Nate Silver: Clinton 'almost certainly' would've won before FBI letter

[yallerdawg]

Source: The Hill, by Rebecca Savransky

Hillary Clinton would likely have been elected to the White House if not for FBI Director James Comey's October letter to Congress regarding the investigation into her private email server, statistician Nate Silver tweeted Sunday.

"Comey had a large, measurable impact on the race. Harder to say with Russia/Wikileaks because it was drip-drip-drip," Silver said in the first of a series of tweets about Comey's possible influence in the election.

Silver tweeted a graph showing that late-deciding voters in several swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, did not go for Hillary Clinton.



"I'll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter)," Silver tweeted.

More at: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/309871-nate-silver-clinton-almost-certainly-wouldve-won-if-election-were-before

And: https://twitter.com/NateSilver538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[NWCorona]

1. There's multiple reasons and that letter is a big one.

[yallerdawg]

6. All things being equal...

you have to admit that letter from the FBI director to Congress stating they were investigating classified material related to Hillary 11 days before the election was a really big one - when Comey had essentially closed the books on it.

And then the splash-splash-splash of FBI leaks and media hysteria!

This was unprecedented - and Congress said it would be unfair to Corrupt Trump to reveal questions about Russian intervention so late in the campaign.

[NWCorona]

9. Definitely! There's just too much of a backstory for it not to be politically motivated

The FBI had those files for awhile but waited till the twilight of the election? I'm not buying it and Comey hasn't said shit since the election.

[ladjf]

27. Why he hasn't been investigated about this I don't know. It appears that he was

attempting to alter the election results.

[yallerdawg]

30. If his name was J Edgar Hoover...

we'd know why.

Of course, he does have the same job...

[ladjf]

32. If he has a private blackmail file, as Hoover had, that needs to be dealt with as well. nt

[red dog 1]

56. I know why he hasn't been investigated about this..

...because Obama didn't want him to be investigated....Period!

What I don't know is WHY Obama didn't want him to be investigated.

"The buck stops here.".....Harry Truman

[Aimee in OKC]

57. As was weasel Chaffetz ... Oct. 28th

On this day, FBI Director James Comey sends a letter to eight Congressional committees, revealing that the FBI is at least partially reopening the FBI’s Clinton email investigation due to newly discovered evidence.

Shortly thereafter, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, reveals in a Tweet: “FBI Dir [Director] just informed me, ‘The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Case reopened.” The full text of Comey’s letter is leaked to the media a short time later that same day.

Three days later, Chaffetz comments, “I thought I would put it out there. People have a right to know. It was newsworthy. It caught me by surprise. … It is absolutely correct” that the investigation is being reopened, after concluding in July 2016. ...

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump announces on October 31, 2016 that it has filed a complaint against Chaffetz with the Office of Congressional Ethics “for his role in releasing information” from Comey. The coalition has also lodged a complaint against Comey with the Justice Department, requesting an investigation into whether his letter violated the federal Hatch Act for taking a political action shortly before an election.


http://www.thompsontimeline.com/14139/2016/10/28/a-republican-representative-leaks-comeys-letter-to-congress/

[ananda]

41. Yet the fact that it was widely known that Russian hacking..

.. was responsible for this was widely minimized or ignored.

Words fail.

[yallerdawg]

50. Most of us...

gave no credence to anything coming out of WikiLeaks starting when the DNC was hacked before the convention and would not reference stolen private documents.

Well, a lot of us.

[ananda]

68. There was a lot of deflection and diversion.

The media and social media, along with fake news,
bear a lot of the responsibility.

[susanna]

76. Ignored by only one side: the GOP.

Not the Democrats. A fair distinction, I might say.

[PatrickforO]

63. Perhaps in the war crimes trials that will be held in

the ruins of DC in 2028, Comey will be prosecuted and sentenced if they capture him alive amid the rubble.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. This election has caused me to lose much of my sense of civility. If I ever see...

