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Comment by justinzollars | Hacker News Reader

Every single one of these models will break down this year. We are living in an unprecedented time. I can't understand how we can model how many people will vote, when we don't even know how many people have moved out of cities this year. Half of my friends have left San Francisco - if as many people left Philadelphia, The Twin cities, Milwaukee or Pittsburgh, then that really effects the outcome.

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That's a neat point. My gut reaction is that there probably hasn't been enough people migrating to make a big difference. As in, I doubt enough people left CA to make it cut Republican and I doubt enough people moved to SC to make it cut Democrat. But that's just a gut reaction - I have no clue really.

It's a neat possibility to think about though. If there were enough people who did that, it would really depend on the demographics moving and where they're going. It could swing the election either way. I wonder if anyone has found numbers on this and attempted to model it.

That's an interesting thought, but San Francisco aside, it seems like most people moving out of cities are just moving to the suburbs of those cities, which shouldn't affect the presidential election calculus?

I know people that have moved, but forgot to register. Its a fact of life that voter registration will take the back seat when managing more complicated things in life - like a move

I wonder if that is true for people who were also likely to vote? I know registering to vote was one of the first things I do whenever I move, and I've also voted in every election since I've been allowed to.

That seems plausible. Still, I think the "exodus from cities" theory doesn't apply much to American cities outside of New York and San Francisco. Places like Philadelphia may have even seen a small uptick from NY emigration. But this is just a guess, it would be nice to see any statistics (I haven't found any).

Here in San Diego, for instance, we've generally had net inbound migration. It's pretty much the opposite of Philly, though, in terms of both coronavirus and violence. But it is an "alternate choice" backwater city, compared to SF or LA, kind of like the way Philly is to New York.

I don't think the type of person that forgets to register is the type to reliably show up at the polls, so I doubt this is going to have a big effect.

> I can't understand how we can model how many people will vote, when we don't even know how many people have moved out of cities this year. Half of my friends have left San Francisco

Moving out doesn't stop you from voting. I didn't change my voter registration when I moved from San Francisco to China. Years later, back in California, I voted in San Francisco, where I was still registered, despite residing in Hayward.

For verification purposes, they asked me when I voted what my address was. I was allowed to vote despite not knowing my own apartment number.

I've made similar points on topics like this, and bar none, every single time, it is downvoted into oblivion. People seem to have a difficult time with forecasting data that goes against their preferred outcomes.

I'm not trying to get points, or keep points. I'm just trying to point out that the models are not going to work this year and its crazy to assume they will.

The models will work just fine. We are talking about large numbers here, and your small sample of anecdotes does not mean anything. No, there is no mass exodus. No, it is not going to change the results. Yes, the current polls are more accurate than just about any in history and we have an abundance of high-quality state level polls to back up the predictions.

If you want to know where the models are going to break down it is more likely that the state-level polling has over-corrected for the factors that caused them to miss the swing to Trump in 2016 and Biden's numbers are even better than what polls are saying (a prediction based on looking at polling at the congressional district level and then seeing how that differs from state-level polling -- the numbers are the district level are closer to national numbers than the lower statewide numbers for swing states.)

"Garbage in, Garbage out".

If you'd like to not be downvoted into oblivion you'd do well to provide an alternate theory. What's your prediction for the upcoming election? Why? What's your methodology? Or is your point that forecasting is futile? I can't tell. There's too much emotion directed at 538/etc. for me to suss out what your point is besides disliking 538/the media/etc, which just isn't particularly helpful for the discussion.

I wish it were that simple. HN just seems to have gone the way of reddit, where downvoting is disagreement. And of course, 3 minutes after I post this comment, it's downvoted.

I don't have a methodology, because I'm not a pollster with dozens of people at my disposal. I am just bemused and annoyed that things like 538 continue to be taken seriously when they continue to ignore sociological, historical, and cultural factors in favor of an overly-complex quantitative model.

Re: the upcoming election. I don't think we can be sure, yet. Certainly it will be close, and the Biden at 90% to win estimations make no sense to me. Biden is a much weaker candidate than Hillary and he continues to make blunders (i.e. I guarantee that his comments on fracking in the last debate just lost him Pennsylvania.) Trump seems to be finding a lot of allies in strange places, e.g. African-American celebrities. That may be an isolated incident, or it may signal some big unexpected changes.

At this point my estimation is Trump-Biden 55-45, for the simple reason that people tend to vote for economic issues and Trump has a better "perception" on this issue. "It's the economy, stupid." as James Carville put it.

> Biden is a much weaker candidate than Hillary and he continues to make blunders

That’s your view; however, he is polling much better than Clinton, which would indicate that voters don’t necessarily agree with you (or else just that peoples’ opinions of Trump are lower than last time round, or a combination. But really it hardly matters).

> (i.e. I guarantee that his comments on fracking in the last debate just lost him Pennsylvania.)

Looks like 20-50,000 people employed in fracking plus industries supported by it in Pennsylvania. And presumably most of those would be voting for Trump anyway; it’s not like Biden’s views on fracking were a total black box til now. So it only really matters if it’s very close anyway.

> HN just seems to have gone the way of reddit, where downvoting is disagreement.

Alternatively it might be because you're objecting to the results of a well-documented statistical process, and then when being questioned saying things like "I don't have a methodology".

You'll notice that the comment you replied to (saying it was similar to your point) is not downvoted into oblivion.

I agree that there are factors that so much of current reporting is missing. The black (and Latino) swing toward Trump, for example, is apparent in every single poll I've seen. As mentioned elsewhere in this discussion Nate Silver's discussed it, but little else other than the odd article like https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/trump-macho-a... (which basically attributes male Latino support for Trump to the same machismo that ruined their ancestors' countries). Same with the increase in black Trump support from 2016%'s 8%, even though it's pretty clear from history that no Democrat can win the White House without at least 85% of the black vote.

>At this point my estimation is Trump-Biden 55-45, for the simple reason that people tend to vote for economic issues and Trump has a better "perception" on this issue. "It's the economy, stupid." as James Carville put it.

Indeed, Gallup reports that 56% of Americans believe that they are better off than four years ago (https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/321650/gallup-electio...).

My model is simpler. If Trump wins every other state he won in 2016, he only has to win one of MI, PA, WI, MN, or NH/NV. The first three he won in 2016 (and, as you say, Biden's views on fracking may very well cost him the state); MN Trump lost by 1.5%, so the state is only sightly behind the rest of the Midwest bar IL, and half of Minneapolis being torched this summer probably pushed the state over.

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