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So in the wake of my interview with @IChotiner and pieces the past couple of weeks, people have asked why I am bullish on Trump. The answer is . . . I& #39;m not, really. I would not even think to take an even-money bet on Trump winning right now. 1/
I& #39;m probably more bullish on him relative to @NateSilver538 & #39;s 14%, but we can debate the relative differences of an 14% chance of someone winning versus, say, a 20-25% chance of someone winning. But let& #39;s take Nate& #39;s 14% chance. 2/
That translates to about a 1-in-7 chance. Let& #39;s call it 1-in-8 to make the math easy. We did this ad nauseum in 2016, seemingly to little effect, but that 1-in-8 chance is roughly the same chance of having three kids, all boys. That& #39;s not unusual. Trust me! 3/
If you rounded the other way, to 1-in-6, you& #39;d have the chances of losing at Russian Roulette. Again, if you were playing Russian Roulette, you& #39;d be really nervous, and probably focused on the ways you could lose, rather than win. 4/
So the question is, "what does that one" look like? My story for that is basically "the polls tighten modestly, and then we have a poll error of roughly the magnitude of 2016." I know the arguments why that wouldn& #39;t happen . . . 5/
Obviously if we *expected* that to happen we wouldn& #39;t have Trump as the underdog. But there are things consistent with that story, and they are worth pointing out. It& #39;s further complicated by the fact that, by the numbers, this has been a very boring race. 6/
The story for "why Biden will win" just isn& #39;t that interesting, but I nevertheless forced myself to write it up for this week. We should probably spend more time telling that story, since it& #39;s the more likely story, but telling contrarian stories is more interesting. 7/
It& #39;s also better to write/analyze the "why Trump could win" pieces as a check on my own biases, to keep me from rounding that 14% (or 20-25% chance) down to zero, as I basically did for much of 2015-mid-2016. 8/
FWIW, I *would* take the under on Biden winning by 9-10%, for the reasons in my pieces. That still translates to a comfortable Biden win, though. 9/9
