by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com
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His name is Helmut Norpoth, and he is a professor at StonyBrook Univeristy in Long Island. Norpoth feels that his model of prediction is far more accurate than any polls. He developed a new model of predictions which has been devastatingly accurate since 1912.
Professor Norpoth calls it the “Primary Model.”
So how does it work? It is predicated on how candidates performed in the primary elections and it is based on real voters – not polls. Norpoth feels that primaries are a far better indicator than anything else because it is based on real data not extrapolated data. It is based upon enthusiasm which comes out better in actual performance. It is also based on what people actually do and not what they say they do.
Norpoth’s model predicts that there is a 91% of President Trump thrashing Joe Biden in the upcoming November election.
Norpoth believes that Joe Biden is in a much weaker position than Trump, as Biden had an extremely poor showing in the first two primary races.
Biden actually came in fourth place in Iowa with just 15.8 percent of the vote.
Worse still, he came in fifth place in New Hampshire with just 8.4 percent of the vote.
“The terrain of presidential contests is littered with nominees who saw a poll lead in the spring turn to dust in the fall,” Norpoth told Mediaite. “The list is long and discouraging for early front runners. Beginning with Thomas Dewey in 1948, it spans such notables as Richard Nixon in 1960, Jimmy Carter in 1980, Michael Dukakis in 1988, George H.W. Bush in 1992, and John Kerry in 2004, to cite just the most spectacular cases.”
Norpoth’s data is culled from the actual voting of millions of people – not the thought that they had.
This author would like to suggest that there may be something to what Professor Norpoth says from a thought of Rav Shmuel Brudny zt”l, a former Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn.
“We see from the Chumash that Kayin was the originator of the idea of bringing a Korban and Hevel copied him – albeit by bringing a much better Korban. Kayin’s was not accepted while that of Hevel’s was. The Midrash further explains that when the two battled together, it was Hevel that originally had Kayin in a headlock, but Kayin told him, “What will our mother feel?” Hevel let him go and Kayin treacherously killed him. We see from here that the emphasis in this world is not Machshavah – but Maaseh. What is counted ultimately is what happens lemaaseh – not the thought behind it.”
The author can be reached at [email protected]
Wow! Brilliant piece.
(Does anyone have a clue what he’s talking).
If 100 people find something that correlates with historical elections and then predict some elections, you would expect at least 1, if not more, to be right… until they are not. His model might just be correlation that works until it does not. Also, he has modified it, as the actual predictions have been incorrect. For example, while he predicted Obama would win McCain, the margin Obama won by was much larger than the insignificant margin he predicted. Also he predicted Trump winning the popular vote over Hillary by a decent margin, yet Trump won due the fluke of how the electoral college works. So now for this election he “modified” it to factor the electoral college. So, no, this is not a simply statistical model, but rather one that gets modified and changed over time. Does it have valid predictive ability? I honestly cannot say.
As to R’ Hoffman’s comments about Masseh, if I understand what he said correctly, with all due respect it is meaningless. More people voted for Hillary in the last general election, so getting people out to vote, or Maaseh, is an explanation with such an open interpretation as to be meaningless.
President Trump has won more votes in the primaries than any incumbent before him.
As usual your reporting is not accurate. He predicted the last 6 elections, and was correct 5 times. He claims that according to his model he would’ve gotten it right 96%. Many people claim many things. MODERATOR: He used the model for elections since 1912 without changing the criterion. The statistic is 25 out of 27.
This year with all the lock down, and no political rallies, with crazy joe in his basement. People don’t see how foolish Biden really is.
This year is a whole different election.
Hashem should save us and Biden and evil dem-o-rats should lose big!
It’s interesting that he uses performance in early primaries to predict election results. Hard to argue with his results so far but primary performance with intervening pandemic and race issues kind of muck things up. Nate Silver of 538 says Trump has his work cut out for him but that there is plenty of history to support the argument that he can win. It’s hard to imagine but never bet against an incumbent.
We should all remember he freed rubashkin
This would be remarkable if Biden was confirmed to be a living, breathing human being.
Remember a trump card takes all