US Election 2016, and the Perils of Polls
US Election 2016: The Perils of Polls…The Vikings wounded aren’t even walking (getting to know Shaun Prater and Anthony Harris)…There will be some basketball played at a Cyclone pace in Hilton Coliseum…
With the college football board having a little downtime before the bowls begin (we will begin sorting through them next Monday), this becomes an opportune time to introduce a topic that should bring a great deal of interest over the next 11 months – the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. I know the perils already of putting such a hot button topic in play, because of the passions involved when it comes to this particular medium, but through the course of the various sports cycles the discussions here have been at high levels. I expect more of the same in what is going to be a fascinating episode.
This election brings such interest because the betting markets will have to work without something that many have grown comfortable with in recent election cycles – having a multitude of quality polling information to sift through. That has already changed drastically, which leaves this marketplace wide open for the shrewd handicapper to maneuver his way through, especially with more information likely to be distributed about this election across the various media platforms than any in history. Much of that information is going to be wrong, some of it intentionally so, which means that there is work to be done.
Let’s first define the game that many of you will be getting involved in, and then deal with those polls.
Item: This is what you are actually betting on
The Mediaverse can not help but turn any US Presidential election into a battle for the rights to all eternity, Good vs. Evil clashing on a grand scale, with Armageddon looming. And why not, it sells. The reality is much different, with the likelihood that despite all that you will read and hear, the outcome is going to come down to how a small handful of states play out.
The Red/Blue divide in the United States is a wide one, the gap between the two arguably as big as it has been in my lifetime, largely through so many for-profit media outlets needing to build and maintain the divisions, because there are dollars involved. Folks from each side relish hearing the narratives that confirm their own predispositions, so it becomes Michigan/Ohio State or Auburn/Alabama football, or Duke/North Carolina basketball, on a national scale.
What this does is bring a strong degree of predictability across many states. The overwhelming majority of voters will already be locked in to their positions, for many regardless of the particular candidate, and that is so very important to understand going in. Here is the way I have them graded just within the one year mark pre-election -
Dead Red Republican (191 Electoral College votes): Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (11), Arkansas (6), Georgia (16), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)
Hot Pink (15): North Carolina (15)
True Blue Democrat (217): California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), D.C. (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (12),
Shaded Blue (36): Iowa (6), Pennsylvania (20), Wisconsin (10)
Battleground (79): Colorado (9), Florida (29), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18), Virginia (13)
This breakdown is important. For all of the philosophical discussions about modes of government and the various issues attached, as long as the Electoral College remains the way that Presidential elections are determined, the realities of the current map plays such a critical role. The odds of the Democratic party capturing any of the Dead Red are quite slim, and the odds of the Republicans turning any of the True Blue about the same, if this was to be a typical cycle. Which means that this is not a game that will start with a jump ball between players of equal size, but instead one that begins with the Democrats already holding a meaningful lead – if my version of a Daily Racing Form is correct, the Democrats bring what is likely a 253-206 advantage heading in to those swing states, which means that a victory can be as simple as maintaining their strongholds and only winning Florida, of the states that I believe are in play.
But what if this is not a typical cycle? It is the entry of Donald Trump into the mix that may be changing the picture. Trump’s magnetism has brought a new dimension – there are a lot of disaffected voters in this country who are tired of the “same old, same old”, and that appears to be the catalyst for what on the current surface makes him the Republican front-runner in much of the current polling. One would also think that it would make him the front-runner in the betting markets for the Republican nomination, and also the #2 behind favored Hillary Clinton for the general election, but that has not been the case (this is the tracking source I will use through most of the cycle, if someone knows of a better one please pass it along).
Why are the betting odds running so differently than the polls? Because those setting the odds, and those betting the kind of money that would shift them, have become aware of something that is changing the landscape -
Item: The Polls ain’t what they used to be
I am going to link out for much of this to avoid becoming long-winded, leaving you the option to read in detail for as much as you wish, but the gist is that as the global population moves away from land-lines to cell phones, the old polling models are slowly vanishing down the drain. You can read a good primer on that from this past June in the New York Times, and only a few months after that article came the announcement that Gallup, among the oldest polling organizations around, will not be involved in tracking the head-to-head 2016 race.
This becomes one of the major questions for the political handicapper – which sources of information will you trust. In recent elections in both Israel and the United Kingdom the evidence continued to mount of the weaknesses of modern polling, and that should have everyone on their toes (I have a lot of additional links from those elections, should you wish to make a deeper study of them).
That leads to one of the key aspects of the current marketplace – how much of the Trump activity can be considered a legitimate measurement of public opinion, enough to sustain and then impact the general election? Here is a problem along that front - his involvement in the Republican debates has been a financial windfall for the cable networks, and across the Mediaverse spectrum running articles either for or against Trump have become a good way to generate eyeballs. By showcasing his positive placement in the polls these outlooks are helping to keep that fire alive, which indeed serves their purposes. What is troublesome is that the current polls are being treated with the same regard as they had been through past cycles, despite what should be an emerging awareness across the elite media circles that their accuracy may be limited. That is a legit concern to someone investing in the marketplace.
Of course, part of the media savvy in getting what they can while they can is also the history that tells them of early front-runners that were not built to go the distance. That is also something for the serious handicapper to consider, and this look back through the years by Politico is a good primer along that front. Is the current Trump showing a genuine force? Or is it a wind that may shift over time? The fact that money can be wagered makes it an invigorating study.
Item: Setting up your own modeling
Both the student of politics, and the investment-oriented handicapper, can find much to absorb and learn from in the energizing process of sorting through just how an electorate shapes up. And yes, like in the sporting events we sort through each day, there are some numbers to crunch. One of the better places to do that is this interactive chart from Nate Silver’s 538, which will be a good source of info over the next year. You can learn a lot about the possibilities through those models, but let me cut-and-paste a couple of the categories from the modeling that will play a big part, and can be used in your own processes -
NON-COLLEGE-EDUCATED WHITE
Whites without college degrees are now the bedrock of the Republican coalition: They voted for Mitt Romney 62 percent to 36 percent in 2012. However, their share of the electorate is rapidly shrinking: They skew older and more rural, and we project that their share of the national vote will fall to 33 percent in 2016, down from 36 percent in 2012. Nonetheless, they still factor heavily in battleground states such as Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin.
BLACK
Blacks are consistently Democrats’ best demographic group. Not only did they give Obama 93 percent of their vote in 2012, their turnout rate of 66 percent that year was 2 points higher than that of whites. If black turnout drops in 2016, Democrats will have much less room for error in key states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The first of those categories may correlate with the Trump popularity to this point, since logic would dictate that he would draw well from that base. The second also matters significantly in that while the black vote will still skew heavily Democratic, the turnout is likely to be lower than it has been over the past two cycles. Plenty of food for thought here.
This should be enough to get the ball rolling. The follow-up thread will be a good place for you to bring in your own ideas, and in particular those from various states that believe their local color may change. I would be extremely surprised if any of the strongholds shifted, but there are those key swing states in play, and the first to get a feel for where they are going can also be the first to lock in good wagering positions.
Links mentioned in the post:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/whats-the-matter-with-polling.html?_r=2
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/gallup-poll-2016-pollsters-214493
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-polls-wrong-20150318-story.html
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/what-we-got-wrong-in-our-2015-uk-general-election-model/
http://www.politico.com/gallery/201...early-front-runners-nomination-002138?slide=7
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/
