As of this writing, a week prior to the election, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight forecast puts Obama's odds of winning at 75% and Romney's at 25%.
The electronic markets favor Obama, but give lower odds:
- The Iowa Electronic Markets put odds of Obama winning at 62% and Romney at 38%.
- Intrade also puts the Obama odds at 62%.
Republican/right wing pundits have their own reality, e.g.,
- (22 Oct) Josh Jordan at The National Review thinks Nate Silver's analysis is flawed, and that he is basically a partisan hack who got lucky (and/or inside information) in 2008.
Whatever the explanation, Silver’s strong showing in the 2008 election, coupled with his consistent predictions that Obama will win in November, has given Democrats a reason for optimism. While there is nothing wrong with trying to make sense of the polls, it should be noted that Nate Silver is openly rooting for Obama, and it shows in the way he forecasts the election.
On September 30, leading into the debates, Silver gave Obama an 85 percent chance and predicted an Electoral College count of 320–218. Today, the margins have narrowed — but Silver still gives Obama a 67 percent chance and an Electoral College lead of 288–250, which has led many to wonder if he has observed the same movement to Romney over the past three weeks as everyone else has. [He has, but doesn't see momentum.] Given the fact that an incumbent president is stuck at 47 percent nationwide, the odds might not be in Obama’s favor, and they certainly aren’t in his favor by a 67–33 margin. - The Weekly Standard (29 Oct) reports this New Projection of Election Results: Romney 52, Obama 47
The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent.
Samuel Popkin at The American Prospect, in his review of Silver's new book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don’t (Penguin Press) writes...
Based on the numbers, Silvers thinks Obama has an edge in the Electoral College, and in his most recent forecast over the weekend he predicts that there are a little less than three chances in four that Obama will win. This is not the same thing as being certain. Silver knows what he doesn’t know, and this should be more reassuring to us than forecasters who use fewer sources of data yet appear more certain.In another week we'll know who's been fooled!
In the late Nobel laureate Richard Feynman’s appendix to the Rogers Commission report on the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, Feynman’s concluding words were “Nature cannot be fooled.” Feynman would have applauded The Signal and the Noise, for Silver shows in area after area that while experts cannot fool nature, it’s all too easy for them to fool themselves and deceive others. No technical or statistical expertise is needed to appreciate this book. The more you know or think you know, though, the more you will learn about the limits of expertise and the work we must do to minimize unavoidable biases. The Challenger that couldn’t explode followed the Titanic that couldn’t sink. No institution, no theory, no data set is too big to fail.
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