Hillary Clinton had Iowa locked up heading into game time. She was ahead of Bernie by twelve points just a few weeks ago. Take a look at RCPs track, and think about when Hillary turned up the gun control talk big time? Last year this time she was ahead by 52 points. Then Hillary started opening her mouth and talking, and as often happens when Hillary does that, she started blowing her lead. She had Gabby Giffords out in Iowa helping her campaign at the last minute. She’s been pushing much more heavily on gun control in New Hampshire, where Bernie is creaming her. Hillary hasn’t been on top in New Hampshire polling since early December. When did those gun control ads start Hil?
Now with all that data screaming that gun control isn’t helping, and may actively be hurting Hillary, “The Trace,” Bloomberg’s media mouthpiece, is trying to argue that gun control saved Hillary. Go ahead and read that wonderfully delusional piece. Careful where you step though.
It really it amazing how they take pride in going from 54 points ahead to “winning” by less than 1/3 of a point and some of that was based on a series of coin tosses. This is like the Virginia gubernatorial race where winning was turning a massive lead into a close call and so much outrage over licensing games that it looks like Virginians will end up with more than when they went into the game. But, hey, the billionaire pays people to tell him he’s awesome and his ideas always work…
it was all based on a coin toss. Assuming a 50/50 chance of winning a coin toss, the 6 delegates would have been split, 3-3, which would have had Bernie Sanders winning. Even if Hillary won 4 of the 6 coin tosses, they would have ended up tied.
Plus, you have 90 precincts without results. This whole thing stinks. If I was Bernie, I’d declare without a doubt that I won this thing and it was only due to Hillary and the corrupt establishments dishonesty that there is any question.
I did see a really funny commentary from a Bernie supporter that pointed out the election “literally decided by money.” I thought that was pretty funny. :)
I’m sitting here trying to remember my statistics class and the coin toss experiment. What is the chance that a person can win 6 coin tosses in a row?
Every time you flip a coin, it is a “new universe.” There is *no* cumulative effect. It is 50/50 every time.
I used to be a slot machine repairman. It is amazing how the average person does not understand this simple idea, but therein lies the profit margin.
It’s 50/50 every time or has a probability of 0.5 of landing on either side. If you run that six times it becomes (1/2)^6, which is a probability of 1/64, or a one is sixty-four chance of it coming up the same every time.
But that’s not what happened in Hillary’s case, because each one was a separate roll. But statistically, I think someone guessing the head in six independent rolls would still be the same probability, assuming the guess was random, which is probably isn’t.
“assuming the guess was random, which is probably isn’t”
Huh? Not sure what you mean by “assuming.” You mean that Hilary had a secret plan for her caucus people to always guess “heads” in the event of a coin toss?
That doesn’t matter if the coin is fair (ideal, 50/50 odds). The choice of heads vs tails is arbitrary, and serves as a proxy for Hillary wins vs. Bernie wins. Real coins aren’t perfect but the difference is only distinguishable over large numbers (billions if not more) flips using the same coin. Using different coins, assuming they are randomly chosen, most likely averages out any imperfections in the coin–which are statistically insignificant anyway. There is not enough information to determine whether any shenanigans actually took place. The reported outcome is simply highly unlikely.
I’ve seen much less “probable” series happen, at least once this week. 6 coin flips isn’t anything other than the smallest of sample sizes.
Maybe a thousand events with a distribution unexpected and I’d raise an eyebrow. Especially since the coin flips aren’t linked
Hey, someone wins the Powerball jackpot every so often. It is about 6 orders of magnitude less likey that a given ticket hits than that 6 coin flips do. I wouldn’t bet on it but it does happen.
Hillary and Bernie should have had a boxing match instead, 3 rounds, 3 minutes per round, with free bread for the audience.
I think the clearest indicator of whether gun control helps or hurts Hillary (or should I just call her – the felon in waiting) is Virginia Gov. Terry McAulife’s (Clinton’s top money man) dramatic about face with regard to concealed carry.
BTW, that DoNotLink url is awesome!
Think of it this way, given the choice between a criminal and a communist, Iowa democrats shrugged their shoulders and flipped a coin….
You win today’s internet.
She is an absolutely terrible candidate. She lost to a first term nobody 8 years ago, now she’s losing to an old commie while trying to avoid felony charges.
The gun issue is the icing on the cake and will guarantee she loses the general election if she squeaks through the primaries.
Here is a link to Rev. Don Sensing on this subject: http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-math-of-coin-tossing-in-iowa.html
i think that he has the best explanation I’ve seen on this subject.
Several years ago I saw a formula in a “Math Horizons” magazine that, if I recall correctly, could tell you how many trials you would need in order to get a run of N successes, given a probability P. The article mentioned a roulette wheel game on a cruise that had a run of twenty Reds (people kept on betting Black because they just knew that the streak had to end!); while it’s tempting to think it was rigged (and impossible to rule out), if you consider that there have been so many roulette wheel games over the years, it’s not at all unreasonable that you could have at least one run of 20 Reds on a roulette wheel.
I don’t have access to that formula, but given that you have a 1 in 64 chance of having six flips to go your way, it doesn’t sound unreasonable to me at all.
Like I said above, I’ve personally seen much more “improbable” things happen, with a certain amount of regularity. The odds don’t tell you what will happen, only what’s likely to happen. History is full of unlikely events.
I was calling this from day 1. They should know better. EVERY poll out there shows that 20-30% of Dems own guns, and against gun control.
Furthermore, pro gun control polling does no translate to progun control voting.