Nate Silver is arguing with himself.....

[haikugal]

Found this on KOS and it's interesting...

New Hampshire polls are a leading indicator to national polls. Voters are more engaged and more informed in New Hampshire than they are nationally. As the primary season progresses, voters continue to become better engaged and informed, until the actual voting takes place, when the voters are presumably as informed as they ever will be.

In other words, if a candidate is doing better in New Hampshire polls than he is in national polls, that suggests that as voters become more informed, they will continue to slide toward that candidate. At so the candidate will do well in the voting booth, at which point all voters are highly informed (relatively speaking, at least). On the other hand, if a candidate is doing better nationally than he is in New Hampshire, that suggests that the candidate may not hold up to scrutiny, that he may be trading primarily on name recognition, etc. His support is superficial.

The litmus test of this then becomes Iowa. If a candidate is doing better in New Hampshire polls than he is in national polls, and that candidate does well in Iowa, that provides very powerful evidence that this increase in information works to the benefit of that candidate.

You might call this something like "the momentum of information". This hypothesis, by the way, has been confirmed by other researchers.

It goes on to what he's been saying lately which is totally different from 2007...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/25/1424878/--NH-polls-are-a-leading-indicator-of-National-Polls-Nate-Silver-of-2007

[LondonReign2]

1. I'd be interested in hearing why he thinks differently now

[PoliticAverse]

2. I think he pretty much explained his theory about New Hampshire this time...

in the following article:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-could-win-iowa-and-new-hampshire-then-lose-everywhere-else/

[LondonReign2]

4. Thank you

Yeah, it kind of looks like he is partially, at least, contradicting himself. But the two views could still mesh, partially.

In '07, he is making a blanket statement -- do well in IA and NH and you'll improve nationally. Now he is trying to show that you could still win both but it won't be enough to win it all.

The conclusion Nate seems to be drawing from IA and NH, based on their demographics, is that only white liberals will vote for Bernie. Personally, I think the conclusion he should be drawing is "only people that get to know Bernie will vote for him". Once he started campaigning in the first two states, his support increased dramatically. He has made a few short stops in SC and TX and his support jumped. All Bernie really needs to do to win is spend his limited campaign money on cloning himself so that he can be in all 50 states simultaneously.

[haikugal]

3. I think this is what the KOS OP is referencing.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-could-win-iowa-and-new-hampshire-then-lose-everywhere-else/

After reading it the only thing I see is the whole dubious race issue. I say dubious because I don't see how that would negate what he said in 2007. It's still name recognition and Bernie will be heard and his policy's weighed by the electorate.

[LondonReign2]

5. Yes, agreed. Thank you

[Uncle Joe]

6. I've seen something like this before but Bernie is not playing the game that Nate envisions.

Thanks for the thread, haikugal.

[haikugal]

7. You're welcome Uncle Joe!

Thanks for The Princess Bride clip...love that film!