« What we choose to present | Main | Until next time... »
November 02, 2004
How do we come up with these numbers?
If voter sentiment is static, we would treat all polls (old and current) as equal – without discounting earlier polls. However, we know that it is far from the truth. Events influence voter preferences and undecided voters make up their minds. Thus, it becomes an “art” to find the most appropriate “discount” factor so that we can aggregate polls of different vintage in each state to compute the probability that each candidate will carry a state.
Heavy discounting gives more weight to the most recent poll, while lighter discounting distributes some of the weights to older polls. One can get a sense of voter trend by viewing our computed probabilities as a function of the discount factor used.
The following table shows the sensitivity of the computed probabilities as the discount factor goes from light to heavy. Consumers of our analysis can draw their own conclusion and make their inferences based on the numbers presented herein: who has a better chance to win the election?
Posted by Can Sar at November 2, 2004 08:38 PM
Comments
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in the mean which is defined by reference to reason. It is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency; and again, it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. by free online poker
Posted by: online poker at December 22, 2004 01:10 PM