From the course: Everyday Statistics, with Eddie Davila

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Election win probabilities

Election win probabilities

- [Narrator] In the final weeks and days before an election, news outlets, election wonks, and political stat geeks start to publish win probabilities for different candidates. Candidate A has a 60% chance of winning her election and candidate x has an 80% chance of winning his election. How do they do this? Where do those numbers come from? Believe it or not, some folks just guess. They might just blurt out a number based on how they feel. For these types of probabilities, the stated win probability is mostly based on their personal level of confidence. So 50% might mean I'm not sure who's going to win, 65% might mean I'm pretty sure and 80% means, I'm almost positive of my prediction. Then again, other groups and news outlets used advanced analytics to arrive at their win probability. For example, the website FiveThirtyEight.com uses a very sophisticated model. For big elections at the state or national level, their…

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