This blog has been updated on the election night. Its clear there was no election-altering gain to Democrats so this blog is moot. I will leave the words here but am overstiking them, as no longer relevant.
The Communities Dominate blog is the best source for politics-related data systems in use. It has the only published case study comparing the old method and the new, tested against each other, with all the metrics. Its about the only reason anyone in politics might have heard of the CDB blog or ‘that Tomi Ahonen’. But everybody in the data room of Hillary’s team and the few data guys on Trump’s team knows me and has read this blog. this is the definitive blog for data systems used in politics. The analysis of data systems in politics, written on this blog, are referenced in many published books about politics!
You are right now reading some utter bullshit by people from one side, and getting total radio silence from the other side. Those willing to speak are throwing about big words trying to impress like ‘Big Data’ and 'psychographics' and '100 point propensity scores'.
They are BULLSHITTING YOU. This is THE DEFINITIVE BLOG about those topics, at least where it relates to political campaigns. So this blog article on 4 November is just a brief commentary now, before Election Day, to clarify some basics. Let me start with an analogy
Putting bigger sails onto a sailship does not magically convert that ship into a steamship. It would need radical redesign, including adding a big heavy engine and its fuel, and punching a hole into the boat, through which the propeller shaft has to come, to put the propeller onto your ship. But a steam ship not only can move faster than fastest sailships, a steamship can do what sailships cannot, such as steam directly against he wind, and steam at full speed even when there is no wind at all.
Trump has put bigger sails on a sailship. But in the last election, Obama introduced the world’s first steamship and it utterly crushed Romney’s sailship (that was the fastest sailship ever made). And now, in the interim four years, Hillary has put a bigger ENGINE in Obama’s steamship. That is the data wars. Trump used an obsolete design but put bigger sails on it. Hillary took the bleeding edge design, and put an even better engine into it. This is not going to be close. The data wars will contribute 4% to Hillary’s victory margin on November 8.
ITS AN ARMS RACE
The data system wars are an ‘arms race’. Both sides are building their systems (or WERE building it, now four days from the election, they are just running them). We saw the systems used to powerful effect in 2004 (Howard Dean campaign). Then to DEVASTATING effect in 2008 (Obama vs McCain). The data wars DECIDED the race in 2012. (Obama vs Romney). The data system disadvantage by Republicans was so immense and decisive, it was listed as one of the most important things the GOP has to change for 2016, or else it could not win the election.
This is not what some obscure tech author of 12 books tells you on his silly blog. This what Reince Priebus wrote in the 2012 Republican Party ‘Autopsy’ report of Mitt Romney’s loss. They had been OUTCLASSED by Obama’s data machine. A machine that we calculated on this blog in 2012, right after the election - that it delivered 4 out of every 5 votes that Obama won. And Obama’s margin of victory was 5%. But the LAST POLLING of the weekend and Monday just before election day, said it was a 1% race. The WHOLE ELECTION MARGIN of victory for Obama - was generated with the data machine. The whole election margin! The Data machine pushed a 1% election nail-biter, into a clear dominating crushing victory of 5% for Obama. The data machine did that. I reported it on this blog, calculated all the math. The Republican Autopsy said they were outclassed and lost because of the data wars. The US campaigns KNOW this. The Ted Cruz campaign said the advantage of a modern data system is between 2.5% and 5% on election day. They essentially CONFIRMED MY MATH. All data engineers in US politics know this. The data nerds. And they all have read my blog.
TWO RIVAL TECHNOLOGIES
The two systems are not built on the same principle. Its like comparing a car to an airplane. Both have an engine. Both can move people. Except one is far faster and can do things the other cannot. A car cannot drive over the seas. An airplane can fly over the ocean exactly as easily as flying over a corn field. What Romney had, was a good car. What Obama had was the first airplane.
What Trump team now tries to tell us, is that they have a ‘Big Data’ system. BULLSHIT. Its a traditional psychographic scoring model. Like all database systems of the past. It makes guesses about us. It does that very well (they bought the service from a British company called Cambridge Analytica, paying at least 5 million for their data and analytics). What Trump has is a car with an airplane engine. It can't fly.
The Trump system is LARGE. That is not what ‘Big’ means in Big Data. Big Data is a revolutionary database methodology by which every indivdual consumer is individually measured, and typically CONTACTED. Cambridge Analytica has 230 US million voters in its database. It has NOT contacted them. It has NOT MEASURED their performance. It has run 100,000 surveys of voters to get profiles. And then assigns profiles and segments this database based on their magazine subscriptions and cable TV subscriptions and credit card scores and their address, age, educational background and voter registration etc information. That is not Big Data. That is traditional database of a consumer population. Its just very large.
Big Data contacts EACH VOTER INDIVIDUALLY. Yes. Each voter individually. That is what Obama did, that was so radical in 2012. Not that they had 100 point scores for each voter. That was a tech detail, like yes, a car has an engine and an airplane has an engine, and both engines have horsepower. You could run a car on an airplane engine or an airplane on a car engine (back in the early days of propeller-driven planes obviously, not jet engines). Both have an engine. But if you put an airplane engine in a car, it will not suddely FLY. You have to BUILD an AIRPLANE to fly, with wings, etc.
