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Presidential Prediction - How Confident Are You? (1 Viewer)

How confident are you in your prediction? 

  • Extremely Confident

    Votes: 12 12.5%
  • Very Confident

    Votes: 13 13.5%
  • Confident

    Votes: 21 21.9%
  • Not Too Confident

    Votes: 29 30.2%
  • Not Confident At All

    Votes: 21 21.9%

  • Total voters
    96

Joe Bryant

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We've had a pretty good thread here where I'm asking folk to predict how many times out of 100 they think Joe Biden would win the election. That's the same format 538 uses so we can be consistent. 

Most answers are Biden winning in the 50-90 times out of 100 range.

Be it that poll or the just in general, most people have an opinion and prediction on "I think _________ will win the election".

Here's the next question: How confident are you in your prediction? 

 
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And I think what gets me is I feel like I'm making judgements on whole by seeing only tiny slivers. I see a story or something locally or have an online conversation and even though I fight it and I know it's wrong, my brain wants to make broad conclusions based on tiny little signals. 

I think the reality is I don't have clue. Should probably have voted "Not confident at all" the more I think about it. 

 
And I think what gets me is I feel like I'm making judgements on whole by seeing only tiny slivers. I see a story or something locally or have an online conversation and even though I fight it and I know it's wrong, my brain wants to make broad conclusions based on tiny little signals. 

I think the reality is I don't have clue. Should probably have voted "Not confident at all" the more I think about it. 
Living in CA I'm looking mostly outward, so I only really see the big picture. The only tiny slivers I see are those brought in by folks on this board. It gives another type of blindness, as some of those tiny slivers can end up being critically important depending on where they are. A 9 point national lead means nothing when this thing will be decided by a handful of counties in a single digit number of states.

 
If you play with the 538 scenario generator, changing a single swing state can drastically change the predicted outcome.   I don't know how anyone could be confident in their choice right now with so much uncertainty surrounding a lot of states that are in play for both candidates.

 
I remember in 2016 that I was feeling pretty good about Clinton winning until NC started to go the "wrong way" on election day. I wonder if things will remain ambiguous even longer this time.

 
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Unless you do polling or politics for a living, I'm not sure how you can be confident.  If I'm being perfectly honest, I have no clue what I'm talking about and quite frankly neither do most/all of us.  We are regurgitating talking points and polls that we trust are correct. 

Put another way - I wouldn't bet even $100 on the outcome of this thing and I'm a FBG with plenty of cash to just set on fire if I want.

 
The only reason I'd bet is to hedge against how awful I'll feel if Trump wins again. And in that case a few extra sheckles isn't going to fix me up anyway. No point to betting for me.

 
I'm more nervous than it having to do with confidence.  There is certainly a chance that among other factors there is a large amount of polling error in key swing states and that error will again be in Trump's favor.  It's unlikely but possible.

 
To use an FF analogy, you can have the most points or "the best team" and still lose. Those individual games (states) are the more meaningful story when figuring out who wins or loses. 2016 was a perfect example of that.

 
I'd say I'm pretty confident in Biden winning. I can't imagine that voting lines are this insanely long because everyone wants Trump to stay in office, though the electoral college/supreme court could make things interesting even with massive turnout. 

 
Fairly confident, though I think there is a decent chance voter suppression tactics (likely) or faithless electors (less likely) muck things up. And nearly certain Trump will contest the results, though I don’t think the courts will give him an illegitimate win.

 
I predicted that Biden would easily win the popular vote and would likely win the election and I am pretty confident that will happen.  I also predicted that Trump will contest the results and file lawsuits to invalidate votes and he would ultimately be declared the winner by the Supreme Court.  I am less confident about that and hope that I am wrong.

 
Most polls are Democrat leaning, so I'm pretty confident the polling at 538 and RCP aren't accurate.  In 2016, Hillary was a darling candidate for my area.  Her signs and bumper stickers were all over the place.  What I'm seeing in my neighborhood in 2020 is many, many life-long Democrats who were previously anti-Trump telling me they are voting Trump or changing their party altogether from Dem to Republican which is eye opening in a Democratic controlled city like Philadelphia.  Literally people who have voted Democrat for 40 years are voting red for the first time.  Most of my suburban friends are voting Trump too.  It's not so much that they love Trump, but they despise Democratic Governor Wolf and Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney for the way they handled COVID shutdowns and our police forces.  They also despise Democratic DA Larry Krasner for the way he's handled the DA prosecutors office.  They're just done with the Democratic Party.  It's turning our city into a crime ridden, s***hole.  I know it's not representative of our state as a whole, just what I'm seeing on the ground in an important swing state.  

