Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
10 days ago he had Trump with little chance of winning Iowa. Today he has him as the overwhelming favorite.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/...an/#polls-only
Now I am projecting to a degree, but the consensus is if Trump wins the first 3 primaries, it's over. Nate is now predicting Trump will win the first 3 primaries. So I suppose I am putting words in his mouth, but it's not a stretch. |
Okay, but again you're cherrypicking what suits your argument, by going with the "polls-only" forecast rather than going with the "polls plus". (And in 538's own methodology, they say that polls-plus should be the more accurate methodology model, although not by a wide margin). Under polls-plus, Cruz still narrowly leads in Iowa, and while Trump still leads in New Hampshire, it's with a less than 50% probability of winning.
I think where you and I differ massively is that you look at the data and see this as increasing certainty for Trump. I look at the same data and see this as increasing uncertainty in a lot of different directions. This is definitely a very strange primary and a lot of the precedents don't hold true here; but that only means that we should further admit that we don't know what's going to happen, not instead say that what once seemed unlikely now seems certain, simply because it's far less unlikely than it once was.