So the METHOD that gets us to ‘Big Data’ is precise technical issue, to do something on consumer customer base ever attempted before 2012. To go through the trouble of contacting every consumer (ie voter for an election). Seeing what they said on Facebook, did they download the YouTube video, did they forward it. To call that voter, talk to them. To go visit their home, talk to them. To send emails and SMS text messages to those voters. CONTACT THEM PERSONALLY. That is Big Data.
That was the bleeding edge of 2012. Nobody has this. Facebook, Google, Amazon, they did not bave Big Data until 2012, the Obama team decided to create this system (now many bleeding edge companies are doing similar systems, obviously).
Romney built a traditional database (like Trump now). It was built on the best data insights of the Republican party, and the known performance of the 2008 Obama system. It was built with a huge data staff of 30 data professionals, cost 50 million dollars, built with Microsoft. It was a rush-project done in six months. It was finished so close to election day, they didn’t have time to test it (the system failed in North Carolina on Election Day where they had to run blind).
Obama built a bleeding-edge data concept on something never done in politics before. Even though they WON the data wars of 2008. They decided to do something radical. They spent 100 million dollars and had a staff that reached 120 data scientists and built a whole array of systems over 18 months. The Obama system was built with Google, Facebook and Amazon as tech partners. It has a massively parallel database system spread over HP servers and resulted in one of the 20 largest databases ON THE PLANET. Just built for one election.
We measured the performance of the two on this blog. The Romney system DID PERFORM. It BOOSTED Republican turnout over what John McCain had in 2008. The Romney team did believe they had won the election, powered by this powerful new data machine. Except it was a total useless toy effort, compared with what Obama’s machine. If Romney had managed to build a better Bow-and-Arrow weapon, Obama had introduced the rifle. If Romney had built a faster propeller-driven airplane, Obama introduced the jet engine. If Romney built a faster sailship, Obama introduced the steamship. If Romney made a stronger explosive dynamite, Obama detonated the first atom bomb. There is NO CONTEST between these two methods.
The two are night-and-day. The Obama system is 4.5 TIMES BETTER. Not 4.5 PERCENT better (in a year when the election was decided by 5%). It was not 45% better. the Obama machine is 4.5 TIMES BETTER. 350% better. Understand. One side has something that is not 100% better or 200% better than your system. Its something that is 350% better than yours. When you spend a million dollars on a TV ad campaign that boosts your voter turnout by 10,000 votes. And the other side uses their system to run a better TV ad campaign - that also costs 1 million dollars, but they get 45,000 votes!!! 4.5 time better! 350% better!.
That is what Obama built in 2012. That is what was called ‘Narwhal’. That was using the bleeding-edge tech called Big Data. I wrote several blogs about it then and did a total analysis of the two systems compared head-to-head, written for MARKETING people, in other industries than politics, that I published here in early 2015. This is THE DEFINITIVE article about what is Big Data and why its the new era in databases. Why it makes psychographics like used by Romney (and now Trump) obsolete.
Obsolete.
VERY VERY SIMPLE EXPLANATION
Lets take a very simple example for you. I am a 56 year old white Finnish man. So, if you use Trump’s method, psychographics, you will find from my demographic data that I am a man. Thus you won’t need to target ads for women, like selling tampons, to me. It does work. Its far better than nothing. If also will find out that I am unmarried. No need to send ads about babyfood to me. And yes, there is very smart analytics that would detect, out of my purchase or web browsing behavior if suddenly I was expecting a baby haha (if say I was expecting suddenly to become a first-time father). Yes. the predictive modeling can be remarkably accurate.
Now the problems. I’m a 56 year old white man. From Finland. If you profile me, against any other 56 year old white Finnish MEN, anywhere on the planet, you will find they wear blue jeans. Finnish men hate to dress up ‘formally’. We are notorious about that. Some of the sloppiest dressers of Europe (some would not be so kind, and just say THE most sloppiest dressers - Finnish men, the women are gorgeous but us Finnish men, gosh). Ok. So he’s older, pretty affluent, lets target Tomi’s clothing ads as premium-brand blue jeans (and T-shirts and casual wear). This is what psychographics gets you. Those who have seen me, they know. Tomi doesn’t OWN blue jeans. I wear tailored suits and tailored WHITE shirts with loud (some say ugly) silk ties. Even on holidays and on vacations. I am so not-Finnish-male about this. Your psychogrphic model fails you on the EXCEPTIONS to the rules. Like in this case, what I happen to like to wear. For MOST men it will score them correctly. Me? They get wrong every time.
You think that's an isolated example? Take my music. I’m 56 years old, white guy, from Finland. What is my music taste. It HAS to be rock music. Hard rock, heavy metal. ZZ Top, Rolling Stones, Status Quo, Led Zeppelin, etc. Has to be. Or it could be classical music or jazz. But very likely rock. Heavy metal rock music. Essentially all of my peers of my age like that kind of music. Me? My fave music is rap music. Its ‘black’ music that is for YOUNGER generations. There are plenty of rap music fans (and a rap music scene) in Finland but they are all younger. Nobody age 56 in Finland ‘likes’ rap music! But I do. And I fell in love with rap BEFORE I moved to live in New York City. I was a fan of the music from its birth when most said rap is not music. Again the psychographics systems work in most cases, but fail with the exceptions.
