Observations on the election, its consequences and 2016.

[jpmassar]

The really "swing states" were Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida (if you look at how close the vote was in each state, at least so far). That leaves the GOP with a slight (read 'very large') problem. Had the Republicans won Ohio, Virginia, and Florida as well as North Carolina they still would have lost the Presidency. Somehow they are

Comments

[adbjupe]

North Carolina is funny. Or funky. On the one hand it's a close call for the presidency, but they elected a Republican governor with 55% of the votes and have a solid Republican majority in state house and senate, which is now veto proof. They also confirmed their protection of marriage act with a wide majority.

What I am seeing there is redistricting at its worst. There's been a huge influx of Yankees and other undesirables for a decade, but they are concentrated around Raleigh and Charlotte. Easy to put a district around them and let them be happy with that vote.

[clutch_c]

Anyone who expects Republicans to cooperate in any way with the administration is an idiot, including the re-elected President.

This. They would rather drive the country over a cliff than compromise one iota. The Republican idea of cooperation was, is and will remain, "do exactly what we want or go fuck yourself."

[kalimac]

"Do exactly what we want and go fuck yourself, because once you agree to what we want, we don't want it any more, because what we really want is 'whatever you won't agree to'."

[vizslas_r00l]

I agree that the Republicans in Congress are, on a scale from +10 to -10, about a -8. Democrats are around a -5. I think we would all be well served if we set aside partisan politics and got all obstructionists out of Congress, those on the Right and Left.

[tiltcity]

Heh Probability Czar is a cool job title but based on the tone of people who are tweeting about this, it seems a lot of people may really feel Silver's knowledge of probability/stats is far above other unnamed people.

Do you think that's the case? I mean is he way more knowledgeable about probability/stats/math than people in fields like poker/gambling/games of chance, finance, sports betting? These people are also rewarded or punished based on their understanding of probability/stats/math, so presumably they know something about it.

I'm not trying to pooh-pooh or dismiss Silver's work, and he definitely deserves a lot of credit for finding success with a quantitative style in the field of elections, and also spreading it to a larger audience. But if people think he stands out as a singular figure in statistics, I'm genuinely curious why.

I think even Silver said political forecast was lower-hanging fruit because he's basically competing with pundits that don't understand anything.

[barking_iguana]

He knows math, but he's not the biggest expert. He has domain-specific knowledge about politics, but there are others with more. He has developed domain-specific knowledge about polling on a par with at least anyone outside of the pollsters (but I don't think he uses it all in his model, which despite results, could be improved). And he has initiative. And has avoided bad luck. And he can write reasonably well.

No two of those attributes would have amounted to much. All six in combination makes him unmatched.

[jpmassar]

Look. This is easily reasoned. If Bill Chen were named Probability Czar we'd have a Czar who couldn't keep his fly zipped. This is, dare I say, improbable.

[tiltcity]

okay that is a good post although bill's fly is unzipped only SOME of the time

[evwhore]

Hawaii was, percentagewise, Obama's biggest margin. Which is funny, because he wasn't even born there.

That reminded me of:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/21/opinion/change-the-list-voter-turnout-hawaii/index.html

what was the turnout this year? (Too lazy to look it up myself.)

[wild_irises]

Just because I can: It's "minuscule" not "miniscule." This is one of the world's most common educated-people spelling errors.

[jpmassar]

Looks like that's not really the case.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/miniscule

http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/spell/mini.html