FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver: Biden is no favorite. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren?

[egbertowillies]

FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Siver's analysis should dispel the fallacy. Did he project an easier path for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren?

https://egbertowillies.com/2020/01/12/nate-silver-biden-no-favorite/

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. UH OH!! Gonna need more Bernie bashing to project a harder path for him!!

But, it's not gonna work... once Bernie racks up primary victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, he'll be on a smooth glide path to the Democratic nomination.


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. Slowly. Step by step. Inch by inch.

[beastie boy]

20. The same analysis gives Sanders a 24% chance to win. That's 14 points lower than Biden

Sure, pop the champagne and get out your dancing shoes!

Not that I mind gloating. But you've got to have something to gloat about...

[Hassin Bin Sober]

23. I've had him at about 20% so I wasn't far off.

Biden’s chances nosedive if he loses Iowa. Which looks like a real possibility.

If anyone has been popping champagne it’s been the Biden supporters. I think they are in for the biggest letdown.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

33. You got that right my friend!! Bernie's got the big mo' on his side!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[beastie boy]

36. Biden's chances of nosediving in Iowa are slightly smaller than anyone else's.

But I am not being nearly as giddy about celebrating his certain victory as some in this forum whose candidate's chances are slightly worse than Biden's.

[highplainsdem]

2. That is NOT what Nate Silver said. The only reason he does not refer to Biden as the

favorite is that he isn't giving Biden odds better than 50% of winning the nomination.

But his analysis shows Biden has about twice as good a chance of getting the nomination as Sanders, and even more of an advantage over Warren.


Here's the page on his website so people can see what Silver REALLY says:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

[crazytown]

4. Biden's current odds at 538 are 38%.

He took a hit on their model after coming 4th in the Selzer poll for Iowa.

Biden is the front runner, but not a dominant front runner. No poll shows him winning a majority of delegates.

[highplainsdem]

6. He still has a much better chance of winning than any of his rivals, acccording to 538's

analysis.

[crazytown]

8. He has, one their calculus,

a 62% of not winning.

[highplainsdem]

10. LOL. If they currently gave Biden a 51% chance of winning, you'd be posting that he had a 49%

chance of not winning.

If he had a 90% chance of winning, you'd be clinging to that 10% chance he wouldn't win.

Meanwhile, what are the odds they give for your preferred candidate?

Biden's the front-runner, and has been for the past year.

[crazytown]

12. "you'd be posting that he had a 49% View profile chance of not winning."

I might. You know me too well. Never say die.

[PatSeg]

16. I love the good natured banter!

There's no reason we can't disagree with humor like you guys just did.

[TwilightZone]

22. Agreed.

Too many pretzels, not enough time.

[The Mouth]

24. It's Biden's to lose

But our frontrunners and strong contenders have blown it before (Gary Hart, John Edwards). At this point I think Biden has to avoid mistakes and real or fabricated-but-sticky scandals. But if he can't beat Bernie, he wouldn't be able to beat Trump.

Of course I could be completely wrong.

[TwilightZone]

3. That's about the silliest out-of-context "analysis" I can recall seeing.

The data at 538 clearly shows Biden in the lead, both in delegates and in chance of winning.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

[crazytown]

5. With a 38% chance of winning the nomination,

or to put it another way, a 62% chance of not winning.

[TwilightZone]

7. That doesn't mean he's not the favorite.

This really isn't complicated. Words like "favorite" have clear meanings that are consistently being ignored.

It's gotten so prevalent that it's just laughable at this point.

[crazytown]

9. If favorite is what it means in a horse race,

Biden is the favorite. Rank outsiders seldom win, but we remember when they do.

[TwilightZone]

11. Context

In the context of the OP - what 538 says about the race - the assertion made in the OP is blatantly and intentionally false.

This place just makes me laugh sometimes.

[crazytown]

15. "OP is blatantly and intentionally false"

in other words, spin. That's politics.

"He stole it. It's the Biden plan" Joe on Buttigieg's 'Medicare for All Who Want It'

Buttigieg had been talking about 'Medicare for All Who Want It' since February, long before Biden announced, let alone put out a health care policy.

[TwilightZone]

37. Nope, it's not spin. It's false.

"Biden Is The Front-Runner, But There’s No Clear Favorite"*

is not

"Biden is no favorite."

It's not spin. It's just flat-out false.

Would you argue the same for Trump? Are his 15,000 lies just "spin"?

*https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/biden-is-the-front-runner-but-there-is-no-clear-favorite/

[crazytown]

38. Nate Silver from the video "To me being the favorite means being over 50%

and Biden is winning less than half the time in our model"

That's what Silver means by favorite - not having the best chance, but likely to win more often than not.

The OP title is not flat-out false, it states Silver's view, given his definition of favorite.

And it is a lot less false than Biden accusing other candidates of stealing his health care plan.

[Hortensis]

44. Yes, all the while Biden's been way out front, Silver's done these.

I no longer trust Nate Silver's intentions.

[Hav]

45. I also think there is a bit of a barrier between us laymans regarding statistics

and number guys like Silver.
The win that Nate Silver is talking about, as I understand is, is a majority of pledged delegates. In such a field, that is obviously harder to achieve. Biden's 38% chance doesn't equal the probability to win the nomination or that the other candidates' combined chance is 62%. Silver has calculated a 16% chance that none of the candidates will win a majority. Certainly there are cases where Biden or anyone else could win the nomination without winning half the delegates.

