multiple times (and you seem to continue to ignore).

            At this point, unless you have something different to ask, I'm going to let someone else explain it to you, and I'm going to carpescape.
            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

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            • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
              The polls, which you have correctly identified above, were right in all but four states. The voting fell within the poll's margins of error, which is how it works (except in those four states).



              Again - you are conflating two things: a poll predicts what the distribution of the vote is expected to be in a given state (or the country as a whole). All of these were within the poll's margins of error (except four states).

              A statement of the probability of a win (e.g., Clinton has 78% probability of winning the election, Trump a 22% probability) is NOT the direct result of the poll and the margin of error has nothing (directly) to do with this. The reason that Clinton had a higher probability of a win is because the polls in many high-electoral-count states gave her an edge in the projected vote. That Trump won the vote does not make these projections "wrong," for reasons I have now answered multiple times (and you seem to continue to ignore).

              At this point, unless you have something different to ask, I'm going to let someone else explain it to you, and I'm going to carpescape.
              Where are you getting these "state polls" from? the polls I listed were national polls. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...tein-5952.html

              If you can't even bother to look at what I am talking about then how do you expect to convince me you are correct?

              These were all national polls and they were all wrong except for 13 out of 186. And they were not predicting the distribution of the vote, they were polling people to see how they would vote in the election and then reported those actual numbers as percentages of the number of people interviewed.

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              • This article from 538: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...are-all-right/

                After analysis, it appears that polling accuracy has not change since the early 1970s, including 2016.
                The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                Comment


                • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                  This article from 538: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...are-all-right/

                  After analysis, it appears that polling accuracy has not change since the early 1970s, including 2016.
                  ...yet people still rely on it.
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                  • Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
                    ...yet people still rely on it.
                    Actually - the accuracy has been fairly high...as the article underlines.
                    The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                    I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                      This article from 538: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...are-all-right/

                      After analysis, it appears that polling accuracy has not change since the early 1970s, including 2016.
                      IIRC, that was not a particularly good time for polling companies so it's interesting that they would pick that point to start with.

                      I'm always still in trouble again

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                      • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                        IIRC, that was not a particularly good time for polling companies so it's interesting that they would pick that point to start with.
                        I've not seen anything about that. Do you have sources I can review?
                        The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                        I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

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                        • Originally posted by carpedm9587 View Post
                          I've not seen anything about that. Do you have sources I can review?
                          I'm going from memory and being a political wonk even as a child.

                          It was during the 70s that a couple polling companies shut their doors and IIRC Harris started running into trouble (remember back when Harris and Gallup were the polling firms?)

                          I'm always still in trouble again

                          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

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                          • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                            I'm going from memory and being a political wonk even as a child.

                            It was during the 70s that a couple polling companies shut their doors and IIRC Harris started running into trouble (remember back when Harris and Gallup were the polling firms?)
                            Yes I do - I just don't have the same memory you do - and I'm not finding anything online about it.
                            The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King

                            I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas

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