After the storm
November 7th, 2012, 9:42am by Sam Wang 177 Comments -->
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. -T.S. Eliot
Good morning! The day after the election is always a bit of a relief for me. We’re still waiting on a few races, but here’s a preliminary look back at how our polls-only approach did. All in all, extremely well. As Randall Munroe sent me last night: “BREAKING: Numbers continue to be best tool for determining which of two things is larger.”
President
In the races called thus far, pre-election polling medians were correct in 50 out of 50.
There is one race remaining, Florida, where Obama leads Romney by 49.91% to 49.36%, with 100% of votes counted. It hasn’t been declared yet, partly because the threshold margin for a recount is 0.5% – they are probably still working that out. Pre-election polls were a near-perfect tie. I suspect I am about to lose that coin toss. Update, 11/15: final Florida result, Obama 50.0% Romney 49.1%.
The two-candidate popular vote share is Obama 51.1% to Romney 48.9%. This exactly matches my prediction, which was derived from state polls with a little Bayesian help from national polls. Update, 11/15: popular vote Obama 51.4% Romney 48.6%.
Bottom line: I will not have to eat a bug.
Senate: Of the closest races, election returns match polling medians in 10 out of 10. Of particular note is the North Dakota race, where Heitkamp (D) leads Berg (R), 50.5-49.5%. That’s one where I had Heitkamp based on polls, and Nate Silver had Berg based on polls plus other factors. We are also waiting on the Montana race, where Tester (D) leads Rehberg, 49-45%. The upper chamber appears headed right for the median that we predicted, 55 D/I to 45 R.
House: This one will take some time to sort out. From the Republicans’ current majority of 242 seats, I predicted losses of 2-22 seats. It looks like the losses will be toward the low end of that range.
I am very interested in whether Democrats win the national House popular vote, which would mean a mismatch between the vote and the seat count. This is due in part to redistricting. It would be only the second time since World War II that it’s happened, and is antidemocratic with a small “d.”
I’ll give a more detailed look later, especially regarding our prediction challenge. For now, I think we can safely say that the following people had a good outcome: President Obama, Congressional Democrats, and quantitative poll analysts.
Finally, a trip down memory lane: the Princeton Election Consortium long-term predictor, as of August 3rd:
Back in a bit with more wrap-up…
Tags: 2012 Election · House · President · Senate
177 Comments so far ↓
Though, of course, the best in this case do have conviction….and won!
Dr Sam gave us the armor of conviction.
well, me at least.
True, though that’s Yeats, not Elliot.
Perhaps this has been covered in someone’s posts earlier, but last night on Fox News, during the time Fox called it for Ohio, did any of you notice how absent the usual blowhards were? I could only find Rove doing his usual deceptive thing and Chris Wallace. None of the usual cast of Fox talking heads. Plus, I think it was Chris Wallace (or was it Britt Hume?) that questioned the Fox call on Ohio. Then one of the moderators, an attractive female whose name I cannot recall, spent about 3 minutes walking across the Fox studios to some back room where the number crunchers were. They were asked if they were comfortable with their Ohio call. Indeed they were and they explained why, with reasons such as Cuyahoga county still not complete, etc. Then the lady walked across the studio again and found Rove. Incredibly, Rove was still doing his Rovian act!
Did any of you notice this?
…………………..
And, again, from an aging statistician, great work!
Steve
Yea, it was very funny. But remember Rove spent a lot of money trying to get a different result.
It was hilarious. Rove was acting like a student caught red handed while copying. Megyn Kelly is the anchor’s name.
I was watching the county results in Ohio and knew it was over. The TV networks saw the same thing. Believe it, Karl Rove.
But I was following the TPM blog, and I should like to give Fox credit for early calls and accurate ones. I had not expected that!
Thanks Sam, really great job!
Congratulations, Dr. Wang, for your great predictions and models. It looks like your initial prediction might come true, 332 EV’s for Obama. If uncounted votes are from Miami-Dade County in Florida, and Obama’s already up 46,000 votes, then he very well might get Florida. If he gets Florida, you captured that.
Yu da man!
Thank you, Sam and Andrew, for a job well done.
I was at an election party last night with about a 50/50 D-R split. People asked me why I was so calm and smiling. I said: “It’s the numbers.” and left it cryptic. Most of the Republican left early MST with mutterings of voter fraud and other dark thoughts.
The most telling comment of the night was Peggy Noonan’s: “I just don’t understand what’s going on out there.”
I never got around to reading all the comments here. I will later today.
Again, thank you and Andrew so much. I learned a lot and you offered much peace of mind. Thank you.
@E L check out Peggy Noonan’s old tweets to see why she can’t understand what’s going on. Its hilarious
https://twitter.com/Peggynoonannyc
The most telling comment of the night was Peggy Noonan’s: “I just don’t understand what’s going on out there.”
Finally, Peggy said something that is both true and perceptive.
Thank you so much, Dr. Wang, for your work and for this website. If I had to only listen to the MSM these past few months I would have gone nuts with worry. You kept me sane with rational, intelligent math! I am so grateful for your work.
Dr. Sam,
After all the obsessive visits to your website, the most joyful moment was reading the poem by T.S. Elliott.
Such a joy to have drifted into your website about a month ago. In the US, every geek always suspects that she is an ugly duckling. Then one day, she wanders by a lake full of swans!
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PS: Now, since I work in chaos, I am finding it hard to resist the temptation to sprinkle a little mist on your parade. Looking at your track record from 2004 to 2012, I feel like commenting that
there is a hint of imperfection, in too much perfection.
“I work in chaos” is such a great phrase! Brings Greek mythology to mind ;-)
PG, i love that comment so much. its exactly how i feel about PEC.
And I love chaos theory. you should have made more comments for me to admire.
The backgrounds of the commenters here are unparalleled, various and splendid.
and….it is said that absolute perfection is perfectly boring. and anti-chaotic as well.
;)
Great job, Sam! Would like for you to keep doing this at least until an election where the analysis shows a likely Rep win so conservatives can get their heads out and realize not everything is spin.
That’s a good idea, Ed, though I think memories will not be long enough for it to be appreciated.
I just wanted to point out to the “skewed” crowd that, if you take the traditional old ten states in contention: NV, OH, VA, IA, CO, NH, WI, FL, PA, and NC, you will find that the polls were actually biased 1.2-1.5 points on average in ROMNEY’s direction.
NV, VA, IA, CO, NH, WI, and PA all went to Obama in higher margins than expected. OH went lower, and FL was about dead on.
Even PPP had a slight bias toward Romney in the swing states. I credit the Obama GOTV effort.
OH. I was so relieved once they called CO and I knew, no matter what shenanigans happened in OH, PBO had won. Because if it had really come down to OH, this thing would not be over, IMO.
OH is to Dems what PA is to Rebubs, just always giving less than you think.
Possible explanations (I’m basically just paraphrasing Nate Silver, for that matter):
1. The ground game, of course.
2. Latinos with Spanish as main language.
3. PPP doesn’t call cellphones.