What The Stunning Bernie Sanders Win In Michigan Means

[Uncle Joe]

Bernie Sanders made folks like me eat a stack of humble pie on Tuesday night. He won the Michigan primary over Hillary Clinton, 50 percent to 48 percent, when not a single poll taken over the last month had Clinton leading by less than 5 percentage points. In fact, many had her lead at 20 percentage points or higher. Sanders’s win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history.

Both the FiveThirtyEight polls-plus and polls-only forecast gave Clinton a greater than 99 percent chance of winning. That’s because polling averages for primaries, while inexact, are usually not 25 percentage points off. Indeed, my colleague Nate Silver went back and found that only one primary, the 1984 Democratic primary in New Hampshire, was even on the same scale as this upset. In that contest, the polling average had Walter Mondale beating Gary Hart by 17 percentage points, but it was Hart who won by a hair over 9 percentage points.

Indeed, my initial thought was to compare the Sanders upset with Clinton’s over Barack Obama in the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic primary, but that undersells what happened Tuesday night. I was in New Hampshire when Clinton won in 2008 and sat in stunned disbelief — Obama lost by about 3 percentage points when the polling average had him ahead by 8 percentage points. In other words, tonight’s error was more than double what occurred eight years ago.

The question I am asking myself now is whether this means the polls are off in other Midwest states that are holding open primaries. I’m talking specifically about Illinois and Ohio, both of which vote next Tuesday. The FiveThirtyEight polling average in Illinois gives Clinton a 37 percentage point lead, while the average in Ohio gives her a 20 percentage point lead. If Michigan was just a fluke (which is possible), then tonight will be forgotten soon enough. If, however, pollsters are missing something more fundamental about the electorate, then the Ohio and Illinois primaries could be a lot closer than expected.

(snip)

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-stunning-bernie-sanders-win-in-michigan-means/

[highprincipleswork]

1. All I've got to say is "Go Bernie Go!"

[pat_k]

2. Yeah, I saw this. It's great! "stack of humble pie" indeed. (nt)

[sarge43]

20. With a side of crow n/t

[Kall]

3. Well

hopefully it will mean that Democratic primary voters will think twice about how Hillary Clinton will fare on the trade issue in a general election in the Rust Belt, compared to someone like Donald Trump who's been attacking these crummy trade deals all along. There have been giant flashing red warning signs along the road about this from the beginning, and some people, especially around here, seem determined just to floor the accelerator and drive right past them towards the cliff.

[Live and Learn]

4. K&R And a hearty thank you to Michigan! nt

[nolabels]

5. Or in other words, you cannot poll your way to success, you have to earn it

Bernie does his homework, while that other person thinks it can just be farmed out to others. The system that works is being genuine and rubbing elbows with everybody else. Trust is a reciprocal thing

[Uncle Joe]

6. I agree, nolabels, Bernie had faith in the people and

the people of Michigan returned the favor.

[Yuugal]

7. F U Nate

Nate, you keep pushing Hillary by saying she can't lose and trying to build a bandwagon vote for her in every state. Then when you are totally wrong you walk it back with a "gee, maybe the polls are wrong". I never really heard of this guy before about 2 yrs ago and his record has been awful so far as I've seen since then. He got the UK all wrong and he doesn't seem to have a clue this year in either side's primaries either.

[CorkySt.Clair]

23. He was around in 2008

But by all means proceed with your kooky CT.

M$m!

Oligarchs!

Wall Street banksters!

[Enthusiast]

31. Oligarchs and Wall Street banksters are a conspiracy theory?

What fucking world do you inhabit?

[renate]

8. I don't blame Nate... statistics are statistics and he knows how to calculate them, but

... if the data you're given are wrong, you're screwed.

I don't think this is an indictment of 538 or of statistics, it's an indictment of polling. Which gives me hope

[Yuugal]

19. Wait.

Isn't Nate the guy who is supposed to interpret bad polling correctly? Otherwise why would anyone need him? Looking at some lame 65-35 poll and saying, "Derp, it looks to be 65-35", isn't the brilliant analysis I've been hearing about from the people who love him.

