The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

OHIO: MATH IS HARD

Posted on | November 3, 2012 | 30 Comments

Nate Silver approaches a clue and almost gets it:

For Romney to Win, State Polls
Must Be Statistically Biased

Missed it by that much, as Maxwell Smart might say.

His headline summarizes exactly what Republican poll-mongers have been saying since September, as they see poll after poll with crazy oversamples of Democrats. As for example, the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll that has Obama winning Ohio by 6 points — SIX FREAKING POINTS! — about which Ed Morrissey says, “all you need to know is this: the D/R/I is 38/29/32.  In 2008, the exit polls showed a split of 39/31/30, and in 2010 36/37/28.”

Stop for a second and think about that: What this poll is telling us is that partisan ID has shifted 2 points toward Democrats since 2008, which was the best year for Democrats since LBJ won a landslide in ’64. Therefore, we must choose between two alternative explanations:

  1. Obama is headed toward a world-historic victory based upon the remarkable popularity of the Democratic Party; or
  2. The poll sample is fucked-up beyond all comprehension.

Take your pick, eh? When the sample is D+9 and yet Obama is winning by only 6 points, why should anyone doubt that the NBC/WSJ/Marist lead is entirely a function of the Democrat oversample? And if this is not purposeful bias (i.e., the pollsters actively “modeling” the sample), then we must ask ourselves, “Why would Democrats be so absurdly over-represented?” Could this have something to do with what Dan Collins reports from Wisconsin?

I’m subjected to endless phone calls from the RNC, AFP and other PACs, and the endless polls and pushes masquerading as polls. I may be unemployed, but I have work to do, so I pick up the phone, find out who’s calling, and hang up. I’m going to be poll observing, and my brother Tim and his wife have been knocking on doors and manning the phone banks when they’re not at work, helping to GOTV.
I imagine that there are a lot of people who’ve gone beyond the saturation point, like me, so I’m not putting a lot of stock in any polling coming out of Wisconsin, and I figure it’s got to be the same in OH and IA and VA. But Wisconsin was already suffering from politics fatigue before it once again became a swing state. I imagine, too, that there are just a lot of voters like me who have had it with the incessant calls, and who are no longer participating in polling or answering pitches from campaigns.

Think about it: Multiple entities on the Right are targeting GOP-leaning voters in the swing states with a non-stop flood of phone calls and it may be that, as a result, the pollsters simply can’t get through to self-identified Republicans, so there is an under-sample of Republicans which no pollster can verify or compensate for, without resorting to artificial assumptions about the actual composition of the electorate.

Anyway, I don’t have much interest in numbers-crunching, nor time to get down into the metrics, which is why I’m glad Ali Akbar did it today:

Ohio Math: Numbers Equal Trouble for Democrats

UPDATE: Michael Flynn at Breitbart.com Friday:

This morning, because the sun rose in the East, Nate Silver again increased his odds of Obama winning reelection. Silver now estimates Obama’s chances of reelection at a precise 83.7%.

Exactly. What is the basis for that very precise number?

Category: Election 2012, Ohio, Polls

Comments

30 Responses to “OHIO: MATH IS HARD”

  1. Adjoran
    November 3rd, 2012 @ 11:23 pm

    I’ve been saying for a couple of months the odd Democratic slant to poll samples is because our people are refusing to participate.

    But Ohio is fairly clear. UNLESS it is bucking all the historical trends – being slightly more Republican than the electorate at large, Democratic need for early voting, crowd size (when Stevie Wonder only draws 200 to a free concert, they need to go back to handing out cigarettes and liquor) – it is breaking for Romney.

  2. EBL
    November 3rd, 2012 @ 11:46 pm

    Sometime Tuesday, Nate Silver will either be declared a genius or charletan. But if we are tracking metrics, just remember Nate got 2010 wrong. So basically Nate is redoing RSM’s roulette system. Which worked fine…until it didn’t.

  3. MrPaulRevere
    November 3rd, 2012 @ 11:47 pm

    I enjoyed the blogtalk radio show Stacy, you do really well in that medium.

  4. Ryan
    November 4th, 2012 @ 12:12 am

    At this point it is obvious that Silver is doubling down calls out his methodology. Could he not be a more representative of a Obama sycophant? He might as well be saying, “Don’t call my bluff!”

  5. Are you in Cincinnati, #OIHO? You just might be an operative « Lower The Boom
    November 4th, 2012 @ 1:04 am

    […] R. Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar doing show prep for their special Ohio BlogTalkRadio broadcast, The American Resolve. It aired tonight. Listen to the half-hour podcast at the link. Or read the new Ohio numbers post by The Other McCain here. […]

  6. ReaganiteRepublican
    November 4th, 2012 @ 2:19 am

    Figures lie… and liars figure

  7. Wombat_socho
    November 4th, 2012 @ 2:50 am

    Nah. He can always go back to his baseball gig.

  8. Nate Silver statistics and the myth of Harry "Kid" Matthews » Da Tech Guy's Blog
    November 4th, 2012 @ 8:13 am

    […] Stacy McCain does the math: His headline summarizes exactly what Republican poll-mongers have been saying since September, as […]

  9. Election Prediction Tracker, Nov 4: They Can’t All Be Right | Conservative Commune
    November 4th, 2012 @ 8:22 am

    […] Silver's Value at Risk?  I will make no comment on the digs at actuaries.    The Other McCain: MATH IS HARD   Just one note on the state-by-state predictions Silver does, which I listed some key states […]

  10. EBL
    November 4th, 2012 @ 9:17 am

    Omen: Alabama victory over LSU. Draw your own conclusions. And does Carville look like a shell-less albino snapping turtle?