A FASTER SAILSHIP OR REVOLUTIONARY STEAMSHIP
Psychographics works. It is FAR better than nothing. Romney built the most powerful database system the Republicans had ever had. They used it for targeting Get-Out-The-Voter efforts in 2012, with the help of 30 data professionals and Microsoft - and they truly built the state-of-the-art of psychographics. And it worked.
Except it is obsolete. They are building the most streamlined oceanliner sailship, when Obama has introduced steamships that can forge straight against the wind, and even run full speed when there is a lull and no wind at all. The steamship killed the sailing ships as commercial vessels (but sailing then became a leisure activity). That is the kind of revolution we saw in 2012. And the Republican party admitted it. They knew they had been defeated and knew they had to build a system like Obama’s.
Well. What did Trump do? He said he doesn’t believe in data. He ran most of his primary race without data. After he won his nomination, the Cruz team showed Trump what all they could do, and when Manafort came in to provide some sane professional campaign elements to Trump, he did get convinced to do some datamining. So he hired Cambridge Analytica, who has what? A Big Data system? No. Cambridge Analytica is a psychographic database segmentation system exactly like Romney’s except its a bit more modern. It is very good. But Trump is again doing a faster sailship. It’s because Trump is a cheapskate and learned that he’d have to pay 100 million dollars to do anything near what Obama had and Hillary now has. So its far easier to just outsource that work to the British and get their insights.
What was it used for? It was used to target TV ads, online ads, and help in the fund-raising targeting (the Nigerian money scam type of emails that Trump sends to his gullible supporters). Yeah. It works for that.
BUT IN HILLARYLAND
Meanwhile. What has Hillary done? She has vastly expanded the Big Data based system she has, the old Obama 2012 system now far upgraded and expanded. It drives every activity they do. So one of the details. They run 1,000 simulations every night on their system of the election. Not one simulation every night. Not ten. Not one hundred. They run 1,000 simulations every night! They test EVERYTHING. Now that Melania talked about bullying, what is the impact to the voters without any response? What if we run the Trump is a bully ad? What if we run the Hillary is the woman standing up against bullies. What if we run Melania’s words on a new experimental ad against TRUMP. And so forth. They run 1,000 simulations every night. This is a campaign run on DATA. Not on intuition or gut feeling or what pops into Trump’s head any moment. Hillary’s team is the most professional campaign in history. Driven by data.
So how do they get their data into the system? They run a DAILY POLL that is MASSIVE. They run over 100,000 surveys EVERY DAY. They run over 10,000 interviews in EVERY BATTLEGROUND STATE every day. That is perfect precision on the voter feeling on any issue, in every state, to every conveivable voting demographic. But that is only the ‘thermometer’. Is there a problem. Out of the survey snapshots, every day, they run a deeper analysis on whatever is right now in the news, the FBI letter, Trump’s Goon Squad of Voter Intimidation, or Melania promising to end bullying or Trump and his Moscow money connection etc. They have DETAILED surveys every night on a fracition of the total survey size, at about 1 in 10. So they still get instant and statistically very accurate feedback on ALL issues in politics, daily.
While we’re on polls. Trump fired his pollster and isn’t paying his bills for polling work already done. He owes his pollster 750,000 dollars. That would get you about one survey in the 13 battlegound states of the kind that Hillary runs EVERY DAY. But the Trump internal poll told him the truth, he has lost the election (which is why Trump got so morose back when this dawned on him, and then his response is to kill the messenger so don’t pay the pollster).
EVERY VOTER IS INDIVIDUALLY CONTACTED
Sorry, back to Hillary. After the polling, they do IN-PERSON TALKS to every voter (in battleground states). Sometimes they knock on a door, they see the Trump-Pence yard sign, and the door is opened by an older man who says, “I’m voting for Trump and so is my wife, go away or I will call the police!” And thats the length of that discussion. They STILL CONTACTED the voter, PERSONALLY. Its absolutely vital for Big Data process, to know every consumer, whether they love you or hate you. (I talk about this in my big primer about this process).
So they visit some homes. And others they contact by telephone or email or Facebook or SMS text message. And then they constantly refine and expand that knowledge base. Who is a supporter, has forwarded YouTube videos (on EITHER SIDE)? Who attended their rally where Bernie Sanders spoke? Who is volunteering time, who has contributed money, etc etc etc? Not just voters, they also have ineligble voters who are supporters, like say kids too young to vote. Or a spouce who is not a US citizen, etc. Can still be a Hillary supporter. There was a story that they found women who were secretly Hillary supporters, who were married to Trump-supporting Republican husbands - who themselves were Republican women - but now will vote for Hillary. The Hillary team knows EVERY VOTER (in battleground states) including these hidden voters. In 2012 the Obama team contacted undecided voters on average 5 TIMES PERSONALLY in the battleground states! That is how you win elections!
On election day, Hillary knows every voter who is registered to vote. They know the registered voters who have already voted early. They know of registered voters who have not voted yet, if they are Hillary supporters. They know what those voters do, if they are decided, and what issues matter to them. The Hillary team even knows which methods of contact that given individual voter prefers for CONTACT. Do they want to be contacted by phone and talk to someone or contacted via email or Facebook or - most popular of course, is SMS text messaging. Hillary’s process will not waste any calls or contacts on people who have already voted, or who are not registered, or who don’t like Hillary and would vote for Trump.
