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by JumpCrisscross 475 days ago
> polls do not predict who wins the election because the election is won by the electoral college, not by the popular vote

Which is why any model worth its salt only uses national polls to predict state results. (State polls are more meaningful. But the headlines they generate aren't as nationally clickable.)

1 comments

Unfortunately there are too many states and not enough polls to make a model based on state-level polls so you have to infer state-level results based on something other than state-level polls.
> there are too many states and not enough polls to make a model based on state-level polls

There aren’t that may states. You don’t need partisan polling in Vermont and Wyoming, for example.

> you have to infer state-level results based on something other than state-level polls

Yes. As I said. That is what you use national polls. “But the electoral college” isn’t a valid argument against election models. The reality is paucity of granular data and complexity of predicting swing states.