you need to pull the rug out. the idea that you can say she has an x% chance of winning is incoherent. what that actually means is "if these thirty assumptions hold, she has an 80% chance of winning". but, here's the thing: that was always true. it's not that he's lost his way. it's that what he was doing was always a kind of snake oil.
the primary prediction schedule is a completely different thing, because you're building a predictive model. you're using existing results to predict future results. i'll argue about specifics (i don't think race is a predictive variable, for example), but i don't deny the premise. and, then you can come up with these kinds of statements.
aggregating polling and demographics like this together and then thinking you can come up with a number is just ridiculous. it doesn't matter what you're tweaking, it doesn't matter what you're assuming, it doesn't matter how much data you have, and it doesn't matter how close you are to the date - it's ridiculous.
but, that said? one cannot deny that most of the arguments right now are clearly in clinton's favour. his argument may just be a lot of nonsense that he pulled out of his ass, and then made sound more "scientific" by using fancy words. but, it's basically right.
i also think you're kind of misunderstanding what he's saying. what he's saying is that "if these thirty assumptions hold, she has an 80% chance of winning right now.". it's not a declaration of permanence. that number itself will shift and change with the polls.
he is nowhere saying that because his calculations imply an 80% chance of winning right now, they will therefore still imply an 80% chance of winning the day before the election. that's kind of a straw man.
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hmm
I think Hillary will win by a 65-35% margin
jessica
actually, i think that 35% for trump is a reasonable prediction - but that the other 65% won't go entirely to hillary.
there's obviously too many variables to make hard predictions, right now. but, if the party can't get a muzzle on trump, i think he's going to be stuck in the low 30s.
Lynn Reed
No muzzle can fit him...lol
jessica
see, if they can find a way to shut him up, it's hard to see why he would poll lower than george w. bush. trump is fundamentally the same candidate. it's just that even dubya had some sense of when to shut up. you also need to factor in where hillary ultimately runs. if she decides to go after conservatives, she could beat him soundly on the right. but, if she runs on the left, you could get a lot of conservatives vote for trump out of fear of hillary.
i think there's a kind of breaking point where conservatives, en masse, just can't do it. this is independent of everything else, and that's the scenario where he polls around 30-35%.
Lynn Reed
Since Trump is anti trade alot of GOPers will never back him. Hillary needs to drop the TPP and he wont hav anything real to attack her on. Stay the course and she will be fine
jessica
i think that if you look at trump's position more carefully, you'll see it's mostly smoke and mirrors. it's empty populism, and it doesn't really differ that much from the party line.
on china, clinton & trump are hard to tell apart. clinton is not going to drop the tpp, she's going to accelerate the asia pivot.
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Xavier Thorn
I haven't heard her say anything about going to war, I don't think that word has come out of her mouth.
Look! I get it, I was a Perot fan back in 92, I've got my Bernie 2016 bumper-sticker on my truck. I get it, but I know when to pick my battles. Trump poses a huge threat, not only to our domestic policies but also, and maybe more importantly, our foreign policies.
He would set us back to pre WWI (that's 1914) relations with some of our strongest allies. He could begin a downward spiral with China that would make the cold-war look like a playground spat.
I'm not an HRC fan, but at worst she's 4 more years of the last 8 years and I don't think that's too bad. With Trump? Who knows? We could be looking at World War 3. Is your frustration with not getting everything you want right f-ing now worth that risk? I hope not.
jessica
you're obviously a paid poster and not worth debating with.
for real people: the right response is that this person is not remotely informed about where hillary stands on the issues. you obviously can't actually convince somebody that's working for her. but, you can point out hillary's support for a chinese containment policy through the asia pivot and the tpp (and that china doesn't like this), her support for continued war in ukraine and general belligerence against russia, her calls for "no-fly zones" and occupation forces in syria, her orchestration of the kony kerfuffle to increase us involvement in africa, etc.
you need to talk past the bots. call them bots. call them bots to their face. do it with contempt. ignore them when they protest. but, always correct them. don't let their warping of the facts stand up. that's the important part of this: that passive readers are not just able to see the exchange for what it is, but don't walk away with bad information.
it's very important that people understand what hillary actual represents (she works for the war industry) before they vote for her, thinking she will be different than trump. we're on the same side in wanting an alternative to trump. we're not on the same side in thinking that clinton is that alternative.
hillary clinton will not be different than donald trump in any discernible way.