LIKE STEALING CANDY FROM A BABY
Trump has psychographic voter profiles and segments. They have decided that because Tomi Ahonen is a 56 year old white man who lives in a rich part of town, he is a likely Republican voter. And they target me for a get-out-the-voter effort. Even as (if I was a US citizen) they would then activate a voter FOR THE OTHER SIDE. The Hillary team knows NOT TO prod the enemy, don’t incite them to go and vote. If its a Trump supporter, don’t prod them. The Hillary team can target every single one of the 200 million registered voters in the USA, individually and personally. Yes. true target to the precision of one (in battleground states). They will not bother with that precision for practical reasons (a practical resolution of segmentation is 10,000 segments, it means that every single person is targeted so ‘uniquely’ that in their lifetime they are unlikely to get to know another person of that identical segment). If 130 million people vote, and say 70 million vote for Hillary, it means they will end up doing about granularity to individual segments of about 7,000 voters. Any TV or radio or Facebook or YouTube or Twitter campaign that gets to about 7,000 voters - IS WORTH DOING by the Hillary machine!
Trump does one standard TV ad in all 13 battleground states, that reaches 20 million voters. Hillary’s machine can get 2,900 SEPARATE marketing messages AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED to target 2,900 varieties of are you white or black or Hispanic or Asian-American; are you woman or man; are you gay or straight; are you Christian or Jewish or Mormon or Muslim or atheist or Hindu or Buddhist; are you in college or retired or working; are you unemployed, are you ex-military, are you without healthcare insurance, etc etc etc. The Hillary system is a radar. The Trump system is a binoculars. Yes you can aim your cannon better with binoculars than without but if you have radar, you will always win.
Ok. I wanted to put this blog out here for now. What Trump has is an updated version of what failed for Romney in 2012. What Hillary has is a VASTLY expanded and refined version of the new way to do political targeting. She will get AT LEAST 4% more votes because of this system on Tuesday, over what the last polls tell us. At least 4% more votes. If the average of polls for this weekend say, say its a 7% election for Hillary, then add 4% and Hillary will win by 11%. Take this to the bank. We have MEASURED it and if you don’t believe it, read these blogs. The math is all there.
Definitive Study of Obama vs Romney data wars 2012
Application of Big Data lesson of 2012 applied to modern marketing in 2015 (if you have not read about these matters, start here, its not too technical)
The Latest Insights and Updates to the Data Wars of 2012, written in late 2015
I will of course write a full analysis of this race after we get the details, after the election is over. The data machine is the biggest engine driving Hillary’s victory. It is a ‘secret weapon’. Some of the info of 2012 was so well hidden, the RESPONSE to Obama 2012 built by say Ted Cruz in 2015, was not strong enough to deal with what Hillary has now, because they hid part of their ability back then.
But this blog will get you all the data we can find, and crunch the numbers again, and we’ll see how big the impact of the data advantage was for the Democrats. Its about time the Republicans stop playing around with toys, and get serious and build a proper Big Data system, not a toy using psychographics. And what Cambridge Analytics has, is a large database yes, its not Big Data. Its nowhere close. Its just the old thing we saw with Romney, with a bit more precision. A better sailship. A faster propeller-driven airplane. What Trump is driving is children’s toy car, the battery-driven kind of ‘Ferrari’ the child can sit in and drive in the yard. Hillary has a proper RACE CAR. And its now been fine-tuned and has an even more powerful engine. Oh, and she has a TEAM of engineers to keep it in peak performance. And now these two will race each other. I am laughing so hard. Psychographics? That is what Trump bought? In 2016? After the Romney Autopsy? I am laughing hysterically...
This is how you use big rallies:
Clinton's concert tour isn't just about big crowds
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-concerts-strategy-230784
"And already, the campaign is seeing signs that the concerts are having their desired effect — including when artists are paired with traditional political surrogates: Ahead of President Barack Obama's appearance with James Taylor, for example, the local operatives handed out tickets across the street from an early voting site in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Voting turnout there jumped 80 percent compared to the previous day, making it the single largest voting day there so far — and bumping up county-wide turnout 16 percent by itself."
I cannot get rid of the eerie feeling that the Hillary campaign has a hand in the recent media onslaught that Trump is winning.
Posted by: Winter | November 06, 2016 at 10:09 AM
Allowing people to vote is a sure sign the elections are rigged, according to Trump & co
Nevada GOP chair: Polling locations open late so 'certain group' can vote
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/06/politics/donald-trump-michael-mcdonald-nevada/
"Taking the stage here, Trump then suggested that the polling location's extended closing time to allow voters to cast their ballots is a sign of a "rigged system" pitted against his campaign.
"It's being reported that certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County were kept open for hours and hours beyond closing time to bus and bring democratic voters in. Folks, it's a rigged system. It's a rigged system and we're going to beat it. We're going to beat it," Trump said Saturday."
Posted by: Winter | November 06, 2016 at 10:15 AM
"Nate Silver 'correcting' poll results based on how well different polls predicted previous elections is both good and bad. Firstly, there would have to be systematic error in each pollster's method."
The real problem is that you have to assume that things did not fundamentally change. But if in all earlier elections the party members loved their candidate, and now a considerable fraction hates their candidate, that introduces a whole new skew.
All these polls and "corrections" seem to falter on voter turn out. Without a sane model for voter turn out, all will fall apart.
Posted by: Winter | November 06, 2016 at 10:19 AM
@Winter:
" and now a considerable fraction hates their candidate, that introduces a whole new skew."