... a mob of people hanging people like Comey from a tree, I don't expect that it will upset me in the slightest.

[flamingdem]

3. This is all we need to know

So now what do we do..

[red dog 1]

65. Here's something we can do now...

Sign Petition To Joe Biden and Senate Democrats:
"Confirm Merrick Garland To Supreme Court on January 3rd"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028350862

Unfortunately, because of Obama's inaction and Clinton's refusal to demand recounts in the key states, there's nothing we can do about Adolph Twittler
becoming POTUS.....but if we can convince Biden & the Senate Dems to constitutionally confirm Garland on Jan. 3, Herr Drumph will only control two branches of the US govt, not three.

If Garland is not confirmed on Jan 3, then Asshole Trump will have eliminated what our founding fathers so wisely set up - the "checks & balances" in the three branches of the United States government.

[MFM008]

4. Sorry Silver

You blew it.
I'll never check your site or any polls again.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. At least he was more cautious in his projections compared to most.

I'll also give him a pass in the final week because there wasn't many new polls at that time, at least not enough of them that were conducted entirely after the Comey "reopening the investigation" bullshit.

[yallerdawg]

8. Remember how he was vilified at DU...

for being conservative on his estimates - only 2 to 1 odds in favor of Hillary?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. I didn't want to believe it either. I thought he might've included too many "junk polls"...

... back then, especially after Cohn of the NYT insinuated that idea.

Wang was the worst, and I was at least never gullible enough to believe his 99% probability of a Clinton win. I don't care to even read his "explanation" if he's ever offered one, but I wondered at the time if he was making the mistake of treating state polls independently when they can obviously change collectively based on shared demographics.

[NWCorona]

10. He had to defend his model because he didn't have Hillary at 90%+ like the rest

I'm convinced that he was so beaten up that he changed his projections in the final days to be more pro Hillary.

[MFM008]

21. ok

so he was the least of the losers.
Even 60-40 is wrong.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

23. I agree, but he didn't have enough to "work with" near the end.

I can't remember now if he was one of the poll aggregators who complained about it, but I saw some complaints about a shortage of state polls just before the election.

[Joe941]

80. And he was ridiculed on here for doing so.

[Ace Rothstein]

7. He was ripped here before the election for giving Trump a 30% chance.

Silver was the only person saying Trump might win and half of this place was telling the other half to ignore him because of it.

[NWCorona]

13. Before the twitter storm against Silver on his projections.

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were starting to slip away ever so slightly from Hillary on his site.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. I remember that too. He seemed to give her a "bump" near the end and...

... I didn't see enough new polls to warrant it. At least that was my impression at the time. I don't remember the details now.

[LisaL]

22. He doesn't do polls himself. He uses polls provided by others and his program aggregates these polls

If polls are wrong, his outcome will be wrong.
Even then, posters were mad at him because he didn't give Clinton a 100% chance of victory.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

28. Silver made a fool of himself... he had us all believing his BS. I know so many who thought we had it "in the bag" and didn't bother showing up to vote...

Shameful!

[mythology]

71. You clearly didn't read 538 at all

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-why-clintons-position-is-worse-than-obamas/

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-comey-or-not-trump-continues-to-narrow-gap-with-clinton/

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-did-comey-hurt-clintons-chances/

Please actually bother to do even the slightest bit of research before declaring Silver responsible for Clinton losing.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

74. One of many responsible, starting with the candidate... though how she lost to a blithering idiot, Nazi racist lunatic, I'll never understand!!

[pnwmom]

53. He didn't blow it. The polls clearly showed a large undecided block

and they made their decisions after the last polls were conducted.

Also Hillary did win by 2% nationally -- which is about what the polls were predicting. Unfortunately, the EC isn't decided nationally,

[TrekLuver]

69. Yes I remember seeing the large 'undecideds' on the road to 270 site and I said if that is true

and these people break for Trash we could be in trouble.