Edited to add: you have my favorite sig line gifs.

[reformist2]

30. Nate has been "weighting" his calculations this year, essentially putting his finger on the scale.

What he ought to have been doing is adjusting his calculations based on prior crappy performance.

For example, when the PPP polling agency turned out to be off by more than 8 points in Iowa and New Hampshire, Nate should have reduced their weighting, or even should have started adjusting their poll results accordingly. But he continued to leave their numbers alone and give them a high weighting or importance, perpetuating the appearance that Hillary had strong leads everywhere. In a way, Michigan isn't all that different from the other outcomes. It's just that instead of Hillary squeaking out a small win that covered up how wrong the polls were, this time she couldn't put it together.

[quantumjunkie]

9. K&R

[pugetres]

10. A case of

GIGO?

I respect Silvers abilities. I do think he gives himself too much credit as a pundit nowadays though. I also think his opinions somehow alters his ability to parse the numbers.

[Uncle Joe]

12. There are so many intangibles that numbers simply can't or don't capture and I believe

Last edited Wed Mar 9, 2016, 06:14 AM - Edit history (1)

you put your finger on one of them.

Another is the inherent conflict of interest which ties up so much of the corporate media conglomerates, their ability to influence or persuade public opinion seems to be their prime directive over actually enlightening the people.

This power is in a constant state of flux nowadays more than ever with the growth of the Internet as a counter balance.

The corporate media conglomerates still have great power but the more they abuse it, the less trusted and weaker they become, just as the Washington Post ran sixteen negative stories on Bernie in sixteen hours.

There are some mistakes on Hillary's part which flew below the CMCs radar during the previous debate which I'm not bringing up until we're further along in the primaries so she doesn't try to correct it.

Although considering how many times Hilary has switched positions it probably wouldn't give great benefit for her to try at this point.

Having said that I do believe it won't sit well with most of the nation but she has a blind spot in this regard.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Yeah, I think the polls are way off for a couple of reasons.

They are polling "likely Democratic voters." They don't realize that a WHOLE LOT OF Independents are disaffected Democrats coming back to the party to vote for Sanders, PLUS another big group of Independents who are a-political or even leaning Republican, who see reasons to vote for Sanders (and for some, against Clinton).

My bet is that the pollsters have no conception of the excitement and genuineness that Sanders--with his honesty and integrity, and New Deal platform--something we haven't seen in about 50 years--has generated since the last couple of elections, by which the pollsters determine who the "likely voters" are.

The Congressional elections were among the lowest turnouts in history, and produced a Congress that has an EIGHT PERCENT approval rating. Why should people vote for that garbage? (And Obama's 2nd election was pretty much in the cards--not much motive for GOTV.) Many registered Democrats didn't vote in those elections. Many young people certainly didn't vote. And on top of all that, the young are hard to pin down. They don't have land lines any more!

But the biggest thing they missed was that Sanders would pull in voters who haven't ever voted, or haven't voted in a while, or are disaffected from the Corporatized Democratic Party, or are Indies of one kind or another. They also missed, or underestimated, the speed with which Sanders supporters, including new internet news providers, have been able to get the word out on the bullshit that the Clinton campaign was doing, and Clinton's true record on many issues, and have gotten organized on line to provide instant info or motivation wherever it was needed. These are not predictable nor manipulable behaviors. And they likely reach a whole lot of voters that pollsters generally discount. These activists and voters are under their radar--and thus are producing many surprises.

I presume all this is because pollsters live in the Corporate News Bubble. They ought to get out more!

[PATRICK]

13. Plus they have been highly motivated

to stay in that bubble and render everything Sanders as invisible, effectively pimping out their polls as they once did for President Bush.

Is it really a surprise or a poll suppression in effect that has attempted to suppress a logical voter attitude? You can believe you are unbiased when in fact you are and institutionally vested even more so.

[delrem]

16. Pollsters can get any result they want.

It's not a science. It's an art.

