Via David Noll (@davidlnoll), on this day in 2016 Nate Silver of “FiveThirtyEight” fame gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a 78.7% chance of winning the presidency. At the same time, as Mr Silver’s defenders like to remind us, Silver gave Trump a one-in-five chance of winning the 2016 election, while almost everyone else was writing Trump’s chances off completely. Will history repeat itself in 2020? Also, what about prediction markets?
It seems the polls are either perfectly accurate, largely doctored to suit people’s political dreams, or randomly generated by an enormous system of malfunctioning computers. I’ll take the “malfunctioning computers” explanation any day of the week.
But hey! History might repeat itself.
I voted for the Libertarian ticket in 2016 but am seriously considering abstaining from this year’s election.
It’s a sorry bunch to pick from this season. I can’t help thinking that both candidates are only a disturbing reflection of the current political atmosphere.