One issue that animated some conversation during the 2014 campaign was not just whether the election could be forecasted accurately — it was — but how we should do it. Three of the forecasting models at media organizations — ours at Election Lab, The Upshot’s and 538′s — relied on a combination of “fundamentals” and polls initially, but increasingly gave weight to the polls as Election Day approached. …
So imagine that we had predicted the election purely with where the fundamentals stood on Election Eve, while ignoring the polling entirely? How well would we have done? CONT.
John Sides (GWU), The Monkey Cage