It's also a business. All the polls are paid for. All of them. All the companies that are paid, know who is paying them, and it's part of the pollsters resume that they know what their client wants. It's just business, business sense, where the best in the business know best what clients want.

More money is flowing through this US election than the polling companies, the independent for hire journalists, bloggers, scammers everywhere, ever dreamed could happen. It's a total funfest of post Citizens United optimism. It's freedom, and a spanking new gunmetal grey Corvette.

[WillyT]

14. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[delrem]

15. Either Nate got played, or he's a player.

My guess is that he's a player.

[Enthusiast]

28. He's a player.

[Major Hogwash]

17. Sarah Silverman said it outloud "Bernie can't be bought" -- the kind of man we want as President!

That's why Nate's analysis was off!!!

We want an honest President.
A person with integrity.
A person we can trust.

Boo-yah!

That's it in a nutshell.

[billhicks76]

18. Boo-Yah

Exactly. People understand it doesn't matter what someone's position is if you can't trust them.

[Helen Borg]

21. Nate Silver had put her at >99% change of winning!

Last edited Wed Mar 9, 2016, 08:50 AM - Edit history (3)

Let's see how the media spins this now!

Here is what Nate has to say. Taking it with a grain of salt at this point.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-the-stunning-bernie-sanders-win-in-michigan-means/

[HERVEPA]

32. Who is Nat Silver?

[Deadshot]

22. Wasn't Hillary supposed to be the presumptive nominee?

MSNBC stooges were saying Bernie should've been dropping out, but guess what? He won MI last night!

Screw the exit polls. They're meaningless.

[bvf]

24. Don't quit your day job, Nate.

Oh wait...

[bulloney]

25. I think Sanders' win in Michigan showed that voters didn't forget NAFTA and the WTO

and Bill Clinton's role in passing and signing those agreements.

I think it is also an indication that the media cook the polls to frame the primaries the way they want them to turn out.

[Jitter65]

26. Open primaries are really the key. Over 15K changed party requests in MI

Since it was over 15K when the MI election official gave his announcement it could have very well been more. The key to good polling numbers will have to figure in crossover voting in big way.

I know for a fact that this was done in 2008 with talk radio prompting their listeners to go vote for Obama (the black guy) because he would easily be defeated in the GE. The black and latino vote was thoroughly discounted and Obama's win took they by surprise. Same thing looks to be happening right now and there is no way to counter this. The polling for closed primaries will be much more accurate going forward.

[Ford_Prefect]

27. If the data doesn't include what is already off the conventional radar it is impossible to see it.

Silver has been off because the polls have been looking at incomplete data sets. That much has been clear for some time. I think it's the forest for the trees effect where conventional statistics has ruled that "we" are at the edge of known data, rather than among the larger majority. In much the same way that long term un-employed people drop out of the hiring data altogether and thus become invisible.

In short, either they think we won't show up to vote for Bernie, or they think we aren't here at all. Sad commentary but an insight into where Clinton and the pollsters are coming from. Both are so used to the echo chamber that they cannot hear it when we tell them to FUCK OFF!


For what it is worth the article was written by HARRY ENTEN, not Nate Silver.

[merrily]

29. LIAR! You didn't eat humble pie because Bernie made you. You ate it because you attempted to

create victories for Hillary by publishing prophesies that you hoped you would be self-fulfilling. Bernie didn't make you do that. Hell, he would have much preferred that you had not been doing that.





P.S. Clinton upset Obama in NH only because she cried over a question about her hair or something equally superficial. As much crap as Bernie gets about his hair, he did not upset her in Michigan because he cried over it. In fact, he probably didn't even upset her. Your numbers were off. That does not equal an electoral upset.



Thanks, Uncle Joe!

[Betty Karlson]

33. Nate has so much egg on his face that he asked someone else to eat his humble pie for him.

[jopacaco]

34. Now they have decided that Bernie probably won because of the Democrats who crossed over to Trump

or complacent Democrats.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/michigan-mississippi-idaho-hawaii-primaries-presidential-election-2016/
It seems like they can never give Bernie credit for anything.