# Nuño's deads imple election simulator

## First round: just consider the base rates.

- [x] Get past electoral college results since 2000
- [x] Get number of electors for each state with the new census
- [x] Combine the two to get an initial base rates analysis

This initial approach gives a 25% to republicans winning in the 2024 election. Why is this? Well, consider the number of electoral college votes: 

| Year | Republican electoral college votes | 
| ---- | --- | 
| 2000 | 271 | 
| 2004 | 286 |
| 2008 | 173 |
| 2012 | 206 |
| 2016 | 304 |
| 2020 | 232 |

| Year | Democrat electoral college votes
| ---- | --- | 
| 2000 | 266 | 
| 2004 | 251 | 
| 2008 | 365 | 
| 2012 | 332 | 
| 2016 | 227 |
| 2020 | 232 | 

When Democrats won with Obama, they won by a lot, whereas when Republicans won with Bush and Trump, they won by a smaller amount. Or, in other words, this initial approach *doesn't take into account that states are correlated*. 

Remedy: consider the conditional probabilities? But how? Or, relax assumptions using Laplace's law?

- [ ] Consider conditional probabilities
  - See how other models account for the correlation
- [ ] Add uncertainty using Laplace's law of succession?
  - Maybe only do this for contested states? Alabama is not going to turn Democratic?

## Second round: just consider polls

- [x] Download and format
- [x] Read
- [x] Add date of poll
- [x] Consider what the standards error should be 
- [x] Consider how to aggregate polls?
  - One extreme: Just look at the most recent one
  - [x] Another extreme: Aggregate very naïvely, add up all samples together?
- [x] Aggregate polls?
- [x] Exclude polls older than one month?
- [ ] Exclude partisan polls
- [ ] ...

https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/274211/calculating-the-probability-of-someone-winning-from-a-poll

This time, the republicans win by a mile. 

What is happening?
- Trump polling ok in Minessota, 
- No polls in Iowa yet
- Trump polling very well in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina
  - In part because of the Kennedy/West/Stein vote.
- Biden is poling well in Colorado
- Not that many polls yet, in general