Nate Silver rips Trump-Clinton polls in 8-part Twitter rant

[Stellar]

Politco

Nate Silver thinks it's time to pump the brakes on predicting the results of a Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton matchup in November.

"For f--k's sake, America. You're going to make go on a rant about general election polls -- in May?" the editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight wrote as part of a tweetstorm on Tuesday.
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Silver said Clinton has an about 6 percent lead over Trump nationally, but cautioned: "It's early. Trump could win. Also, he could lose in a landslide." He added that Trump's presumptive nomination and Clinton's ongoing battle with Bernie Sanders could be having an effect — "We'll know more in June."

The statistician said he wouldn't have polls of each state for "a few months."

[Dawgs]

1. Why do people still care what this snake oil salesman thinks?

[Stellar]

2. Why do you call him a snake oil salesman?

[onehandle]

4. Because his predictions are accurate almost every time and they are bad news for Sanders. nt

[Dawgs]

7. He's been a fraud long before Sanders became a candidate.

And, I've said as much.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024741890#post9

[snooper2]

24. I think you forgot what fraud means- How about this- You post your GE predictions NOW

Bernie vs Drumpf

and

Hillary vs Drumpf


We will all bookmark this thread and see how accurate you are. Have a go at it!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

28. New rule: we can only be critical of people performing functions that we ourselves can also perform.

Neat. I'll keep that one in mind.

[snooper2]

29. Hey, I can do Everything! Except some complex chemical engineering

and maybe underwater welding. ARC, Mig, etc, on land no problem...and I have taken some scuba classes- Maybe couple hours of training

LOL

[JackRiddler]

30. Can you do phrenology? Map an astrology chart?

Your logic says you shouldn't have an opinion on either unless you can do them, right?

[DisgustipatedinCA]

38. I know you to be a very capable person.

Some days I feel capable; on others, I feel like I can barely get myself dressed. Makes for an interesting workday.

[JoePhilly]

37. + 1

[Dawgs]

6. His analysis (and reason he's famous) is no better than 3rd grade math.

It's really not hard to make predictions on races in politics when the average of polls is just as accurate.

[tonyt53]

9. And your level of math studies is what?

I don't care for the guy, but the numbers his group puts out is uncanny in accuracy.

[Dawgs]

10. I'm not saying he's not a good statistician.

I'm saying that what he sells people on predicting the outcome of elections is not that impressive.

Basically, any of us can use the polls and our own judgement to come up with the same results.

[Dawgs]

15. I'm also a professional scientist and mathematician.

And, you're obviously wrong.

[bemildred]

19. Third grade is not correct. Hundreds of years old, routine, and unimpressive as math, are.

Yes, I have a degree in math (BA 1974).

[bemildred]

26. It's mostly arithmetic and algebra, with a bit of calculus for the probability functions.

What it is is messy, not difficult. The difficult part is assuring that the assumptions incorporated in the math are met. And that is not math, that is all real world and pragmatic. Empirical.

[JackRiddler]

31. "utterly accurate"

His last flop on a 90%+ probability for Clinton was what, only two weeks ago?

[frylock]

22. A hero?

[frylock]

44. A hero?!

[frylock]

48. I'm afraid my friend here is confusing heroism with idolatry.

What an odd exchange.

[leftynyc]

25. Really?

Which third grader guessed right on every single state in 2012? And 33 out of 34 senate races (the only one he missed decided by less than 1%). I know the math is bothersome to the Bernie supporters but that's no reason to trash the reputation of the man who was able to completely nail 2012.

[Dawgs]

33. Anyone that can take the average of a few polling numbers could have predicted 2012.

It was really that easy.

[leftynyc]

34. And yet

Silver was the only one that did. Isn't that weird?

[Trajan]

14. Because he has been notoriously WRONG with his projections ...

Spectacularly wrong ....

Didn't you know this ?

[Aerows]

40. *smirks at the people in this thread

that believe math is some incredibly difficult, murky abstraction that no one but someone with a hype machine like Nate Silver can understand*

Seriously?

[tularetom]

3. As he continues his fruitless search for his lost credibility

[Exilednight]

5. Nate is only good at predicting the obvious. in 2008 he picked

Obama right out of the gate to win the primary and GE.

Now he has been burned by the rise of Trump and Sanders and is scrambling to justify his existence.

[Stellar]

8. I suppose I haven't been paying much attention to Nate for awhile.

[Exilednight]

21. it was very obvious to anyone with a clue about politics.

[whatchamacallit]

11. Why should we care about Nate's sliver?

[amborin]

13. LOL! He's been embarrassingly wrong this entire cycle

[NuclearDem]

46. ...says someone who takes HA Goodman seriously.

[TheBlackAdder]

18. Life Lesson: Never trust a person who does a comb forward or comb over. #Deceptive

[pdsimdars]

20. Cenk let loose on him last night. It was a think of beauty. (as usual)

[DebbieCDC]

27. He sees his bread and butter slipping away

Desperate to keep riding the gravy train for a while longer.

[davidn3600]

32. He's right, it is very early

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was leading Reagan nationally by 10 points at this point in that election.

The general election polls right now don't mean much. Most Americans are not political junkies. Most are not paying much attention. Many of the polls have numbers like 42-38 or 44-40. That's a lot of people undecided when you see polls like that.

Democrats are playing heavily on the demographics game. And that's not always an accurate picture this far out. Turnout numbers are very concerning if you are in the Hillary camp.

[JoePhilly]

36. + 1

There is a reason that Nate's standard models drop older polls as you move closer and closer to the election. The older polls are less predictive and do little more than add statistical noise to the model as you get closer to the actual elections.

[tgards79]

35. Does anyone know where I can find a record of Nate Silver's "batting average" in the primaries?

How good have his predictions been?

[Stellar]

39. I've been looking for that myself. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. Hey Nate, the 1980 election called

From the Indianapolis Star: "If the election were held today, a recent poll shows, he would go down to defeat 58% to 40%."
No. Not Donald Trump. The article was from March 1980 and was about Ronald Reagan.

(And thanks to a friend of mine on FB for this little jewel)

[RobertEarl]

45. He doesn't like Bernie

He's been berned a few times this primary.

So polls that show Bernie beating Trump and H losing to Trump have him saying polls are no good.

Nate needs (needed) to step away from the mic to keep himself honest.