[JCanete]

12. It's not the letter, it's the oversensationalized overemphasized "News" coverage of it. nt

[NWCorona]

14. I think it was both. Comeys actions were highly unusual to the point

That even some on Fox were calling him out.

[JCanete]

16. I'm not excusing him or his intentions. I think those are pretty clear. How those intentions played

out though, were totally in the hands of the media. It was an opportunity to swing things back into closer equilibrium, but had it not been this, I have no reason to believe it wouldn't have been something else.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

17. Yep.

http://player.theplatform.com/p/NnzsPC/widget/select/media/guid/2410887629/3421101

[LisaL]

24. He would have to have known that media was going to do exactly what it did.

I knew it right after I heard about his letter.

[JCanete]

26. known or hoped, it doesn't matter. It's not like the media is actually a dog you wag, as much

as we like to pretend that's the case. It has its own reasons for focusing where it wants to.

[LisaL]

29. There would be nothing for it to focus on if Comey didn't send his letter, knowing full well it will

be focused on by the media.

[radius777]

19. Exactly, it was intentionally vaguely worded,

as to create the impression that the entire investigation was reopened, with (per FBI leaks) the likelihood of indictment.

Comey knew all along there was nothing there, that the emails on Wiener's laptop were likely duplicates, that there was no malicious intent on Abedin's part etc.

Comey violated the Hatch Act, and also broke with long-standing norms of not commenting on an investigation in progress.

This was a hit-job involving the NY FBI office, Giuliani and Comey to destroy Hillary and throw the election to their boy Trump.

[LisaL]

25. Add to that that FBI knew about the letters at least since early October, from what has been

reported. But they didn't even ask for a search warrant until Comey send his letter.

[StevieM]

38. The same can be said of his July press conference. He deliberately chose his words

so as to allow GOP lawmakers, like Paul Ryan, to lie to the American people and act shocked that an indictment wasn't being issued.

[radius777]

47. Agree. It's clear now the July press conf was

the warm-up act for his coup de grace with 11 days to go in the election.

If Comey and the FBI is allowed to escape justice for this flagrant violation of the Hatch Act, we really are living in a fascist banana republic, not a modern western democracy.

[LisaL]

18. I presume Comey knew full well his letter will result in such news coverage.

Which is why FBI actually has rules not to do the exact thing that Comey did.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

31. That makes no sense... no letter, no coverage.

[LisaL]

33. Well, exactly.

Hard to understand why some people are defending Comey. Media for sure isn't blameless but Comey is the one who lit the match.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

34. No question... Comey should be frog marched out of the building and tried for his crimes!!

[JCanete]

43. well holy fuck, you read my comment as defending Comey. How?

I'm just much more concerned with a whole machine that is screwing the American People than one person with a letter. We hear about things because the media wants us to. We don't hear about other things because the media doesn't want us to. Rarely are there exceptions to this rule. Fuck Comey, but when we don't keep our eye on the ball, this shit is going to continue to happen to us.

The media is not fair and balanced, and that isn't simply a function of ratings chasing.

[JCanete]

45. How long did it take you to hear about the water protectors from a mainstream source?

There were and always are plenty of things the media can focus on. Had the letter not emerged, don't be so damn sure that something else wouldn't have all of a sudden become a story with the same general intention. You can't tell me that the letter itself was worth 2 weeks of coverage. The media made it worth that anyway.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

70. I see your point and, yes, it's likely the Rethug friendly media would've focused on something else to tRump's benefit.

[radius777]

20. certainly. not 'almost certainly'. /nt

[ucrdem]

35. Suggestive but by no means definitive. There's no correlation established.

In some states the polls tightened in the last two weeks (FLA), in some states they didn't (WI). Personally I think the Comey effect is overrated. What did he say that hadn't been said 24/7 on every channel for the previous five years?



Silver doesn't want to believe that votes were stolen. Fine, but this doesn't prove that.

[yallerdawg]

36. The table shows how the votes broke for undecideds during the last week.

Why would any votes have to be "stolen"?

