It's not impossible. I roughly reversed engineered Silver's tipping point simulation...
Burr Send a noteboard - 05/11/2012 11:06:16 PM
His simulation is more nuanced, but I got mine to where 120,000 runs of my simulation were giving similar results to Silver's analysis. My model focused on the notion of a "deciding state," and my definition of a "deciding state" is slightly different than Silver's definition of "tipping-point state." My definition of a deciding state was a state that a) was lost by the election's overall loser, b) had enough electoral votes to flip the election had the election's overall loser won it, and c) was the most efficient of those states in terms of electoral votes and the candidate's likelihood of flipping that state. My results had Florida as more likely to be a "deciding state" than Wisconsin, whereas Silver's had Wisconsin as more likely to be a "tipping point" state than Florida. Other than that, our order was pretty much the same for all the most important states in this election.
Once I got that bit working, I went back into the formulas and adjusted my measure of efficiency for state population. So it was then sort of a combination of a deciding state model and a return on investment model. With all else being equal, it is more efficient to pour resources into a state with fewer individuals than a state with more individuals, because the smaller state's voters are worth more individually than the other's.
I refer to the new model as my Facepalm model, because in a sense it measure the likelihood that a candidate will hit himself if he loses the state.
Having done that, suddenly Pennsylvania jumped up to be second in importance to Ohio.
However, one thing my new model doesn't account for is saturation. Ohio had already been saturated with political ads for weeks. So even though it was outranked by Ohio, Pennsylvania might well have been the more efficient state to pour ad resources into. And in any case, it would remain very important for turnout resources.
But that is all just a long way of saying, very recently Pennsylvania was a major Facepalm state. Now, granted, Obama's poll advantage in the state has improved since his most recent dip. And I've been too busy to run my simulation again with the new numbers. (It's been about a week, I think.) Nevertheless, I doubt things have changed so much that Pennsylvania isn't still a significant Facepalm state for Obama. He'd better watch out there, or he might find Romney's been pouring ad and turnout resources into the just the right parts of the state to win it.
Once I got that bit working, I went back into the formulas and adjusted my measure of efficiency for state population. So it was then sort of a combination of a deciding state model and a return on investment model. With all else being equal, it is more efficient to pour resources into a state with fewer individuals than a state with more individuals, because the smaller state's voters are worth more individually than the other's.
I refer to the new model as my Facepalm model, because in a sense it measure the likelihood that a candidate will hit himself if he loses the state.
Having done that, suddenly Pennsylvania jumped up to be second in importance to Ohio.
However, one thing my new model doesn't account for is saturation. Ohio had already been saturated with political ads for weeks. So even though it was outranked by Ohio, Pennsylvania might well have been the more efficient state to pour ad resources into. And in any case, it would remain very important for turnout resources.
But that is all just a long way of saying, very recently Pennsylvania was a major Facepalm state. Now, granted, Obama's poll advantage in the state has improved since his most recent dip. And I've been too busy to run my simulation again with the new numbers. (It's been about a week, I think.) Nevertheless, I doubt things have changed so much that Pennsylvania isn't still a significant Facepalm state for Obama. He'd better watch out there, or he might find Romney's been pouring ad and turnout resources into the just the right parts of the state to win it.
||||||||||*MySmiley*
Only so evil.
Only so evil.
This message last edited by Burr on 05/11/2012 at 11:17:09 PM
Could Ohio Kill the Electoral College?
05/11/2012 04:43:48 PM
- 621 Views
Well, let's hope Romney takes Pennsylvania, too, so we don't have to worry about this. *NM*
05/11/2012 05:46:22 PM
- 75 Views
I do not think even the GOPs massive PA vote suppression effort is enough to accomplish that.
05/11/2012 06:38:05 PM
- 309 Views
It's not impossible. I roughly reversed engineered Silver's tipping point simulation...
05/11/2012 11:06:16 PM
- 324 Views
what? directly vote for president? COMMUNISM!
05/11/2012 06:01:00 PM
- 204 Views
Seems like everything is communism these days, even/especially things that are not.
05/11/2012 06:56:55 PM
- 188 Views
A simple solution: proportional allocation of electors from each state with 15 votes or more.
05/11/2012 08:34:08 PM
- 195 Views
I prefer 1 EV per house district, with 2 EVs going to state winners
05/11/2012 08:40:50 PM
- 300 Views
it would certainly make the races more interesting.....
05/11/2012 09:09:24 PM
- 157 Views
If not for gerrymandering I would consider this the ideal solution.
05/11/2012 09:26:01 PM
- 172 Views
But in that system, the small states would be bypassed completely
05/11/2012 09:55:49 PM
- 206 Views
You mean even more than they already are (outside of the NH primaries)?
05/11/2012 11:17:14 PM
- 162 Views
Me too actually, but only with computerized semi-random redistricting *NM*
06/11/2012 05:38:25 AM
- 67 Views
why would there need to be a nation-wide recount? don't the states keep their own tallies?
05/11/2012 09:08:04 PM
- 201 Views
What if none of the states were close enough for a recount, but the country as a whole was?
05/11/2012 09:23:33 PM
- 160 Views
i suppose at that point the Supreme Court would have every justification to hear the case....
06/11/2012 06:07:06 PM
- 272 Views
What Legolas said; if we did it by national popular vote, recounts would need to be national.
05/11/2012 09:34:30 PM
- 261 Views
I like that idea, though I have long felt Larrys idea of using Congressional Districts is better.
05/11/2012 09:22:49 PM
- 318 Views