Stanford Predicts The Presidential Election 158
Can Sar writes "Today is the official launch of Stanford Predicts, a non partisan group trying to predict the 2004 Presidential Election. This project is led by and based on research by Professor Samuel S. Chiu of the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Stanford Predicts is solely interested in predicting the likelihood of either candidate winning, for purely scientific purposes. While the formulas themselves were developed in previous years by Professor Chiu all data analysis is being done by undergraduate students. Stanford Predicts will be continuously updated with new predictions until election day. Please check out Stanford Predicts for more information."
Which polls? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, it seems to me that feeding a different subset of polls will garner different results, and that the equilibruim is very stable -- change the Ohio or Florida poll by two percentage points toward Kerry and I'd bet the odds go from 3:1 to 1:1 pretty damned quickly. Likewise, fudge the CO, NH, and MN results toward Bush 2 points, and it might go from 3:1 to 5:1.
Surely they could do a better job about releasing their data and their polling selection methodology...
* baiting an answer. For example: Would you vote for George Bush even though he lied about WMDs and his wife once killed a man? Clearly not a good idea if one seeks accurate polling, but it's done all the time nevertheless. Just ask wiki [wikipedia.org] about Sen. McCain's black baby born out of wedlock.
Here's my prediction (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't you academics stop jerking off over week-early predictions and do something productive like research a cure for cancer, or at least see if you can predict the number of people who could possibly care about this big waste of resources and ask yourself if your time and talent are not better served elsewhere?
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a Bush supporter and I cannot believe that'd he win by such a margin...
But, as expected, Kerry wins the West and East coast states while Bush wins in "flyover" states. I expect a GWB victory this November -- but I think it'll be more along the lines of 57% to 40% in terms of the popular vote with the third parties picking up the rest of the slack.
1. The site is predicting that Bush has a 76.4% chance of winning, not that he'd win with 76.4% of the vote.
2. 57 to 40? Are you on crack? Bush beat Dukakis 53-46 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_e
Re:YES (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's true, for mouth-foaming incoherent rage, just wait till Bush wins. If Kerry wins, Bush supporters will be disappointed and concerned, but most of them won't be complaining about impeachment or disenfranchisement or how the election was rigged, blah, blah, blah.
Duuuude, you must be smoking crack. If Gore had won in 2000, the republicans would have made a much bigger fuss (at least in the media which would have seemed a lot larger than the democratic protests).
Hell hath no fury like a bunch of angry conservatives. That's the party that spent $50+ million dollars of taxpayer money to expose the fact that Clinton got a blowjob. If you think liberals are more whack than conservatives when it comes to getting uppity, you're nuts.
Based On Polls (Score:4, Insightful)
This is my problem with these sorts of things. While the polls are always statistically sound i have a 800-lb gorilla-sized sneaking suspicion that the polls being conducted do not accurately represent the electorate, in which case the statistical rigor gives way to a sort of bias in these results.
I've thought for a long time (since last spring) that Bush will lose by a not unsizable margin and people may actually be surprised on election day by the way the polls had failed to capture the public's true intent.
This is all purely anecdotal of course but i just think that since all of these polls are via land-lines (at who knows what time of day), they no longer capture a validly random sample. After all a shrinking percentage of people i know (all of whom vote) even have a land-line, and far fewer actually talk to any pollsters or their ilk - the urge to hang-up on these sorts of callers is just too overwhelming...
Though it may very well be me who is surprised on election day this is what has been brewing in my head lately...
We'll see, although i would bet that there'll be partying in the streets around the world on Nov. 2nd/3rd should Bush lose.
-tid242
My prediction: (Score:2, Insightful)
Feel free to supply your own!
Re:This vs. Electoral-Vote.com (Score:3, Insightful)
Election polls useless (Score:3, Insightful)
The 2004 presidential election is one of those elections in which participation rate of voters will be way out of the norm, on the coat-tails of the 2000 stalemate and the strong anti-Bush feeling from the democrats.
Using historical data, Bush is slightly ahead as reported by the Stanford poll or electoral-vote.com. If we correct the data assuming a slightly higher participation for the democrats, the polls give an edge to Kerry of 284 electoral votes vs 254 for Bush.