 
Most polls are Democrat leaning, so I'm pretty confident the polling at 538 and RCP aren't accurate.
What makes you confident that the pollsters would be less accurate in 2020, even after adjusting their methodology to account for the shy Trump voters that they missed in 2016?

For example, in 2016, the RCP average was off by 2.8 points in Pennsylvania; the same source is now showing Biden up by 3.8. Do you think the pollsters are even less accurate in 2020? Is there a number where you would stop believing that? If a pollster showed Biden up by 8.6 somewhere, would you still be confident that the polls are wrong?

Also, what do you think about conservative polling companies (Rasmussen and Trafalgar, for example) showing Biden in the lead in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and even Ohio. Do you think that those polls lean left?

 
Most polls are Democrat leaning, so I'm pretty confident the polling at 538 and RCP aren't accurate.  In 2016, Hillary was a darling candidate for my area.  Her signs and bumper stickers were all over the place.  What I'm seeing in my neighborhood in 2020 is many, many life-long Democrats who were previously anti-Trump telling me they are voting Trump or changing their party altogether from Dem to Republican which is eye opening in a Democratic controlled city like Philadelphia.  Literally people who have voted Democrat for 40 years are voting red for the first time.  Most of my suburban friends are voting Trump too.  It's not so much that they love Trump, but they despise Democratic Governor Wolf and Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney for the way they handled COVID shutdowns and our police forces.  They also despise Democratic DA Larry Krasner for the way he's handled the DA prosecutors office.  They're just done with the Democratic Party.  It's turning our city into a crime ridden, s***hole.  I know it's not representative of our state as a whole, just what I'm seeing on the ground in an important swing state.  
I’m out in Media.  This has largely been my experience as well, although here in Delco it’s pretty red already.  Trump obviously won’t win Philly but the suburbs surrounding are going to sway this election one way or the other.  And of course whoever wins PA will almost certainly be our next president.

 
Joe Summer said:
What makes you confident that the pollsters would be less accurate in 2020, even after adjusting their methodology to account for the shy Trump voters that they missed in 2016?

For example, in 2016, the RCP average was off by 2.8 points in Pennsylvania; the same source is now showing Biden up by 3.8. Do you think the pollsters are even less accurate in 2020? Is there a number where you would stop believing that? If a pollster showed Biden up by 8.6 somewhere, would you still be confident that the polls are wrong?

Also, what do you think about conservative polling companies (Rasmussen and Trafalgar, for example) showing Biden in the lead in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and even Ohio. Do you think that those polls lean left?
Well in Pennsylvania, Rasmussen's last poll (10/18-10/19) had Biden up 3% with a 3.5% margin of error.  So Trump is within the margin of error.  But that was before the last debate when Biden, IMO, lost PA with his oil industry comments since Pennsylvania is a big fracking state.  Trafalgar's latest poll (10/24-10/25) has Trump leading by almost 1% point with 1% still undecided.  Those polls are closer to what I'm seeing on the ground here in Pennsylvania.  When I see CNN with Biden +10% or Quinnipiac with Biden +8%, I can say with absolute confidence, those polls are extremely inaccurate.

I can't speak to the other states.

 
unckeyherb said:
I’m out in Media.  This has largely been my experience as well, although here in Delco it’s pretty red already.  Trump obviously won’t win Philly but the suburbs surrounding are going to sway this election one way or the other.  And of course whoever wins PA will almost certainly be our next president.
Yeah, the suburbs are more important than the actual city of Philadelphia.  But if Biden doesn't win Philly by at least 500K votes he's done in PA.  That's why Obama was here this week, to try and motivate the black voters to get out and vote for Biden.  Trump got 16% of the non-white vote in 2016, he's polling way ahead of that total right now in 2020.  That's not a good sign for Biden.

 
I think the pollsters will be quick to blame COVID if the polls are wrong again. It is a major factor and gives them an out should their predictions be off. 2020 is the ultimate mulligan.