[Hav]

46. "38% of winning vs 62% of not winning the nomination"

That is not what Nate's model is about. His win is defined as directly winning more than half of the pledged delegates which isn't the same as winning the nomination.
And a part of that 62% also include cases where Biden could win the nomination as well.

[crazytown]

47. Silver as per the video, is quite clear about what he means by a favorite.

A favorite is a candidate more likely than not to win the nomination, than not. And by that measure, Biden is not the favorite on their model, but will be if he wins Iowa.

Their model suggests IA is crucial.

[pnwmom]

13. Bernie got 49% in the last Iowa caucus,

and he's polling about half that amount there now.

That doesn't sound like progress to me.

[Thekaspervote]

18. Exactly.. sanders is actually doing very poorly

Sanders got 40% of Democratic Primary vote in '16, he's running half that this time. Even if he got 100% of Warren's support, he'd still be behind his '16 vote total. thehill.com

[Polybius]

31. He ran against basically one person who was the heavy favorite last time

But you already know that. This time the Primaries are much more competitive.

[pnwmom]

34. So? It wouldn't matter how many others if his voters were completely committed to him.

But about half his old supporters have moved on.

[Polybius]

41. Not "so"

If Hillary ran this time, she wouldn't get the 50-something percent that she got last time. Why is this so hard for some people to understand? There were only two serious candidates last time, and one was endorsed by basically everyone in the Democratic Party. Not so this time.

[pnwmom]

42. There is no evidence that Bernie's support has ever increased

beyond the numbers he had last time, and there is no way he can win 50+% without getting millions of Hillary voters to pick him instead of Biden, Warren, Klobuchar, or Buttigieg.

That's not going to happen.

[Thekaspervote]

17. Sir... you as much as anyone knows this race will not be won without the AA vote, primary or GE

Link to tweet

?s=21

We all know you don’t support Biden, why twist it? Taking lessons from Sirota??!!

[The Mouth]

26. If the AA's don't 'vote blue no matter who' this time

Stick a fork in the Democratic party. a couple more Trump appointees to SCOTUS and they can kiss every federal program since Wickard v. Filburn (1942) goodbye.

Yeah, 2016 there was foreign interference, the strong inherent bias of the electoral college and a campaign lacking in the energy and charisma of Barrack Obama's (not to fault Secretary Clinton, but a politician with the charisma and energy of President Obama only comes along once a generation or so), but this time everyone knows what 4 more years of Trump will bring.

Personally, I think that our AAs are pragmatic enough to support even a candidate who hasn't done a particularly good job at reaching out to them. If I'm wrong, they have more to lose than I in many instances.

[emmaverybo]

27. But don't you think we should respect "our" AA's a bit more and the candidate who reaches out

to them than to dismiss their support, assume they will just have to vote blue no matter who, so in other words, if “our AA’s” know what’s good for them...

Personally, I wonder at the candidates who have only recently discovered they need to make up years in which they failed to cultivate a relationship with AA communities and leaders and now for
their own political ends are trying to attract them. But I really am concerned about any liberal saying never mind, they will support candidates who haven’t particularly bothered to support their interests and woe to them if they don’t, it’s THEIR loss.

We need to stop making the AA vote a matter of mere expedience to the party. No one talks this way about any other demographic group.

[The Mouth]

39. I respect them immensly

and think they are more pragmatic than any other group we have.

My comment is that if something odd, strange, or bad should happen regarding Joe, and our nominee was not particularly popular with them, I think they'd realize just how bad the alternative would be, unlike some, ahem, other groups.

[emmaverybo]

43. Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.

[beastie boy]

19. nate Silver has a definition of "favorite". It's over 50% chance to win. Biden has a 40% chance.

No other candidate comes close.

The rest is commentary by one Egberto Willies. Rated to provide "very little" factual reporting and have "extreme" left bias.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/egbertowillies/

NEXT!

[SmallDonor]

21. Bidens poll numbers have dropped like a rock since the day he announced.

Biden is not the Clinton machine of 2016 by any stretch of the imagination with massive amounts of money, campaign infrastructure in place in every state and dominant polling numbers. Biden is low on cash and his infrastructure is weak compared to Clinton, Bernie has flipped that scenario in his favor this time around and the polls show it.

December 17–20, 2015, Emerson Clinton 65 Sanders 26 +39

December 12/15 - 12/17 Emerson 2019 Biden 32 Sanders 25 +7


January 2–6, 2016 Ipsos/Reuters Clinton 58 Sanders 30 +18

Jan. 8-9 2020 Ipsos/Reuters Biden 23 Sanders 20 +3


December 17–21, 2015 CNN/ORC Clinton 50 Sanders 34 +16

December 12/12 - 12/15, 2019 CNN Biden 26 Sanders 20 +6


December 11–15, 2015 Morning Consult Clinton 52 Sanders 27 +25

December 12/9 - 12/15 2019 Morning Consult Biden 31 Sanders 22 +9

[OilemFirchen]

25. LOL!

Something's missing from your analysis.

Welcome to DU, though.

[SmallDonor]

30. The others do not matter, we all know this.

[OilemFirchen]

32. Huh?

[LongtimeAZDem]

35. Um, yeah, sure they have:

[ehrnst]

40. Well, only if you don't you take into account facts and math.

And the definition of "since."

[Loki Liesmith]

28. Competitive races are good.

Competition is good.

[NYMinute]

29. bwaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha nt