Election 2016 Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Journalists, Media, Political Analysts – Time to be Transparent, Copy Investment Advisors Investment advisors have a few things hammered into them. One of them is to avoid conflicts of interest and if there are any to disclose them very specifically and publicly. Journalists, media, […]
Fundamental Forecasts Needed
Election 2016 Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Overly Reliant on Polls and Pundits, Dearth of Actual Forecasts, Create better Forecasting Models Current election analysis is basically a two pronged approach. Pundits control the qualitative analysis and polls provide the life blood for analyst’s quantitative analysis. Unfortunately both of these approaches have […]
Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Summary
Election 2016 Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Summary Election analysis concerning the 2016 US Presidential race is truly awful. This series of posts will discuss this topic and of course how to improve upon it. There are many issues and problems with the current US presidential analysis. Highlighting some of […]
Media’s Voting Record
Election 2016 Social Desirability Bias / Media Bias: Media’s Voting Record As explained elsewhere, the national media play a central role in setting the tone for political discourse. Certainly, it is the transference mechanism that can most effectively show the general public which parties, candidates, and policies should be considered socially acceptable. […]
Media Bias, Social Desirability Bias
Election 2016 Social Desirability Bias / Overview: Is the Media really Biased? In order for people to feel that an answer in a survey or poll is not socially acceptable, there needs to be a transference mechanism from which they ‘learn’ the standard for socially acceptable responses. For national political campaigns, the […]
Conditions Ripe for Social Desirability Bias
Election 2016 Social Desirability Bias / Overview: Conditions Ripe for Social Desirability Bias Poll bias is alive and well. Different polls should show more or less similar results if there is no bias involved. If polls begin to vary considerably for an apparent inexplicable reason, more research is needed to understand why. […]
Counter Arguments
Election 2016 Intro: Counter Arguments and Potential Weaknesses As a general disclaimer, some weaknesses with the general analysis should be highlighted: 1. Media Bias and Social Desirability Bias – these go hand-in-hand when it comes to national political campaigns so if you disregard an inherent media bias that is weighted against […]
Two Scenarios
Election 2016 Intro: Summary of Two Possible Scenarios There is a significant divergence between two groups of indicators in calling the 2016 US Presidential Election. Only one of these groups of indicators can be correct as the difference between their projections is so vast. The outcome could have a dramatic impact on future […]
Back-Story
Election 2016 Intro: Who am I? Why am I analyzing the Election? I came into this completely backwards, am not a traditional political analyst, and am not even registered with any political party. In a ‘normal’ election year, this opening statement would disqualify me from credibly analyzing the election but in […]
Republican Primaries, Social Desirability Bias
Election 2016 Social Desirability Bias / Trump Shaming: Republican Primaries The Republican primaries are a great case study for Social Desirability Bias. We have a considerable amount of data from multiple polls in multiple states for multiple candidates. Additionally, this data can be compared to actual results from the primaries. It turns […]