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A comment on How The Economist’s presidential forecast works.

Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by jkic47 on Sunday June 16, 2024 @03:58PM (#40699654)
Pretty cool site reminiscent of the 538 analysis of elections past. I wonder how the model will react if Biden drops out before the election, though, since the blue polls would suddenly be "obsoleted" (wrong word, I know) with a new incumbent.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by seanmcdirmid on Sunday June 16, 2024 @03:59PM (#40699666)
It is too late for Biden to bow out. Although the chance of either Biden or Trump dying before the election is uncomfortably high.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by plonk on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:12PM (#40699746)
They're both supposed to be in good health though, we have Biden's public yearly checkup report. I don't think many old people get scans and full-body checkups every year and then die of something catastrophic with no warning?
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by refulgentis on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:16PM (#40699768)
My priors would go the opposite way: a full-body checkup cannot clear out the plaque in my arteries, lower my blood pressure, strength my vascular walls, and there's no miracle drugs that definitively address those. I think of a checkup that says "good to go, won't die in the next year!" is more like an auto checkup, where we do diagnostics then can take definitive action, it's more a warning of what's to come.

That being said saying odds are one of them dies before the election is uncomfortably high doesn't compute, at all, ex. the best steelman I can come up with is its supposed to translate to "P(Trump dies | Biden Dies) >= 50%", which I very much doubt is true if you look at actuarial tables.

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by spywaregorilla on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:20PM (#40699789)
Actuarial tables tell you basically nothing about a specific individual. For that you would want to look at some personal. Like, say, a full body checkup.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by refulgentis on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:44PM (#40700729)
Yeah thats a good point, I agree, a full body checkup tells us stuff about an individual, but it doesn't heal them (or at length: meaningfully rule out, or affect, odds of dying in the next year)
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by plonk on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:25PM (#40699817)
Apparently [1], Biden at least has "controlled" cholesterol, a normal EKG, some asymptomatic and controlled fibrillation. The number of experts who consult the guy every year is actually impressive.

The usual 70-year-old is probably a risky bet, but surely 10 specialists plus a team of generalists would make a more predictive yearly checkup. I think he's going to lose through normal politics and not by way of a heart attack.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Health...

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by mikeodds on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:22PM (#40699803)
I didn’t realise his checkup was public [1]

I thought there would be more around neuro in there. Interesting that both recent presidents are (purportedly) non drinkers.

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Health...

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by ta1243 on Sunday June 16, 2024 @05:54PM (#40700442)
Bush II was tee-total too wasn't he?
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by plonk on Monday June 17, 2024 @02:04PM (#40708928)
I wonder if he does CT/MRI/angiograms to find any vascular abnormalities. Seems to be a big cause of sudden death, but they don't talk about it. One CT for a 70-year-old head of state doesn't sound like too much?
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by pyuser583 on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:52PM (#40700007)
Not an expert, but my experience is old people can decline very fast.

It’s literally the best possible outcome of old age: being energetic and in full capacity, declining quickly and passing on.

The alternatives are dying early, or a long period of dependency.

But yeah, that’s how old people die.

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by okaram on Sunday June 16, 2024 @05:24PM (#40700228)
Still, their actuarial chance of dying within a year is >5%, given their age and sex.

Even with scans and checkups, at that age, a bad case of the flu can kill you, or start you on that path. And I don't think we have any reliable non-invasive ways of detecting heart attack risk, or aneurism risk, those kinds of things.

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by plonk on Monday June 17, 2024 @02:19PM (#40709121)
> heart attack risk

Not sure, but don't ECGs find cases of severe plaques or narrowed arteries? Or most cases of heart disease.

> aneurism risk

An angiography should find most cases, from some quick research. "The CTA sensitivity, specificity and accuracy was 80%, 43% and 73%, respectively. The CTA sensitivity for aneurysms < 3 mm and 3 mm – 5 mm in size was 30% and 81.5%, respectively (p = 0.024)." [1]

Agree on the rest though.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10244944/

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by TeaBrain on Sunday June 16, 2024 @04:32PM (#40699864)
We haven't had an election like it in over 50 years, but in 1968 the democratic candidate was Hubert Humphrey, who entered the race too late to participate in any primaries.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by QuesnayJr on Sunday June 16, 2024 @05:10PM (#40700134)
Can't Biden bow out any time before the Democratic National Convention in mid-August? I don't expect that he will, but he could.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by krapp on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:24PM (#40700620)
It would be political suicide for the Democrats not to go with a sitting incumbent President as their candidate, especially against a candidate who was formerly President.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by TMWNN on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:29PM (#40700656)
Correct.

