Regarding Trump's probability of winning..

[Le Roi de Pot]

That is roughly one in 1 in 8

But it is not that simple .

For example consider the following

1) Pick a ball randomly from an urn with 8 balls of which one ball is of different color


2) Flip a coins 3 times in a row


Picking the odd ball in experiment 1) and landing 3 consecutive heads roughly has the same probability as Trump being elected


Or is it?

Does the probability really reflect Trump's chances of winning. Or does it reflect out lack of certainty in knowing the future using the tools of statistics..


But deep down I think this approach is a bit generous to Trump. Given the state of the race Trump will be very happy to take these odds in a betting match and Biden would not..


Consider the following through experiment .. if the race were truly 1 in 8 .... Say we offered the choice to scrap the election and
use experiment 1) or 2) to determine the next president ...I am willing to wager $1000 that Biden would choose elections and Trump would choose the game. ( Even after assuming Biden's choice is purely driven by his personal estimate and not social responsibility )



Because deep down - Trump knows he is Fucked and would be thrilled with 1 in 8 shot if he could take it

Bottom line - we got this.

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Trump probably lost some of the probability tonight.

[Iliyah]

2. Oh hell no . .

We are voting up to the end.

Keep the eye on the prize.

[Thekaspervote]

3. Great analogy! I see a lot of these simple posts which don't really relate

The poll aggregator for the Economist tweeted an answer to that some time ago. And essentially said, okay sure you want to throw your money at that.. go ahead!

[Doreen]

4. I hate to sound like a broken record BUT what worries me

is the cheating: foriegn influence, voting suppression, machine tampering, mis information, and any other crappy tricks.

Yeah, so far Joe is doing great. So was Hillary.....until the last day. Yes, he is further ahead than Hillary but from back then we should know better than get excited about the good numbers.

[GulfCoast66]

5. Actually Hillary was not doing that great. I love her. But that's the truth.

She never came that close to 50% and the final count was within the polls margins of Error. She was up 2-3 and won the popular vote by 2. No one was talking about the EC like we do now.

We had shitty turnout. You can make an argument that was due to Russia, but there were so many other factors in play.

The media and Republicans have spun the tale that trump winning was a real shocker. While he had to thread the needle it was by no means shocking if you read dispassionate pollsters. Yeah, we were emotionally shocked. But most of us are not dispassionate at all.