Not only that, but that Trump followers and Republicans are groups with in large parts do not overlap. How that will play out is nearly unpredictable. It's very hard to guess how much hard-core Trump fans which are not already Republican voters there really are.
Posted by: Tester | November 06, 2016 at 11:12 AM
Hi Everybody
Lets go back into two items in history. There was 2012. If you remember, after the election, Obama's team showed their internal polling vs the public polling. The public polling was wild, all over the place. The Obama polling looked like a old-style hat with a large brim - totally flat for a long time. Then jumped up, was flat, jumped down, was flat, till election day. And it hit the election result perfectly. It was that SAME election result already in their internal model in June.
The one up-tick, which was huge, and seemed to last initially, was the 47% comment by Romney. That was a game-changer. Obama would have won the election by 10% if they would have held to that - and remember, their internal polling held that level steady for about 2 weeks, no erosion at all. But this 'hat shape' then had the instant fall - back to the original level. Why was that? It was the first debate, that Obama lost.
Nothing else in 2012 moved the race, and Romney was the most flip-floppy politician ever measured up to that point, there was the long fight to get to see his tax returns, there were the last 2 debates that Obama easily won, and all the other stuff about women in binders etc. Nothing mattered. It was totally flat for months. One jump up (47%) then totally flat towards election day, except Obama lost his first debate, and the election dropped down to the same level it had been before, to 5%. And held that through till the end of the election. NO FLUCTUATION OTHERWISE.
It has to be a HUGE event to change an election, not the daily noise. And polling of 1,000 people has HUGE amount of NOISE. The race is not collapsing or jumping. It is steady. And if we take larger data sizes - like Reuters/Ipsos daily tracker, but run their polling up to levels of 5,000 people - its rock-steady no movement, 5% race. Very very very gradually inching up towards a 7% race. Totally steady. Yes, the 3 debates did create a gain for Hillary but the larger concurrent damage was to Trump about p*ssygate just before the second debate. And even those four events combined (3 debates + the sex story) only shifted the race by 2 points, if we take the large sample size and maximum view.
The daily story is the wild range of the nonsense polls like ABC/WaPo daily tracker that has gone from +12% Hillary to -1% Trump to now +5% Hillary in two weeks. Its nuts. That is not reality. But it DRIVES THE NEWS and the narrative.
So one, we KNOW from history, that the reality of the race is stable. The electorate gets to know the candidates - and in 2016 the two candidates were better known than ever in history, as a pair of rivals. The voters knew where this race is/was. It hasn't changed. What changed was the number of contestants. THAT is rare for a race, that we had third party candidates taking at some point up to 15% of the votes, combined (and today taking about 8%). That introduced genuine uncertainty to the election, but even with that, the race between Hillary and Trump remained utterly stable. Its primarily a function of the ceiling that Trump built, that he cannot penetrate. The 40% level. When we calculate women voters, black voters, Hispanic voters, and Trump's catastrophic voter performance in those three groups, he will do worse than Romney. That is inevitable. That is simply math. And Romney got to 47%. Trump will be lucky to get 40% on Tuesday. If we remove the propaganda pollsters like Rasmussen and IBD/TIPP and Gravis, that all have a systematic pro-Trump bias, and note, at least Rasmussen with enough data points, we can see they have INCREASED THEIR BIAS towards Trump consistently from 0% bias in July to 5% bias now - then Trump is at 40% today.
And whether Hillary gets 45% on Tuesday or 53% on Tuesday, depending on the undecided voters and any vote-shifters, if Trump is stuck at 40% he obviously is never going to win this election. And what is he doing? He was in Reno Nevada yesterday, saying its a bad thing that polls were kept open so Hispanics can vote! His campaign reacted to a court ruling about how the Trump Campaign has to stop intimidating voters - by saying they are going to APPEAL the court order AGAINST INTIMIDATION !!! The Trump campaign wants to go to court and insist they have a right to intimidate voters ????????
This is not going well for Trump. There was a path for Trump to get to 270 votes without Pennsylvania, but that meant among many miracles, to win Nevada. The early vote in Nevada has been so huge, in those parts of the state where the population lives and the election is decided - and driven by record Hispanic vote, that Nevada is done. Its won by the Democrats. Yes, there is still the actual election day on Tuesday and yes, the Democrats have to show up still on Tuesday, but this race is over. The only viable alternate map of extreme wishful thinking, of winning via bypassing Pennsylvania - is now destroyed because Nevada went with a Hispanic wave - a wave driven by Trump - that he still now is working to BOOST THAT WAVE. And that wave hits Arizona, Florida, Texas, Colorado as well.
So the main point is. The race is typically flat-even and isn't fluctuating anything nearly as wildly as the news tells us nightly - and when those pollster results are used in larger numbers, they typically tell a flat even non-bouncy story - which is less exciting for news. So they don't tell us that. Now lets take the other historic example we have. This cycle, we had that fantastic example of the Washington Post poll, that was given to 5 different professional pollsters to analyze - they got the RAW data before the poll was officially published, and each of the 5 pollsters gave their 'result' of the SAME data. They were off by 5 points at the extremes !!!
These are professional pollsters using the IDENTICAL NUMBERS and one can say, this is a 4% lead for Hillary, and another equally professional pollster can look at the SAME DATA and say, this is a -1% lead for Trump. Before they knew what others had said, just examining the data alone, professional pollsters can be as far apart at 5 points! Which is a very VERY revealing way to look at this year and see why someone can say, its a 5% race, and someone else can say, its a 0% race.