  11. McGehee
    November 4th, 2012 @ 9:25 am

    As long as it isn’t the one where I get my tires.

    “I calculate a 93.456783% probability you can drive around just fine with three flat tires.”

  12. Garbage In, Garbage Out | hogewash
    November 4th, 2012 @ 9:48 am

    […] a sewer pipe. The output is dependent on the input. Or as Nate Silver has recently discovered (H/T, TOM) Nov. 2: For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically […]

  13. Nate Silver is the Rodney Dangerfield of Polling « The Daley Gator
    November 4th, 2012 @ 9:49 am

    […] has been built up past his abilities, as he continues to not see the obvious. As McCain puts it Nate Silver approaches a clue and almost gets it: Nate Silver approaches a clue and almost gets […]

  14. Polls and prognosticatorsJHoward | protein wisdom
    November 4th, 2012 @ 10:14 am

    […] McCain’s must-read: OHIO: MATH IS HARD, from which comes Hot Air’s Marist poll in Ohio has D+9 sample — linked because […]

  15. Pablo
    November 4th, 2012 @ 10:22 am

    Per Iowahawk: “Your daily reminder: all political polls are still garbage. #9percentresponserate”
    He has a point.

  16. Pablo
    November 4th, 2012 @ 10:25 am

    He’ll be declared both. The reasons for the thumping Obama gets will be just as incomprehensible as the details of the attack on Benghazi. The MSM will appoint a special commission to investigate how Americans malfunctioned so badly and unexpectedly, and they’ll probably put Nate in charge of it.

  17. Garym
    November 4th, 2012 @ 11:43 am

    Heh!

  18. richard mcenroe
    November 4th, 2012 @ 12:02 pm

    There’s a 97.65439% probably those tires on your Pinto aren’t bald, they’re racing slicks.

  19. richard mcenroe
    November 4th, 2012 @ 12:03 pm

    I’ve been calling him a miserable old snapping turtle for years.

  20. OHIO OR BOSTON? : The Other McCain
    November 4th, 2012 @ 12:10 pm

    […] 3: OHIO: MATH IS HARDNov. 3: SCENES FROM OHIO ‘ALL-STAR’ RALLYNov. 2: WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR […]

  21. Silvering the Lily: GIGO Makes A Wonderful Excuse | Daily Pundit
    November 4th, 2012 @ 1:30 pm

    […] the Lily: GIGO Makes A Wonderful Excuse Posted on November 4, 2012 9:30 am by Bill Quick OHIO: MATH IS HARD : The Other McCain Nate Silver approaches a clue and almost gets […]

  22. Rich Vail
    November 4th, 2012 @ 3:38 pm

    RSM, the poll sample is FUBAR…

  23. Rich Vail
    November 4th, 2012 @ 3:41 pm

    Nate is a paid shill of the NY Times…that being so, he’s a Democratic Operatives w/bylines.

  24. Bob Belvedere
    November 4th, 2012 @ 7:04 pm

    He has a face for radio.

  25. Adjoran
    November 5th, 2012 @ 1:42 am

    Ali gets off track by the assumption that the 47% of early voters who did not vote in the last party primaries are independents. This is not a valid assumption at all. By the time Ohio rolled around, Romney was the clear leader and the last opposition was Santorum. Obama had no opposition, so the other side’s last primary was for state and congressional seats only, and the statewide offices aren’t up.

    In fact, the odds are that most of those 47% are party members, but one would have to check back on previous primaries to check that. It’s the party members who’ve been pushed, cajoled, and ridden to death to vote early, pure independents not as much.

    So his analysis fails on that basis. There have been other measures which tend to confirm that the GOP is in relatively far better shape than in 2008, but without relying on such huge assumptions.

  26. OHIO: IT’S MITT’S TO WIN : The Other McCain
    November 5th, 2012 @ 1:06 pm

    […] 3: OHIO: MATH IS HARDNov. 3: SCENES FROM OHIO ‘ALL-STAR’ RALLYNov. 2: WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR […]

  27. OHIO: ROMNEY AIRPORT RALLY — LOOKING LIKE A WINNER, MITT! : The Other McCain
    November 6th, 2012 @ 10:50 am

    […] 5: OHIO: IT’S MITT’S TO WINNov. 4: OHIO OR BOSTON?Nov. 3: OHIO: MATH IS HARDNov. 3: SCENES FROM OHIO ‘ALL-STAR’ RALLYNov. 2: WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR […]

  28. ELECTION NIGHT RESULTS HQ : The Other McCain
    November 6th, 2012 @ 7:29 pm

    […] 5: OHIO: IT’S MITT’S TO WINNov. 4: OHIO OR BOSTON?Nov. 3: OHIO: MATH IS HARDNov. 3: SCENES FROM OHIO ‘ALL-STAR’ RALLYNov. 2: WEST CHESTER, OHIO: MASSIVE CROWD FOR […]

  29. FMJRA 2.0: Luxury Cage : The Other McCain
    November 10th, 2012 @ 6:47 pm

    […] Less) Lonely ConservativeAmerican GlobCommon Sense EvaluationPreppers’ UniverseGranite GrokOHIO: MATH IS HARDLower The BoomDa Tech GuyThe ConservatoryHogewashThe Daley GatorProtein WisdomDaily PunditGranite […]

  30. Laughing My Ass Off
    November 11th, 2012 @ 11:22 pm

    You clowns are so funny. Nate Silver correctly predicted R gains in the 2010 midterms, and you bozos were all over his “lies” then, right?