 
Snotbubbles said:
Most polls are Democrat leaning, so I'm pretty confident the polling at 538 and RCP aren't accurate.  In 2016, Hillary was a darling candidate for my area.  Her signs and bumper stickers were all over the place.  What I'm seeing in my neighborhood in 2020 is many, many life-long Democrats who were previously anti-Trump telling me they are voting Trump or changing their party altogether from Dem to Republican which is eye opening in a Democratic controlled city like Philadelphia.  Literally people who have voted Democrat for 40 years are voting red for the first time.  Most of my suburban friends are voting Trump too.  It's not so much that they love Trump, but they despise Democratic Governor Wolf and Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney for the way they handled COVID shutdowns and our police forces.  They also despise Democratic DA Larry Krasner for the way he's handled the DA prosecutors office.  They're just done with the Democratic Party.  It's turning our city into a crime ridden, s***hole.  I know it's not representative of our state as a whole, just what I'm seeing on the ground in an important swing state.  
I am rather surprised to hear this.   On the other side of the state I have seen the direct opposite.  In 2016 there were thousands of Trump signs and nary an HRC sign in sight, I would have put it at least 30:1.   In 2020 the Trump signs definitely out number the Biden signs but I see it as more 3:1. Even in rural Washington county it is probably 5:1 Trump signs to Biden but I don't think I saw a single HRC sign there in 2016.

Among my circle of 10 drinking buddies we had 2 guys that voted for Clinton and 8 that went for Trump in 2016.  That has switched to 8 voting Biden and 2 voting for Trump this time around.  Of course this is anecdotal but these are white guys in their late 50s and early 60s which should be in Trump's wheelhouse.

I still think PA is a toss up but I certainly do not expect an easy win for Trump.

 
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I am rather surprised to hear this.   On the other side of the state I have seen the direct opposite.  In 2016 there were thousands of Trump signs and nary an HRC sign in sight, I would have put it at least 30:1.   In 2020 the Trump signs definitely out number the Biden signs but I see it as more 3:1. Even in rural Washington county it is probably 5:1 Trump signs to Biden but I don't think I saw a single HRC sign there in 2016.

Among my circle of 10 drinking buddies we had 2 guys that voted for Clinton and 8 that went for Trump in 2016.  That has switched to 8 voting Biden and 2 voting for Trump this time around.  Of course this is anecdotal but these are white guys in their late 50s and early 60s.

I still think PA is a toss up but I certainly do not expect an easy win for Trump.
I think it's going to be close, not a landslide for either guy.  To be fair, I have a lot of friends and family who are fire, police and military so my bubble of friends has shifted their political views because of the way the local leadership has handled their police during the looting and rioting that has gone on over the past few months.  Living in the city I would never put a Trump or Biden sign in my window these days, I don't need a brick going through it.  

 
I think it's going to be close, not a landslide for either guy.  To be fair, I have a lot of friends and family who are fire, police and military so my bubble of friends has shifted their political views because of the way the local leadership has handled their police during the looting and rioting that has gone on over the past few months.  Living in the city I would never put a Trump or Biden sign in my window these days, I don't need a brick going through it.  
:hifive:

 
Aces were cracked last time but I’m shoving again with decent confidence. 
 

VSIN’s Gill Alexander did a full hour analyzing just the pure betting prospects of the election a couple of days ago. At the time Biden was like -205 and Trump +170. Again, this was purely an exercise in betting value so it seemed entirely objective and non-partisan. The factors the guests looked at were aggregate polling in key swing states, the number of early votes cast, and a few others that seemed rationale. Both guests/experts said they saw value in betting Biden up to -400. This is close to or better than Hillary’s odds and they pointed out that Hillary was trending down going into the election. 

So, essentially, it boils down whether you feel confident pushing pre-flop with aces. 

 
Well in Pennsylvania, Rasmussen's last poll (10/18-10/19) had Biden up 3% with a 3.5% margin of error.  So Trump is within the margin of error.  But that was before the last debate when Biden, IMO, lost PA with his oil industry comments since Pennsylvania is a big fracking state.  Trafalgar's latest poll (10/24-10/25) has Trump leading by almost 1% point with 1% still undecided.  Those polls are closer to what I'm seeing on the ground here in Pennsylvania.  When I see CNN with Biden +10% or Quinnipiac with Biden +8%, I can say with absolute confidence, those polls are extremely inaccurate.

I can't speak to the other states.
Multiple Pennsylvania polls came out yesterday and today showing Biden up 5 or 6.