Further, Biden dropping out would cause another civil war within the Democratic Party that is already dealing with one between the pro-Hamas and pro-Israel sides. Kamala Harris is so unpopular that she absolutely cannot win, but parachuting in Gavin Newsom, who has his own handicaps,[1] would cause Harris's side to cry racism/sexism/etc. And this is all setting aside the difficulty of whoever is Biden's replacement campaigning to become president against someone who has, as you said, already done the job for four years. Four years which, polls consistently show, more voters look back positively upon than not.

[1] The best description I've heard of Newsom is that he looks like the mayor of Gotham City.

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by ceejayoz on Sunday June 16, 2024 @07:29PM (#40700965)
> Further, Biden dropping out would cause another civil war within the Democratic Party that is already dealing with one between the pro-Hamas and pro-Israel sides.

Casually asserting the Democrats are split between pro-Israel and pro-Hamas sides reveals a bit of a bias. Pro-Palestinian? Perhaps. Pro-Hamas? Even Rashida Tlaib isn't pro-Hamas.

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by TMWNN on Sunday June 16, 2024 @09:20PM (#40701494)
> Casually asserting the Democrats are split between pro-Israel and pro-Hamas sides

You heard me the first time.

Feel free to not agree. Also feel free to watch as NY and NJ vote for Trump in November because Jews see Jew-hunting mobs roaming the NY subway. <https://abc7ny.com/post/protesters-chant-raise-hand-youre-zi...>

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by racional on Monday June 17, 2024 @12:27AM (#40702295)
You heard me the first time

And it was just as delusional the first time.

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by seanmcdirmid on Sunday June 16, 2024 @07:05PM (#40700838)
Biden is a very moderate Democrat who appeals heavily to moderates, which is the best way to win against a polarizing Trump.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by Mountain_Skies on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:41PM (#40700706)
Different states have different deadlines for getting on the ballot. The DNC is already going to have to a pre-convention virtual convention where they legally nominate Biden so he can get on the ballot in Ohio. The physical convention will be for rallying the party behind him. If they were to switch to someone else at the convention, at the very least Ohio would retain Biden on the ballot. Ohio does allow for 'faithless' electors, so Biden winning Ohio while the official nominee won other states might not be the worst thing provided the electors could be trusted to switch their vote to whoever the DNC put up in place of Biden.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by QuesnayJr on Monday June 17, 2024 @05:55AM (#40703946)
When is the Ohio deadline?
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by ta1243 on Sunday June 16, 2024 @05:53PM (#40700427)
The chance of them both dying is uncomfortably low.

Seriously, the best two candidates the entire USA has to offer are these washed up octagenarian politicians?

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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by mensetmanusman on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:16PM (#40700571)
They are a symptom of a gridlocked and extortionist political system that serves the elite.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by Mountain_Skies on Sunday June 16, 2024 @07:03PM (#40700820)
Since either of them winning would mean a term limited incumbent in 2028, my guess is that both parties will nominate a Millennial candidate for the next election, both messaging that they're the party of fresh ideas for the future.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by seanmcdirmid on Sunday June 16, 2024 @07:07PM (#40700852)
The parties barely have control over who gets nominated, no one in the Republican Party thought Trump was a good idea in 2016 at the start of the primaries. It only matters who gets votes, and the Republican side skews old enough that a millennial would have problems.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by mensetmanusman on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:15PM (#40700569)
Every year they get older, they have a higher chance of surviving until the next year. It’s a weird thing about aging. Of course until you die that is.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by AnimalMuppet on Sunday June 16, 2024 @07:14PM (#40700892)
How do you figure? As I read the actuarial tables, I do not see any way of interpreting the data that makes your statement true.
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by myfavoritetings on Sunday June 16, 2024 @07:34PM (#40700986)
I think what they're saying is an 82 year old is more likely to make it to 83 than an 81 year old is
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Re:How The Economist’s presidential forecast works by TheCleric on Sunday June 16, 2024 @06:52PM (#40700771)
I would bet large amounts of money that Biden doesn’t drop out before the election. It would be unprecedented and there’s no indication it would happen.
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