The Hill and I are taking an end-of-year break. While we’re gone, you’ll no doubt be devouring endless analyses of the 2020 election. Be careful. Much of the data being analyzed, and the tools being employed, are laden with problems and pitfalls. Start with the exit polls. Some critics of […] Read more »
Don’t kid yourself. The polls messed up.
… The forecasts were off. We were forecasting Biden to get 54.4% of the two-party vote and it seems that he only got 52% or so. We forecasted Biden at 356 electoral votes and it seems that he’ll only end up with 280 or so. We had uncertainty intervals, and […] Read more »
Why You Can’t Rely on Election Forecasts
… With all the anxiety about Tuesday’s vote, it’s understandable that many of us look to statisticians’ election models to tell us what will happen. If they say your candidate has an 80 percent chance of winning, you feel reassured. But after Donald Trump’s surprising victory in 2016 seemed to […] Read more »
Poll-Based Election Forecasts Will Always Struggle With Uncertainty
Key Points• We have no idea how much uncertainty exists in pre-election polls. That leads to very complex poll-based forecast models.• The general public lacks the expertise necessary to appropriately interpret win probabilities from those complex models.• Some research shows that overly certain forecasts might depress turnout, which could matter […] Read more »
By order of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp: The day after Thursday is now Sunday
… Last week, Georgia’s Department of Public Health released a graph showing a dramatic, steady decline in cases, deaths and hospitalizations in the state’s five most affected counties, from a peak on April 28, just before the state’s restrictions were eased, to near zero two weeks later. But on closer […] Read more »
How advocates of a return to normal misrepresent coronavirus deaths
To advocate for a quick or immediate return to America as normal, one must figure out how to rationalize the fact that this week alone, tens of thousands of people have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus that emerged in China last year. You can’t simply say, […] Read more »