 
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Well in Pennsylvania, Rasmussen's last poll (10/18-10/19) had Biden up 3% with a 3.5% margin of error.  So Trump is within the margin of error.  But that was before the last debate when Biden, IMO, lost PA with his oil industry comments since Pennsylvania is a big fracking state. 
The fracking counties went for Trump in 2016 by a margin of 2 or 3 to 1. I wouldn't really consider those "gettable" by Biden regardless of how his debate comments went over.
Top Counties For Fracking

PA 2016 results by county

 
I get less confident I know anything as we near the election.

I'm now nearing the Mike Tyson Zone where I don't think I'd be surprised by much of anything. 

 
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Sure, and like I said before, those polls lean Democrat.  For example, the first poll RMG research used 17% of voters that aren't party affiliated.  Pennsylvania only has 14% of registered voters without party affiliation.  Also, the RMG polls says Biden leads Trump by 61% to 35% in Philadelphia.  Trump lead Biden in the rest of the state by 8%.  So if you took a larger sample of respondents from Philadelphia, your results get skewed toward Biden.  As a previous poster pointed out there are also Republican leaning polls.  They have Trump ahead.  I have almost no confidence in polling TBH.

EDIT: The results from the RMG Research poll are exactly in line with my previous post.  Biden needs to win Philadelphia by 500K+ votes.  If Trump can keep his loss in Philadelphia under 500K (he lost to Hillary by 475K) he'll win Pennsylvania.

 
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I get less confident I know anything as we near the election.

I'm now nearing the Mike Tyson Zone where I don't think I'd be surprised by much of anything. 
This is exactly how I feel.  I also find myself internally scoffing at anyone who is confident (no matter what candidate they are confident for) as I just can see how anyone would be with all the conflicting indicators.   

 
Sure, and like I said before, those polls lean Democrat.  For example, the first poll RMG research used 17% of voters that aren't party affiliated.  Pennsylvania only has 14% of registered voters without party affiliation.  Also, the RMG polls says Biden leads Trump by 61% to 35% in Philadelphia.  Trump lead Biden in the rest of the state by 8%.  So if you took a larger sample of respondents from Philadelphia, your results get skewed toward Biden.  As a previous poster pointed out there are also Republican leaning polls.  They have Trump ahead.  I have almost no confidence in polling TBH.
Going with a higher percentage of unaffiliated respondents doesn't favor Democrats, as there are about 7.8% more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.

The Democratic lead as of October 19 is down to 7.8%, with over 4.2 million Democrats and about 3.5 million Republicans among the state’s 9 million registered voters.
That works out to 47% D, 39% R, 14% other. The poll sampled 42% D, 41%R, 17% other. That seems more like a Republican lean than a Democrat lean to me.

I think this indicates they're trying to correct for the "shy Trump voter" through reducing the Democrat representation in the poll. Also note that the poll is sampling likely voters - the affiliation distribution of likely voters may be different than the overall voter population.

We don't know if they took a higher percentage of respondents from Philadelphia than justified based on demographics of the state.

 
unckeyherb said:
I’m out in Media.  This has largely been my experience as well, although here in Delco it’s pretty red already.  Trump obviously won’t win Philly but the suburbs surrounding are going to sway this election one way or the other.  And of course whoever wins PA will almost certainly be our next president.
Delco is actually 49%D, 38%R. SInce the 2016 election there was a 9% increase in D registrations, 7% loss in R, 6% increase in Other
(See link in Groovus' post above)

 
Going with a higher percentage of unaffiliated respondents doesn't favor Democrats, as there are about 7.8% more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state.

That works out to 47% D, 39% R, 14% other. The poll sampled 42% D, 41%R, 17% other. That seems more like a Republican lean than a Democrat lean to me.

I think this indicates they're trying to correct for the "shy Trump voter" through reducing the Democrat representation in the poll. Also note that the poll is sampling likely voters - the affiliation distribution of likely voters may be different than the overall voter population.

We don't know if they took a higher percentage of respondents from Philadelphia than justified based on demographics of the state.
So what you're saying is the poll is a total crapshoot.  Right?

 
Delco is actually 49%D, 38%R. SInce the 2016 election there was a 9% increase in D registrations, 7% loss in R, 6% increase in Other
(See link in Groovus' post above)
I can tell you that I'm a registered Democrat but not voting for Biden.  In Philadelphia, the actual election for Mayor and DA happens in the Democratic primary.  The Republican candidate has no chance of winning.  