Dancing in the streets (Score:4, Insightful)
You say that the polls themselves are all biased in the same direction, reflecting the viewpoint of likely voters who answer their landline. While I can't invalidate that completely, the fact that multiple polls find similar results tends to weaken the idea. The question is open whether people who don't answer their landline lean toward one side enough to change the results. Also, polls of kids, who usually tend to track their parents' viewpoints, agree with the telephone polls.
It's possible that your friends think the same way you do, so to you it feels like everybody hates the President, when in fact most people like him.
Re:YES (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe that any more than I did when they were saying it about Clinton. That would destroy the country.
It's bad enough the Democrats are doing everything they can to undermine our confidence in our election process, guaranteeing four more years of the stupid and loud complaining Bush isn't legitimate, should he win.
I don't see how anything you seem to be suggesting would do anything other than make 1968 look like a picnic.
Re:Election polls useless (Score:5, Insightful)
And in fact, that is why the Democrats will lose the election. Out of all the people they could have selected, they select a flagrantly elitist blowhard with no definable position and an obvious lack of charisma. Ugh. There really is nothing to get excited about there, and it is apparent that a lot of Democrats don't really believe in Kerry. Other than the libertarian wing of the Republican party (which is, sadly, fringe), the Republicans genuinely seem to like Bush, for better or worse. I've definitely noticed an erosion of support among the old school blue collar life-long Democrats, many who feel that Kerry is completely out of touch with their reality.
The Democrats had a real shot, right up until the point they selected Kerry. Mind you, I don't think it was obvious just how lousy of a candidate he was going to be before they selected him. Howard Dean would at least have been interesting, and even someone like Gephardt would have done better shoring up the base. Right now, they are chasing down votes they should have already owned.
Which kind of begs the question as to how we ended up with a couple of clowns to choose from in the first place. What happened to really great candidates that you could feel good about voting for?
Similar clowns : yes they are (Score:3, Insightful)
Both have spending plans that are in the red and both say they'll cut their deficit spending in half within four years.
Both support the patriot act.
Both support curtailing the 2nd amendment.
Both have increased the size and scope of the federal government.
The differences are Kerry wants to tax and spend while Bush wants to borrow and spend.
Kerry - Pro choice, Bush - Pro Life
So in conclusion I'd say yes they are both asshats.
Re:Election polls useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Democrats aren't infatuated with John Kerry, but he's more than capable. And Dems are angry like I've never seen before: they feel that they won in 2000 and yet have had to endure four years of the most incompetent and arrogant presidency in generations. I had no great fondness for Bush Senior but you had to respect him. I have not a shred of respect for W.
In the debates, Kerry seemed like a president. Bush came off as arrogant and petulant. Bush can be charismatic, but if he was during those debates, I didn't see it. He struck me as a spoiled child who needs to be taught a lesson in responsibility. When confronted with all the failures of his administration, he had this whining tone of "You just need to see it from my perspective". No, I don't. You're the president, you're supposed to be responsible. He isn't. He's an alcoholic cokehead trying to tell other people how to live their lives, he's a failure as a president, and he serves only to make the rich more rich, and the powerful more powerful. I'll vote for a lobotomized chimp before I'll vote for George W. Bush.
Re:Here's my prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I think I'm OK with Political Scientists not treating cancer.
(Sloppy Thinking Sign #4: Lumping all members of a group together and discarding relevant distinctions. In this case, the point is that all academics are not created equal. Accurate poll research is one of the more useful things a political scientist can be doing, considering the general uselessness of that branch of "science".)
I'm thinking that medical researchers should also, in general, avoid research into alternative fuels.
Re:We're screwed (Score:2, Insightful)
Tax cuts only for the rich (well, bent very far in that direction), a war started over mistakes, a preemptive policy that will bankrupt us and leave (left?) our country with no credibility, Osama is still on the loose and quite capable of attacks around the world. I sure as hell don't feel safer and anyone with half a brain would not either.
4 more years of this nonsense? Wonderful.
Re:Election polls useless (Score:5, Insightful)
When did the Republicans convince the nation that anyone to the left of Genghis Khan was "liberal"? You don't have to be liberal to loathe George Bush for what he's done to this country. You just have to be informed and care about the values he claims to promote, like liberty and justice. For many of us, it's not that we're left- we're in the center, same as always. It's that George Bush has taken the nation too far to the right while claiming to speak for the whole nation.