2008 538’s Final Projection
posted by on November 4 at 11:49 AM
The folks who says they’ve got “Electoral Projection Done Right” have made their predictions: Obama will win with 353 electoral votes.
The last polls have straggled in, and show little sign of mercy for John McCain. Barack Obama appears poised for a decisive electoral victory.Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana. These states total 353 electoral votes. Our official projection, which looks at these outcomes probabilistically — for instance, assigns North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes to Obama 59 percent of the time — comes up with an incrementally more conservative projection of 348.6 electoral votes.
We’ll find out soon if 538 lives up to its cocky slogan.
How accurate has this site been in past elections?
Looked to me like they were predicting 349-ish electoral votes. In fact, I see it here in the quoted text.
Sorry, it's going to be around 380 to 381, actually.
But still, it was nice seeing someone do a reasonable statistical analysis ...
fivethirtyeight.com has only been around for a few months. But Nate Silver has had a lot of success predicting baseball outcomes in the past...
Did you not even read what you posted? They're predicting 348.6 for Obama, not 353.
Shouldn't maybe Golob be the one passing judgment on scientific methodology? I mean I'm not saying Dominic isn't qualified… ok, so actually I am.
Considering the malfeasance of the touch screen voting machine companies (vote flipping,broken machines,etc, Republican SOS disenfranchisement of voters and republican hentchmen on the ground, I believe that if Obama is allowed to win, he'll get between 270 and 280.
"Nate Silver has had a lot of success predicting baseball outcomes in the past..."
That doesn't make me feel much better.
Yeah, baseball outcomes aren't determined by touch-screen machines.
@ 6) Agreed. Scientific methodology ain't my thing, but I'm not doing that. I'm posting the numbers from 538.
@ 2 and 5) In the final count, it's impossible to win a fraction of an electoral vote, or win a state a certain percent of the time. That's why I went with the integer 538 provided based on total electoral votes of states they foresee Obama winning, which add up to 353 electoral votes.
Hey, I'm just suggesting that his methodology has some support, not that there's not voter fraud out there. Never MIND then!