Hi Guys,
A few days ago I posted a mid-term election forecast generated by "The Signal and the Noise" author Nate Silver. At that time Silver predicted a 68% likelihood of a Republican senate majority. Your response demonstrated your keen interest in the topic.
Silver is a serious statistican with excellent credentials. He favors multiple data sources and weighs them using Kalman filtering-like techniques. He cobbles together the various State data using a Monte Carlo simulation tool to produce an overarching National projection. His projections are time from event dependent.
This post is a near final Election Day update.
On Tuesday morning, Silver forecasts a 76% probability of a Republican senate victory. The projection incorporates data from 1670 polls. Here is the Link:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/interactives/senate-forecast/If a 95% likelihood is postulated as a near sure thing outcome, Silver predicts 28 races are an easy call: Democrats win 11 and Republicans win 17.
The remaining 8 races are more uncertain. Silver shows Republicans are likely winners in 5: Iowa, Colorado, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana. Democrats are likely winners in North Carolina and New Hampshire. An Independent slightly leads in Kansas. This is the fun stuff of the exercise.
Statisticians like to use a term called calibration as a measure of their success. If a statistican is well calibrated, his forecasts are accurate and nearly dead on target. If a weatherman forecasts rain 50% of the time and it only rains 10% of the time, that weatherman is not well calibrated.
Nate Silver has been well calibrated in earlier election events. Today, his record is again challenged. We'll measure his calibration once again.
Elections and sports events are excellent to test calibration. Outcomes are quick and definitive. That frequent feedback allows an honest statistican to modify his methods if needed. Silver makes sports predictions and his well calibrated forecasts just might be used to advantage.
Thanks for your many fine earlier contributions.
Best Regards.
