Election Modelers: Watch The Game

So you did an analytics. You did a data. You made a complex model that’s more sophisticated than the YouTube algorithm that serves me perfectly-curated Orson Welles clips from The Dick Cavett Show but is just as accurate as a 1963 weather report that says “it might rain.”

No matter what inputs you shove into your jerry-rigged 2014 gamer PC that has four different monitors and three different keyboards, two of which have strobe-effect keys, it tells you "the race" is a toss up.   

Have you ever, for one second, considered actually watching the game? Or perhaps examining what the combatants themselves are signaling? You are obsessing over “crosstabs,” ”nonresponse bias,” “voter bleed,” and “middle west singularity.” (I’m pulling these from memory, they might not all be industry standard jargon).

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The candidates? One of them is saying things like, “America is a place where we can all be Americans.” The other is trying to recall ever-more memorable fictional cat names that can be woven into a hallucinatory rant about animals that may or may not be getting consumed in outer-ring Columbus suburbs. (“Garfield … they’re slow roasting poor Garfield.”) 

One candidate is saying, “The economics … we must build an America where everyone can economy!” The other is making hyper-specific pledges to repeal taxes that might not even exist. (“Folks, we are going to eliminate the horrible truck nuts tax. You will no longer be taxed for your beautiful truck nuts.”) One senses a big tent coming together. The other, walls closing in so fast that there is no promise too desperate to make if it churns up another voter or two. One is running out the clock, the other is throwing rocks at it. Are these two behaving as if the race is a toss up?

Prohibitive favorites, of course, lose. Sometimes they blow a 28-3 second half lead. Others, they forget to go to the fifth largest city in Wisconsin. Uncertainty is a part of life, and elections. Everyone, especially those who have agonized over the past nine years of American politics, understands that. But we also have eyes. We have ears. We see the teams in the final 6-7 minutes of the fourth quarter. Who looks confident and who looks staggered. One is calling another halfback dive to keep the clock moving. The other is screaming he didn’t just bump the ref after clearly bumping the ref.

We know who’s winning. We know who will probably win. It’s OK to not want to say it. I’m superstitious too. But if the numbers — all of which very clearly state one candidate is winning — you’re crunching tell you this race is tied, well … maybe watch the game. 

Follow Patrick Daugherty on the X platform at @RotoPat.