Friday, October 16, 2020

Revised election odds - Trump has a 35% chance of winning

 I am using as a starting point The Economist projections at https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/presidentThey think Trump only has an 8% chance of winning.

They see the following swing votes.  Here is the list, their odds and my odds:

  • Pennsylvania, D 89%.
  • Michigan, D 92%.  The polls have this wrong and this is closer than predicted.  I give Trump a 40% chance of winning Michigan (and Biden 60%).  The Trafalgar poll predicts that Trump will win Michigan 47-46.
  • Florida, D 76%.  I think this is virtually a tie with Biden having a slight edge.  I think the odds are D 51% and R 49%.
  • Wisconsin, D 91%.  This is much closer than the polls predict.
  • Minnesota, D 95%
  • North Carolina, D 64%.  I think this is basically a tie.  D 51% and R 49%.
  • Arizona, D 67%.  This is fairly close, with the edge to Biden.  I call it D 55%, R 45%.
  • Ohio, R 65%
  • Georgia, R 55%
  • Iowa, R 64%
  • Nevada. D 88%
  • Texas. R 71%.
To simplify this, I will just assume Trump wins Georgia, Iowa and Ohio (and Texas).  In my previous analysis, I said that Trump had to win, of the remaining states, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, and North Carolina.  So give the rest, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota (and Nevada) to Biden. Note that if Trump wins Wisconsin, he could swap that for Michigan.

So using my probably flawed methodology, I come up with a 35% chance of Trump winning.  This is also similar to what the gamblers predict.

As usually, the pollsters are way overconfident.

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