Share this page!

Lakshya Jain Profile picture
Twitter logo
27 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Given recent polling trends, the model's converging to ~D+5, in my read. That'll likely be what our forecast ends up as (and thus on the border of lean/likely Dem too). The confidence interval here would be D+2 to D+8.
If I had to be forced to pick, I guess I'd take the under? Just because it's not really statistically safe to rely on a polling miss of >4 points even accounting for the flaws I've discussed. But honestly, I'd just go with the forecast, because my punditry has never been great.
I think a lot of the polls aren't great, but part of analysis is setting your rules beforehand and then following them. We add in just about every poll we can *unless* it's from a banned agency or violates our pre-set rules on internals/data quality/data collection procedures.
Anyways, I've studied + inspected a lot of early vote data and a lot of polls/electorate fundamentals, and nothing in the rough range of [D+2, D+7] would actually surprise me *that* much. I'd be very surprised by a D+9 or an R+1 win. But hey, I've been (very) wrong before!
anyways if you want county margins: striderforecasts.com. if you want more analysis, follow me and @Thorongil16 because we made this model. if you want chaos, follow @notkavi just because their shitposting is amazing.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Lakshya Jain

Lakshya Jain Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @lxeagle17

Lakshya Jain Profile picture
28 Oct
Every poll has two parts: the electorate screen and the margins among the demographics. The electorate screen is where you give a representative sample of what you think the electorate will look like. The crosstab margins are the margins among those groups. 🧵
If the electorate screen is broken, there’s a problem. It means that the poll will not be representative of the state. Because fundamentally, you’re giving the results that would occur in an electorate different from the one that actually exists. Allow me to construct an example.
Say that a state is 40% Black, 20% Latino, and 40% White. Your poll would probably want to match up in terms of demographics — You cannot poll all 3M voters in the electorate, so you need a good sample to allow you to approximate what you think the electorate resembles.
Read 9 tweets
Lakshya Jain Profile picture
27 Oct
#VAGov polls have largely been junk, but Youngkin can win this race. But the early vote suggests that turnout for both sides will probably be fine, so if he wins, he wins by swinging significant amounts of college-educated voters (specifically college-educated whites).
No polls have been showing a significant swing right with college voters, though. They've either been showing the race close because Black voters swing right by 35 from 2020, because non-college whites swing right by 25, or because their partisan screen is ridiculously R-heavy.
I find the "non-college whites swinging right by 25" part a bit questionable because Trump's support is already very, very high in most of the rural white areas, so unless you've seen a catastrophic collapsed with Virginia urban whites (questionable?), I don't see the math.
Read 5 tweets
Lakshya Jain Profile picture
26 Oct
Model updated for #VAGov with the new @Suffolk_U poll. The forecast from @Thorongil16 and me is D+5.8. Suffolk is the second high-quality pollster to show a close race, so let’s dive in 🧵
I will say this: if you firmly believe crosstab examination is not a useful exercise, please stop reading. Nothing I say will be of any utility to you, because we have fundamentally different ways of going about this. Save yourself the time and stop reading.
Suffolk’s poll only has an N=500. You need to be careful with the window of results you consider as a result. Anyways, the racial crosstabs are okay; McAuliffe wins Black voters 81-8, and I would wager that undecideds here are expected to break Democratic.
Read 9 tweets
Lakshya Jain Profile picture
25 Oct
Emerson, MTurk, and thinking Black voters will swing 36 points right in a year, name a better trio.
Emerson has been banned by us for a month now because of MTurk data quality issues. Not including it regardless of what the poll says.

Also, the n=145 among Black voters here. A 36 point swing right would be well outside the margin of error for the Black subsample.
I need to stress that *I COULD VERY EASILY BE WRONG*. All I'm saying is that if Youngkin wins, the path to victory will look *nothing* like what these polls suggest. Data points to a McAuliffe win, but if D turnout is low or Youngkin swings suburbanites, it could change.
Read 4 tweets
Lakshya Jain Profile picture
25 Oct
Heading into the final week or so before the election, here’s how @Thorongil16 and I have things shaping up for #VAGov. We still have this race as fairly stable and think McAuliffe should win by about six-and-a-half points. His odds of winning are a bit over 80% (likely D).
Democratic early vote has really surged recently, as folks like @samshirazim, @ZacharyStarbuc1, and @WinWithJMC have noted. This week will be crucial for Democrats, but they had a very good weekend and continue to see their base areas go up in share of statewide votes cast
As folks like Zachary and Sam have noted, NOVA will likely be fine for Democratic turnout. Areas like Richmond are lagging a bit, but that probably isn’t enough for Rs, who currently have their own troubles with getting whites in Southwest VA to remember an election exists.
Read 6 tweets
Lakshya Jain Profile picture
21 Oct
Points in favor of a Youngkin victory: Biden's approval is horrific, so independents might break R, and and Democratic turnout is undeniably lagging currently, so you could see him eke out a 1-2 pt win.

Points against: Virginia 2012-2020, and he *still* can't clear 46% in polls.
That last part is especially telling for me, because in every poll, the undecideds have been disproportionately Democratic, and we know from a lot of polling data that split ticket voting is quite low in this race right now. So the median scenario shouldn't be a tossup IMO.
Polling already seems to price in a Republican turnout/enthusiasm advantage, and even with that, Youngkin isn't crossing 46%, which is a problem. People are eventually going to decide, so he'll have to get a good bit of crossover votes he's not currently getting.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @lxeagle17 has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @lxeagle17!

Read all threads by @lxeagle17

:(