Do I know its a 5% race and not a 0% race, no. I can't know this. I don't do ANY polling myself (anymore haha). And I don't have any access to any of the raw data. But as I've said, for months, we have the NEAREST THING to access to the actual data, via Reuters Daily Tracking Poll. We can use their filters and calculate out the exact number of registered voter white women with no college degree; or the exact number of likely voter black men who earn minimum wage, etc etc etc. And Reuters/Ipsos daily tracker does over 6,000 interviews per month. Its FAR FAR more stable, on larger time-windows, and far FAR more likely to be close to accurate, than the various polls we get out every day that have a sample size of 800 people or 1,200 people. And the DATA of Reuters/Ipsos says, as I showed you in the diagram a few days ago - a TOTALLY FLAT RACE. A billiard-table. No contest AT ALL. Even the three debates that Hillary won by massive scale - and its rare for one side to win all 3 of the debates - yet the race didn't jump. The p*ssygate which seems to us, that it should be a more disqualiying thing than Romney's 47%, has moved the race much less than Romney's 47% did. Because why? Because Trump was stuck at 40% and his supporters will not desert him. He cannot win with 40% but he can't lose his supporters either.
Now. We know there is NOISE in all polling. The noise can be enormous as we saw in 2012 when the Obama data was overlayed on the polling data published by public polling. Obama internal data had only two shifts, they were immediate and big - the 47% comment helped Obama/hurt Romney, and then the first debate hurt Obama/helped Romney. And the net result was the race returned to form and was flat till the end of the election. And that end result was what they were polling in June before the conventions and before the debates. This race, as a 4-way race, had been about a 5% race before the conventions. It was about a 5% race in August, in September and in October. In very very rough terms, its a 5% race. If it has had any shift, that shift has been in Hillary's favor, ie seems to be about 7% now.
Now the Reuters/Ipsos data when run out to larger sample sizes, is consistent with a story that a, its a VERY flat race, and came from a 5% race in June, to a 7% race now. Its almost perfectly what Reuters/Ipsos data tells us too. The latest R/I gives us today, is daily data up to Thursday, Nov 3. If we take the last 5 days they have run 2,021 interviews (they have been growing the size of their daily interview polling as we get nearer to election day, to give even more accuracy) which gives the race as 43.6% Hillary vs 39.4% Trump with a 4.2% race. If we take the last 21 days to about the start of p*ussygate they cover 4,435 interviews and have the race at 43.2% for Hillary and 38.2% Trump and a 5.0% race. This is no movement. That is totally noise much inside the margin. That is a flat 5% race. If you really really want to dream its a tighter race, then yeah, at this rate, Trump would catch up to Hillary - IN MARCH of 2017 !!!!
No, a 'shift' of 0.8% in three weeks is NOT MOVEMENT. Its noise. Its far more likely that the race has not shifted. And both findings are consistent with Reuters/Ipsos data saying, .. its a 5% race.
Now to the Nate Silvers calculation of pollster bias, yes, there is certainly that, and it can be measured. We can make guesses about it now, we will know more on the actual result on election day (which is why some cowardly pollsters like Gallup and Pew have now decided not to dare to put their reputations on the line and they are not doing this test). But most elections are not wildly bouncing around. This election even more than most, seems exceptionally stable. And the data has consistently shown.. a 5% race. If anything, it has a slight opening up of the race towards the end, to about a 7% race, but suddenly, in the last 2 weeks, there is a rush of Republican propaganda pollsters (only) who insist, hey this race is tied!
It may be so. Its HIGHLY unlikely to be so. And these pollsters are VERY dubious to deliver that message. If we heard it from a reputable pollster that gosh, its a 0% race, like say CBS News/NY Times or Economist/YouGov or USA Today/Suffolk - then we could believe that might be happening. But none of the reputable pollsters have said this. Meanwhile what is our reliable daily tracker telling us? That its a 5% race (ok a 4% race). Meanwhile, what were these Republican propagandists telling us PREVIOUSLY? Rasmussen said it was a -2% race for Trump in early October and as massive as a -5% race for Trump in September! If you 'believe' Rasmussen now saying its 0%, - then Rasmussen has seen Trump LOSE FIVE POINTS in the last two months. Not gain anything! Rasmussen has found Trump stumbling into the last weeks...
Ok. I do think we'll see something in the 5% to 7% to 9% range in polls coming out today and tomorrow, the higher the better for Hillary but this is not a tight race at all. And her final election-day result will be better than these final polls, because of the several reasons we've discussed here. Now all we can do is wait. Wait first on Sunday/Monday for the last polling. And then wait, again, on Tuesday, for the actual election result. A little bit of a window into the direction of where the winds will blow, can be determined from voter turnout data in early voting which seems to be breaking records in many states.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | November 06, 2016 at 03:02 PM
Hi Everybody
And the first pollster is out. Its NBC News/Wall Street Journal and they are nailing their colors onto the wall at 4%.
They think Trump will hit 40% and Hillary will get 44%. Their poll two days before election day finds 8% undecided (which to me seems far too high).
