Give that there’s been a few polls this week putting Carney as the election winner I’m a bit confused on the overall election likelihood still going to conservatives. Forgive the ignorance—I’ve just never paid this much attention to polls as I have in the last month or so.
Those were individual public opinion polls. Basically the raw data of a questionnaire which may have been targeting specific areas or demographics.
The 338 data is the best guess at who would win if the election were held today. It takes aggregated polls, ridings, demographics and historical data into account. So it is a much more sophisticated prediction.
However, it notably doesn’t project into the future. That means the odds are not taking into account current trends, so Poilievre’s drop from 100 to 75 is extremely significant. His odds will likely continue declining for some time. The question is where will it taper off and will there be a rebound before the actual election.
I’m also pretty sure from past memory, that the conservatives usually poll a lot better well before an election, but as it nears they drop off significantly.
No guarantee it’s a drop to losing, but pretty sure the drop is a common trend.
To add to this, I don’t think the Carney polls are being factored into the 338 model, because they’re “what if” polls, and don’t reflect voter intentions today. If Carney wins we will probably see even more of a drop in the following weeks.
Polling companies release polls, 338 aggregates them and assigns rankings to polls based on previous election outcomes. The idea is pollers who were more accurate get higher weighting, and less accurate polls get lower weightings.
Once polls are aggregated they’re used to predict the riding level outcomes.
They simulate dozens/hundreds of potential outcomes based on the polling probabilities.
High polling might not result in a favourable split in ridings in FPTP.
Give that there’s been a few polls this week putting Carney as the election winner I’m a bit confused on the overall election likelihood still going to conservatives. Forgive the ignorance—I’ve just never paid this much attention to polls as I have in the last month or so.
Those were individual public opinion polls. Basically the raw data of a questionnaire which may have been targeting specific areas or demographics.
The 338 data is the best guess at who would win if the election were held today. It takes aggregated polls, ridings, demographics and historical data into account. So it is a much more sophisticated prediction.
However, it notably doesn’t project into the future. That means the odds are not taking into account current trends, so Poilievre’s drop from 100 to 75 is extremely significant. His odds will likely continue declining for some time. The question is where will it taper off and will there be a rebound before the actual election.
I’m also pretty sure from past memory, that the conservatives usually poll a lot better well before an election, but as it nears they drop off significantly.
No guarantee it’s a drop to losing, but pretty sure the drop is a common trend.
To add to this, I don’t think the Carney polls are being factored into the 338 model, because they’re “what if” polls, and don’t reflect voter intentions today. If Carney wins we will probably see even more of a drop in the following weeks.
Here’s an overview of how these models work:
Polling companies release polls, 338 aggregates them and assigns rankings to polls based on previous election outcomes. The idea is pollers who were more accurate get higher weighting, and less accurate polls get lower weightings.
Once polls are aggregated they’re used to predict the riding level outcomes.
They simulate dozens/hundreds of potential outcomes based on the polling probabilities.
High polling might not result in a favourable split in ridings in FPTP.