this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Nate is just coping about being so devastatingly wrong about his "96% chance of victory!" prediction.
Besides, it shouldn't have been that close to begin with. The 2016 election should have been a wham bam slam jam thank you ma'am landslide win for the Democrats, on the scale of Reagan v. Mondale. The fact that it wasn't should concern you about the party's competence and/or goals.
Nate (or rather, the 538 model). didn't make a 96% chance of victory prediction. It at most went up to around 88% right after the debates where Trump made a fool of himself and the Hollywood Access Tapes were released. But even then, Silver cautioned in an interview that Hillary's support among certain groups was soft.
I'm honestly not sure when the Democrats will have a solid win again. Recently the electoral college has tilted against us and Trumpian populism has taken grip over a large portion of the country. Fewer and fewer voters are up for grabs. It took the unpopular Iraq War for Obama, who was also a very gifted candidate and campaigner, to get a 7.2% lead. I expect a lot more repeats of 2020, where Biden only got a 4.5% lead despite Trump's poor leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. A slightly closer race would have had Biden losing key swing states and the election.
There was a different popular prediction model that gave 96% which got Mandela-effected into being Nate's.
Edit:
Thanks, I remember at least one model that was indeed spitting out ludicrous numbers that should have given any statistician pause.