Key excerpt (But it's worth reading the full thing):
But the real value-add of the model is not just in calculating who’s ahead in the polling average. Rather, it’s in understanding the uncertainties in the data: how accurate polls are in practice, and how these errors are correlated between the states. The final margins on Tuesday were actually quite close to the polling averages in the swing states, though less so in blue states, as I’ll discuss in a moment. But this was more or less a textbook illustration of the normal-sized polling error that we frequently wrote about [paid only; basically says that the polling errors could be correlated be correlated between states]. When polls miss low on Trump in one key state, they probably also will in most or all of the others.
In fact, because polling errors are highly correlated between states — and because Trump was ahead in 5 of the 7 swing states anyway — a Trump sweep of the swing states was actually our most common scenario, occurring in 20 percent of simulations. Following the same logic, the second most common outcome, happening 14 percent of the time, was a Harris swing state sweep.6
[Interactive table]
Relatedly, the final Electoral College tally will be 312 electoral votes for Trump and 226 for Harris. And Trump @ 312 was by far the most common outcome in our simulations, occurring 6 percent of the time. In fact, Trump 312/Harris 226 is the huge spike you see in our electoral vote distribution chart:
[Interactive graph]
The difference between 20 percent (the share of times Trump won all 7 swing states) and 6 percent (his getting exactly 312 electoral votes) is because sometimes, Trump winning all the swing states was part of a complete landslide where he penetrated further into blue territory. Conditional on winning all 7 swing states, for instance, Trump had a 22 percent chance of also winning New Mexico, a 21 percent chance at Minnesota, 19 percent in New Hampshire, 16 percent in Maine, 11 percent in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, and 10 percent in Virginia. Trump won more than 312 electoral votes in 16 percent of our simulations.
But on Tuesday, there weren’t any upsets in the other states. So not only did Trump win with exactly 312 electoral votes, he also won with the exact map that occurred most often in our simulations, counting all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the congressional districts in Nebraska and Maine.
I don't know of an intuitive test for whether a forecast of a non-repeating event was well-reasoned (see, also, the lively debate over the performance of prediction markets), but this is Silver's initial defense of his 50-50 forecast. I'm unconvinced - if the modal outcome of the model was the actual result of the election, does that vindicate its internal correlations, indict its confidence in its output, both, neither... ? But I don't think it's irreconcilable that the model's modal outcome being real vindicates its internal correlations AND that its certainty was limited by the quality of the available data, so this hasn't lowered my opinion of Silver, either.
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Notes -
A Twitter exchange is in fact a form of contract -- so whether the guy sent Nate a piece of paper saying "I will pay Nate Silver 100K if Florida goes less than R +8, otherwise he will pay me", I think the terms of the bet were pretty clear.
I certainly wouldn't require Nate to pay up based on the Twitter exchange, but that would definitely be the Honourable thing to do -- he can probably afford it based on what he's charging on Substack alone, and it would be great degenerate-gambler PR for him to do so.
...?
If the Twitter exchange is in fact a form of contract, then so is the stipulation of said Twitter exchange for the requisite next step- which includes Nate's condition that the other person send a formal contract via lawyer. If the guy sends a piece of paper saying what you say, it would be failing to meet the conditions of the terms of the Twitter-contract.
Just so -- that's why I wouldn't fault Nate for not paying up. But the whole point of honour culture is that one feels the need to go above and beyond what's legally required, even when it's to one's own detriment. It's not like the bet was unclear or something -- the sporting thing to do would be to chuckle and write a cheque.
If it turns out the other guy had lost instead of winning, would he have paid up?
Getting a lawyer and a contract isn't there as a form of rubber-stamping. It's there to make sure that both parties are cooperating. If the guy sent him a piece of paper without a lawyer, he is refusing to cooperate and Nate shouldn't treat it as a valid contract.
Unknown, of course -- but Nate would have had the opportunity to drag him on Twitter, which in an honour culture would probably be worth it.
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