Note that if we assign the undecided 8% proportionately to the 4 candidates, Hillary leads by 4.3%. If we leave Trump out of the undecided, and split the 8% into exact thirds, for Hillary, Johnson & Stein, then this poll would suggest Hillary's final margin to be 6.7%. If you want to believe in Trump's chances, you can see this result as a 4.3% election estimate. If you believe Trump has a ceiling he can't breach, then this suggests a 6.7% election result.
Also finally, remember, NBC News/Wall Street Journal has had a pro-Hillary bias this season. These numbers may over-count Hillary's actual performance. But we have the first numbers and NBC News and the Wall Street Journal believe the election will be a 4% election (should I remind you, that on election night 2012 the polling average said its a 1% race for Obama when it then after GOTV turned out to be a 5% race).
Lets see what other numbers we get
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | November 06, 2016 at 03:22 PM
Hi Everybody
Ok and do please ignore that poll by NBC/WSJ. It is utterly totally batshit-crazy bullshit poll. It finds 4% result based on likely voters - which they define as 'having voted in 2012 or 2014, or being under age 24 and expressed willingness to vote'
The NBC/WSJ poll EXCLUDES ALL surge voters !!!! Any woman who now comes to vote for Hillary who hasn't voted for some years (or ever); plus any older Hispanics than 24 year olds who didn't vote last time, are EXCLUDED from the count. This vote will under-count the final result MASSIVELY.
Ok. They said 4% with those assumptions? Ok. Add 1% national vote gain for Hillary out of Hispanic surge, and add 2% for female surge (at least) and its consistent with a 7% polling result. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more...
Ok, we go back to poll-watching :-)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | November 06, 2016 at 03:40 PM
Following up with NBC/WSJ poll
Yea. Women same percentage as previous elections 53%/47%. This is wrong. There is already a measured increase in female vote.
Then demographics. White vote is 73%. Thats way too high. Why is it? Hispanic vote is too low. Duh. They have Hispanics at 10%. Thats the SAME LEVEL as in 2012. We have record Hispanic turnout. So this polling instrument is very crooked. It is SEVERELY under-estimating Democratic vote.
They exclude the women's voter surge. They have a voter imbalance that is nothing better for women than all past elections. This is the female vote year, and we have evidence of a female voter surge. That means they under-estimate Hillary's vote
They have excluded any voters who didn't vote in the 2012 Presidential election as not being a likely voter (unless too young to vote, in which case they asked). So any surge of any 'irregular' or unusual voters is excluded. That may not be a big factor most years, this year when there is a measured Hispanic wave, that is a vast error in their method. And they have yes, the Hispanic vote share to be only same as the Hispanic vote was in 2012. While we know its surging, surging big (and going to Hillary).
Yeah. On quick math that tells me add 1 point out of Hispanic and at least 2 points out of female voter surge, to this final result. The female voter surge may end up even bigger but Hispanic voters are such a small part of the total electorate that it probably wouldn't get to a 2 point change to this result. Women, could easily be 3 or even 4 points more. But its safe to say, this tool under-counts Hillary support by at least 3 points. When they say 4% race, they actually measured 7% but didn't know how to read their thermometer correctly..
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | November 06, 2016 at 03:53 PM
Here's an interesting, if logical, development:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/media-election-fraud-230829
"After spending 2016 trying to outmaneuver each other and deliver the next big break, hundreds of newsrooms are now engaged in unprecedented reporting partnerships to uncover barriers to voting and debunk fake news that can cause chaos and confusion on Election Day.
The biggest of the new alliances is Electionland, a project involving more than 400 newsrooms across the country casting aside competitiveness to share real-time data and tips on everything from reports about long lines and voter intimidation to hoax tweets suggesting stuffed ballot boxes."
Posted by: sgtrock | November 06, 2016 at 06:38 PM
Hi Everybody
Florida early vote is analyzed rather deeply by Politico. And yet they kind of fudge the real issues by talking of a lot of percentages but not breaking out the absolute numbers, several which are stunning.
In 2012 Florida cast 8.4 million total votes (50% to Obama, 49.1% to Romney). By Saturday with one more day of early voting to go, Florida has already cast 6.1 million early votes! And of those votes, 1.5 million didn't vote in 2012. A small number of that would be young voters who were too young to vote last time, but most are voters who were not bothered before.
The Hispanic vote has traditionally strongly lagged their proportion of the electorate nationally and in Florida. They are 16% of the Florida electorate. In 2012 only 14% of Hispanics voted. In the early vote Hispanics have now voted at nearly 16%. And they have generated 900,000 votes. Of those Hispanics who voted now, 36% had not voted last time in 2012, ie 325,000 votes. If we assume this new vote splits by the recently-polled Florida Hispanic vote average, then it suggests 1% of the total Florida vote would now be gained by Hillary over 2012. Note, this is an unfair assumption because a lot of those who now joined are not traditional Cuban voters who are most Republican of all Hispanics in any state, but for example the Puerto Rican voters who are strongly Democratic. So it will be better than 1% in the total state vote, but less than 2%.
The race that was truly razor-thin in 2012, is now blown more open, into Hillary's favor mostly due to this strong Hispanic wave.