 
So what you're saying is the poll is a total crapshoot.  Right?
No, I think they're actually trying to adjust to be as accurate as they can. It's not like they're coming up with 80/20 or something. It's tough when 1% means so much, we want to ding them for not getting it exactly right. But if the actual results are within their margin of error, they've done their job. We'll see.

I think it unlikely everyone is way off, and there's a solid consensus happening. I think we'll be seeing more state focused in the next few days. It'll be interesting.

 
Well in Pennsylvania, Rasmussen's last poll (10/18-10/19) had Biden up 3% with a 3.5% margin of error.  So Trump is within the margin of error.  But that was before the last debate when Biden, IMO, lost PA with his oil industry comments since Pennsylvania is a big fracking state.  Trafalgar's latest poll (10/24-10/25) has Trump leading by almost 1% point with 1% still undecided.  Those polls are closer to what I'm seeing on the ground here in Pennsylvania.  When I see CNN with Biden +10% or Quinnipiac with Biden +8%, I can say with absolute confidence, those polls are extremely inaccurate.

I can't speak to the other states.
I'm genuinely curious how anyone really knows this.  How many people do you know or talk to about this?  I mean, I'm not trying to call you out but ultimately we are all trusting polls.  It's ridiculous to imply that our guts are a better indicator or who will win.  I live in GA - supposedly it's a close race with most showing Trump or Biden up a point.  It would not shock me at all if either wins by 5 pts.  And honestly, without polling, I would have no clue who was going to win.  History would tell me Trump would win, but I also know Trump is unpopular.  I also live in a state of 10M people.  Let's say half are voting age.  I maybe know 1,000 out of 5M people.  How am I supposed to have any idea how those other 4,999,000 people are going to vote?

 
I'm genuinely curious how anyone really knows this.  How many people do you know or talk to about this?  I mean, I'm not trying to call you out but ultimately we are all trusting polls.  It's ridiculous to imply that our guts are a better indicator or who will win.  I live in GA - supposedly it's a close race with most showing Trump or Biden up a point.  It would not shock me at all if either wins by 5 pts.  And honestly, without polling, I would have no clue who was going to win.  History would tell me Trump would win, but I also know Trump is unpopular.  I also live in a state of 10M people.  Let's say half are voting age.  I maybe know 1,000 out of 5M people.  How am I supposed to have any idea how those other 4,999,000 people are going to vote?
If one openly believes C rated right biased polls (Rasmussen and Trafalgar) while discounting others...not sure what to say.

I also believe many mistake CNN Research (who does their polling and I believe is B+ rated) with CNN's opinion folks.

 
I think it is hard not to project your own views on what will happen esp in a polarized situation like we have now.
"Candidate X is so awful, surely the American people will see that and vote for my guy"
Would be interesting to do a poll here of who we think will win subdivided by who we're voting for.

 
Snotbubbles said:
Most polls are Democrat leaning, so I'm pretty confident the polling at 538 and RCP aren't accurate.  In 2016, Hillary was a darling candidate for my area.  Her signs and bumper stickers were all over the place.  What I'm seeing in my neighborhood in 2020 is many, many life-long Democrats who were previously anti-Trump telling me they are voting Trump or changing their party altogether from Dem to Republican which is eye opening in a Democratic controlled city like Philadelphia.  Literally people who have voted Democrat for 40 years are voting red for the first time.  Most of my suburban friends are voting Trump too.  It's not so much that they love Trump, but they despise Democratic Governor Wolf and Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney for the way they handled COVID shutdowns and our police forces.  They also despise Democratic DA Larry Krasner for the way he's handled the DA prosecutors office.  They're just done with the Democratic Party.  It's turning our city into a crime ridden, s***hole.  I know it's not representative of our state as a whole, just what I'm seeing on the ground in an important swing state.  
the early vote tracking is recording all of these walk away Ds as votes for Biden

they won't show up until election day as Trump votes

Red wave coming

 
Fairly confident, though I think there is a decent chance voter suppression tactics (likely) or faithless electors (less likely) muck things up. And nearly certain Trump will contest the results, though I don’t think the courts will give him an illegitimate win.
court won't need to

Trump will win in rout and take the House and popular vote as well

Black and Hispanic voters are moving to Trump in historic numbers

Cuomo and deBlasio have put NY in play as well

stop believing misleading polls

 

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