However, the large number of undecideds and minor-party voters provides an additional source of uncertainty. We should wait to see how they shake out; in the last weeks this has benefited Trump. Johnson and Stein support are particularly strong among young voters. Maybe Hillary Clinton should bring out Bernie Sanders or some of the celebrities who showed up at the DNC.
Technical note: The Presidential model’s Bayesian prior does contain the possibility of a big swing in undecided and minor-party voters. First, the prior’s standard deviation was set to 3%, somewhat larger than recent elections. Second, it was set to have “fat tails” by using the t-distribution with 1 degree of freedom instead of the usual bell-shaped distribution. Under the latter assumption, a swing of 2 standard deviations would occur almost 15% of the time. If Trump wins, it was still in the model. But surprises can happen.
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/0...ir/#more-17442
Technical note: The Presidential model’s Bayesian prior does contain the possibility of a big swing in undecided and minor-party voters. First, the prior’s standard deviation was set to 3%, somewhat larger than recent elections. Second, it was set to have “fat tails” by using the t-distribution with 1 degree of freedom instead of the usual bell-shaped distribution. Under the latter assumption, a swing of 2 standard deviations would occur almost 15% of the time. If Trump wins, it was still in the model. But surprises can happen.
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/0...ir/#more-17442
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