Note, that is only the early vote. But now an interesting tidbit to it that relates to our GOTV interests. The article also said that 25% of those Hispanics who voted early, had voted on election day in 2012. That means there is LESS WORK for Democrats to try to do, with a revised and stronger machine with more volunteers. I counted that it means of the total target voters that might be left for Democats to call on Tuesday, they are down at least 9% less to call because these 25% have voted early. Its likely a bigger gain, could be about 12% but I was using very conservative numbers. At least 9% less work to do, with a more powerful machine, and more volunteers this time. Yeah, I think its pretty safe to say, the Democrats will outperform in Florida this year....
And in very rough terms, this is the type of impact we should also see in other states that have large Hispanic minorities, ie Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Texas. Nevada and Colorado are out of reach for Trump. Arizona is razor-thin, Texas is in play (but may be lost)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | November 06, 2016 at 09:49 PM
FBI: Review of new emails doesn't change conclusion on Clinton
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/06/politics/comey-tells-congress-fbi-has-not-changed-conclusions/
Posted by: Winter | November 06, 2016 at 10:18 PM
If Kurt Eichenwald and David Farenthold don't get Pulitzers outta this, we should just declare the U.S. a press-free zone.
Posted by: grouch | November 07, 2016 at 04:11 AM
And a bit of good news for Trump
A Transit Strike In Philly Could Lower Turnout, Especially Among Black And Poor Voters
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-transit-strike-in-philly-could-lower-turnout-among-black-and-poor-voters/?ex_cid=2016-forecast
What's wrong with this union? Do they want to make sure Trump gets elected? RCP shows only a 2.4% lead for Clinton in PA. This strike could really tip the balance Trump's way.
Posted by: cornelius | November 07, 2016 at 06:06 AM
Early Voting Results: Who Leads State-by-State on Nov. 6?
http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/early-voting-results-2016-florida-nevada-north-carolina-latest-statistics-clinton-vs-trump-who-leads-is-winning-ahead-ohio-battleground-states-hillary/
I cannot really say what the numbers mean.
Posted by: Winter | November 07, 2016 at 10:59 AM
As long as they count voters by party affiliation alone, I don't think they mean anything. Due to the candidates' natures there will inevitably be more crossover voting than ever before. How, for example does a 'tight race' in Florida mix with 28% voter bleed among Republicans as was reported elsewhere? It can't be both, one of these has to be bogus.
It's also strange that the emails are getting played up this much again as a deciding factor - and the way they get played up indicate some suggestive polling being used to get the intended results.
And why have the polls 'tightened' everywhere when some more consistent polls Tomi provided show that this apparently does not happen? Is it again some propaganda polls influencing the results? Or is it just the news networks' desire to declare the race tight to have better headlines? After all, just applying different analysis can be enough to doctor a poll's result to one's liking.
All very hard to say. The only good thing in the article is the picture that shows that Trump virtually has to score a perfect victory in all relevant states to win the election, he may afford to lose one, but with two he'd be toast.
Posted by: Tester | November 07, 2016 at 11:27 AM
Talking Demographics, the military vote has skewed Republican for years. This year?
Donald J. Trump, Military and Political genius may have driven away some military voters. Here's another example of how HE knows better than the military. A private with one year under his belt would know why Trump's most recent statement is wrong.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/05/politics/donald-trump-mosul/index.html
Posted by: Wayne Borean | November 07, 2016 at 11:31 AM
@cornelius;
FiveThirtyEight story has been updated to say that the strike has been settled as of this morning.
Posted by: sgtrock | November 07, 2016 at 12:38 PM
Trump is reported to be losing his mind. I always thought that the rumors about Hillary's health were diversions from Trump's own state. There are good reasons he did not share his medical records. I would not be surprised when they contain information about his mental health.
Limping to Election Day: Donald Trump is losing his Twitter account, and his mind
Donald Trump's lost his Twitter account. Maybe it's time to worry beyond just Tuesday
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/07/limping-to-election-day-donald-trump-is-losing-his-twitter-account-and-his-mind/
Inside Donald Trump’s Last Stand: An Anxious Nominee Seeks Assurance
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/us/politics/donald-trump-presidential-race.html?_r=1
"Aboard his gold-plated jumbo jet, the Republican nominee does not like to rest or be alone with his thoughts, insisting that aides stay up and keep talking to him. He prefers the soothing, whispery voice of his son-in-law.
He requires constant assurance that his candidacy is on track. “Look at that crowd!” he exclaimed a few days ago as he flew across Florida, turning to his young press secretary as a TV tuned to Fox News showed images of what he claimed were thousands of people waiting for him on the ground below."
Tomi already wrote about the possibility that Trump sanity would not survive a loss. That fear might become all to real.
Posted by: Winter | November 07, 2016 at 02:41 PM
Even before the election, Melania is delivering on her campaign promise to fight on-line bullying. Removing Donald's direct access to twitter is an amazing achievement, and I hope she able to continue with equally impressive results.
Posted by: Isceald Glede | November 07, 2016 at 06:08 PM
And more good news from Florida. The black turnout is back in business, thanks to Obama.
"Black turnout jumped substantially, boosted by Obama's multiple Florida visits and Sunday's "souls to the polls" voting drive led by black churches.
Black turnout in Florida will end up higher than in 2012, Daniel Smith, a University of Florida political science professor and election data analyst, predicted on Sunday."
Florida’s Early Vote Ends With Record Turnout In Democratic Strongholds
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-early-vote-2016_us_58200106e4b0e80b02cae01c?section=us_black-voices
Posted by: cornelius | November 07, 2016 at 06:19 PM