[ucrdem]

40. Several reasons. Here's one:

WI polling up to Nov. 6. Notice there's no Comey effect whatsoever:


more here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512627381

So how did Trumper leap from 40 to 48 when Clinton had been six plus points ahead the whole run-up?

Also: Silver's graphic doesn't say how many voters in each state actually waited until the last week to make up their minds. That's a crucial data point and it's missing. So basically it's an impressive debate tactic but it doesn't prove anything.

[yallerdawg]

46. As noted elsewhere today:

In the above graph of the Comey effect, each point shows the median margin for polls that were in the field on that day. As you can see, the immediate effect of Comey’s letter was a swing toward Trump of 4 percentage points, about half of which stuck. This was enough to swing Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin. It seems likely that Comey’s letter was a critical factor in the election outcome.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/12/10/the-comey-effect/

[ucrdem]

51. Also suggestive, but even if definitive, it wouldn't account for that 8-pt leap in WI.

IOW these sorts of meta-data-graphics sort of kind of suggest that Comey's letters did the deed but when you get down to it, he had nothing and admitted he had nothing. Ho-hum.

[yallerdawg]

59. The RCP polling you are citing...

ended November 2. The hype regarding the Comey letter never stopped.

For a great number of people - right or wrong - this final accusation, driven by the media frenzy, is more likely - Occam's Razor - than looking for unsubstantiated conspiratorial anomalies which become apparent when we simply ask the voters.

One out of three Sanders supporters told us they would find it difficult to vote for Hillary - and these states is where Bernie did very well in the primaries.

We don't need to look for "lost" votes - we know where they are.

[ucrdem]

64. We've got US senators of both parties calling for investigations into this election.

This particular affair was criminal but it was a drop in the bucket and all for show. Comey fired blanks.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

62. It looks like Silver's 59-30 margin for WI came from the CNN exit polls?

http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/wisconsin/president (Use the drop down menu to change it from "National" to "Wisconsin&quot

When did you decide presidential vote?
In the last week
14%: Clinton 30%, Trump 59%
Before that
85%: Clinton 49%, Trump 47%

30x0.14 + 49x0.85 = 45.9% Clinton (Actual*: 46.4%)
59x0.14 + 47x0.85 = 48.2% Trump (Actual*: 47.2%)

* Assuming no voter fraud.

[George Eliot]

37. Silver has been wrong. We'll never know

I wish Comey had kept his mouth shut but we will never know the answer to that question just as we will never know the impact of the emails, the Clinton Foundation, Wall street ties, etc. Trump promised jobs to people. I'm more inclined to think rust belt states want those jobs.

Anyone see Van Jones http://www.vanjones.net/the_messy_truth_episode_1

Here for Jones' attempt to turn electoral votes to Clinton. Interesting. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/309642-is-van-jones-another-conflict-of-interest-headache-for-cnn

Still, who knows for sure?

[still_one]

42. We do know one thing. The email investigation was not being reopened per the letter, and the media

reported that it was reopened. That was a lie

We know Bret Baier from Fox News said from his sources in the FBI, an indictment was imminent on the Clinton Foundation. That was a lie, and it was picked up at google news, and other outlets, and could brined even though 48 hours later Baier issued an apology and said he was wrong

We also know after the Comey event the poll numbers went down for Hillary, and we can reasonably infer that it was because of this LIE

[lapucelle]

60. Why am I not surprised that The Hill

never mentions Lewandowski in it's hard hitting report on things that are only problems if it's a Democrat involved? Trying to stir the pot against Jones is typical of their right wing spin.

[still_one]

39. Actually whe MSNBC grabbed opened a breaking news saying the email investigation had been

reopened, which was a LIE, I posted here we just lost because of this. MSNBC paraded every right wing politician to propagate that lie, and about an hour later every network was reporting the big lie

I was slammed at being a concern troll, and that's ok, we were all pumped up, so I understand and that

I also said this is worse than 2000, and had a lot of disagreements there also

I was pretty depressed when that happened, but still continued my call banking and other volunteer work for Hillary hoping it would make a difference

[TheCowsCameHome]

44. Nate who?

After this election, I'll ever believe a pollster again.

