this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Personally, I don't like to trust commentary on FiveThirtyEight's tracker from anyone other than FiveThirtyEight. They do a fantastic job of tempering expectations and not putting too much stock in momentary changes in the tracker. The current numbers are basically the same as they were on May 11:
It hasn't changed much, even after all the wild shiz that has happened since May 11. Furthermore, the polls usually work on a delay, so they haven't yet factored in the assassination attempt, or the RNC. And often, the tracker stays at a dead-even heat largely because their statistical model factors in uncertainty from the 4 months between now and Election Day.
All of that is to say: the race is still essentially dead-even. Like Chris said in the OP, the most important thing to do is vote and encourage others to vote, no matter what the polls say.
The RNC has 6 Million LESS viewers than 2016. That's quite a swing!
Republicans still show up to vote and reliably vote party line. The only way to beat them is motivating people to vote against them in battleground states.
Less viewers because fewer people are engaged or because people already know who they’re voting for?
Republicans vote Republican. 2016 was an anomaly because Trump was an unknown factor and a voice for change in the RNC. I doubt many people’s opinions on Trump have shifted since 2020 and the Republican candidate was a foregone conclusion.
Exactly, I think because races have been so close lately, and the probabilities are ending up close to 50% often, people sometimes unintentionally conflate them with poll numbers. 53% to 46% would be a massive poll lead. For probabilities though in this situation it's the same as saying they have even odds of winning. Look at those massive 95% confidence intervals, the race is in a statistical dead heat. It's kind of remarkable how steady it has been despite all the wild events that have happened.
538 has an explanation on their site about why it's not moving. Essentially they're so far out they heavily discount current polls and events. We're effectively seeing their baseline result with some previous races and economic measures tweaking things a little.
Yes, that's true. The poll averages themselves haven't moved much either though. And the reliance on the fundamentals forecast has me nervous, but they definitely do it for a reason. When they developed the models and looked at poll history the pattern they found was the fundamentals had a big influence on what the polls would look like closer to the election and the eventual result. Polls closer to the election are more predictive than the fundamentals. Polls farther away from the election less so. There's at least some reason to think things have changed enough maybe the fundamentals aren't as fundamental for this race, but I guess we won't know until afterward.
It's a new model this year, as Nate Silver took his with him when he left 538. The new one seems to put a lot of emphasis on "the fundamentals" this far out, that is, it "thinks" that the general environment and economy and such is pretty good for the incumbent and that the polls might move in that direction by the time election day comes along. And since it's fitted to historical data, it's also implicitly assuming that this election will be similar to past elections (like, say, including a competent campaign by a candidate who can get out there and effectively communicate accomplishments and a plan for their term).
I personally think those assumptions are pretty clearly wrong this year and so I'm more inclined to base my perception of the race on pure polling averages, which are looking quite bad for Biden.