I think people need to stop thinking that “most likely outcome” = prediction. They gave Trump a 1/4 chance of winning in 2016, which is far from impossible and better than most were saying. Their latest trackers have really emphasized the probability aspect of things, rather than the expected vote share.
I think people need to stop thinking that “most likely outcome” = prediction. They gave Trump a 1/4 chance of winning in 2016, which is far from impossible and better than most were saying. Their latest trackers have really emphasized the probability aspect of things, rather than the expected vote share.
They actually did a project about this. Here’s how close they were with US House predictions: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/checking-our-work/us-house-elections/ (you can look up other elections but since there are so many to work with here I thought it was a good place to start)