[Initech]

49. I don't about anything Nate Silver says either.

[Initech]

48. James Comey committed an act of treason.

[red dog 1]

54. plus 1

[CousinIT]

52. WHY does that Hatch Act-violating sonofabi*ch still have a job then? n/t

[red dog 1]

66. Ask Obama that question!

[red dog 1]

55. Comey is a criminal..He violated the Hatch Act!

K&R

Nate Silver is right!

[Roland99]

58. How can someone be one week from the election and wavering between Clinton and Trump???

where's the exploding head emoji??

[yallerdawg]

61. We need to recognize that most people...

don't give a shit who is president!

That sucks, too.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

67. I've certainly met people like that.

This kind of commentary from co-workers: "It doesn't matter who we elect. They're going to mostly help their rich donors anyway, so they can all go to Hell."

Never mind when they or their families ever get government aid of some kind. They seem to think that will always be there.

[Midwestern Democrat]

73. They were voters who disliked Clinton but were nervous about Trump. In the end, they decided

to roll the dice and hope for the best (a very foolish gamble, IMO).

[Yurovsky]

72. Or she could've just use the goddamn government server...

ta-fucking-da, controversy averted...

[budkin]

75. It was perfect timing

No wonder I felt so sick to my stomach that day.

[andym]

77. i agree, and recognized the disastrous timing at the time-- but there was nothing to be done

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1609715
"59. The timing of this will have maximum effect on the election: less than 2 weeks out"
"The next two weeks of news will be all about the emails. The media loves this kind of stuff and will go whole hog. Trump's campaign and surrogates will bring this up every minute of every day. Lets hope that Hillary's lead will hold against the barrage of innuendo that is sure to follow."

Basically, although I was hoping that it wouldn't be as bad as I and others thought, I was already dreading election day.
I'm sure Nate Silver is right too. Comey made all the difference. About 40-60% of the electorate who actually vote are not informed and the Comey story basically sealed the decision of many of them to not vote for Hillary.

[LisaL]

79. Seems like timing was picked for maximum impact.

FBI reportedly knew about the emails at least since early October. But they didn't even ask for a search warrant until Comey send his letter. All of this seems to be very well designed to bring Hillary down and it worked.

[andym]

82. Yes-- the timing couldn't have been worse-- suppressed the early Democratic leaning vote

and was in people's minds the week before election day, when undecideds (and there are such people) make their decision.

The "nevermind" from Comey 2 days before the election probably was counterproductive too, in that it kept the story in the news, and the sense of exoneration communicated was not strong enough. At the time I hoped it would be helpful, but it was probably harmful.

[Hoyt]

78. At time of letter, Trump was getting bashed for comments on women, etc. After FBI letter,

hardly heard another word about that. Trump was falling in polls and I think Silver is right about letter turning things. Kind of like, I think Kerry had 2004 until Bin Laden released video Friday before elections.

We can't take anything for granted in these elections.

[Docreed2003]

81. The Comey letter did its job..

What it did was shake up the polls just enough that shenanigans could occur on Election Day and no one in the media would bat an eye. The letter wasn't the sole reason for Clinton losing, it was just the needed preamble for the entire coup to work. People are now trying to make sense out of an election that makes no sense. However, I think if you step back and look at everything in retrospect, at that time HRC's numbers were riding high from the "pussy grabbing" and debates. They were so high that some pundits were even suggesting the campaign should branch out to places like Arizona and even Texas to bring about a massive landslide. Anything nefarious at that point would have been blatantly obvious. The Comey letter succeeded in narrowing the polls just enough to allow for things like voter manipulation/suppression and, if I'm being completely honest I think voting machine hacking, to take their full effect.