Elon Musk Recommends 12 Books
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Elon Musk Recommends 12 Books
Musk
The best thing about Elon Musk is that he makes us dream big again. Musk, of course, is the billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX.
Charlie Munger was asked a question about him at the 2014 Daily Journal Meeting and he replied:
I think Elon Musk is a genius, and I don’t use that word lightly. I think he’s also one of the boldest men that ever came down the pike.
Whenever anyone asks him how he learned to build rockets, he says, ‘I read books.’ Not only does he read them, according to his interview with Esquire, he devours them. After meeting Musk, people tend to walk away with the same reaction: ‘He’s the smartest guy I’ve ever met.’
Not to be outdone by his friend and co-founder, Peter Thiel, who offered some reading recommendations, Musk has a few of his own that influenced him.
In an interview with Design and Architecture, Musk said “In terms of sci-fi books, I think Isaac Asimov is really great. I like the Foundation series, probably one of the all-time best. Robert Heinlein, obviously. I like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and I like Stranger in a Strange Land, although it kind of goes off the rails at the end." He continues “There’s a good book on structural design called Structures: Or Why Things Don’t Fall Down. It is really, really good if you want a primer on structural design."
Here are some of his other reading recommendations.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
He told the New Yorker that as an “undersized and picked upon smart-aleck," he turned to reading fantasy and science fiction. “The heroes of the books I read, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and the ‘Foundation’ series, always felt a duty to save the world."
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. “He was an entrepreneur," Musk says in an interview. “He started from nothing. He was just a runaway kid."
In that same interview he also recommends Einstein: His Life and Universe, also by Isaacson.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel
I’ve already said this is required reading for Farnam Streeters. Of this book Musk says: “Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and (this book) shows how."
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom
“Worth reading Superintelligence by Bostrom. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes." he tweeted. Of course I bought this.
Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele
Recently, in an interview with CNN, he mentioned having just finished this book. Musk calls it a “cautionary tale."
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Here is an excerpt from an interview where he explains why this was a key book for him:
Alison van Diggelen: I understand Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that wonderful book by Douglas Adams, that was a key book for you. What was it about that book that fired your imagination?
Elon Musk: I guess when I was around 12 or 15 … I had an existential crisis, and I was reading various books on trying to figure out the meaning of life and what does it all mean? It all seemed quite meaningless and then we happened to have some books by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in the house, which you should not read at age 14 (laughter). It is bad, it’s really negative. So then I read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which is quite positive I think and it highlighted an important point which is that a lot of times the question is harder than the answer. And if you can properly phrase the question, then the answer is the easy part. So, to the degree that we can better understand the universe, then we can better know what questions to ask. Then whatever the question is that most approximates: what’s the meaning of life? That’s the question we can ultimately get closer to understanding. And so I thought to the degree that we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness and knowledge, then that would be a good thing."
Finally we get to the rocket science part.
Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants by John D. Clark
“There is a good book on rocket stuff called ‘Ignition!’ by John Clark that’s a really fun one," Musk said in an interview. Becoming a rocket scientist isn’t cheap. This book recommendation from Musk will set you back about 3k for a used copy (it’s also free on the web)
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
The Chessboard Fallacy
“In the great chess-board of human society,
every single piece has a principle of motion of its own."
— Adam Smith
***
One of our favorite dictums, much referenced here, is an idea by Joseph Tussman, about getting the world to do the work for you:
“What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson."
By aligning with the world, as it really is and not as we wish it to be, we get it to do the work for us.
Tussman’s idea has at least one predecessor: Adam Smith.
In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith excoriates the “Men of System" who have decided on an inflexible ideology of how the world should work, and try to fit the societies they lead into a Procrustean Bed of their choosing — the Mao Zedong-type leaders who would allow millions to die rather than sacrifice an inch of ideology (although Smith’s book predates Maoism by almost 200 years).
In his great wisdom, Smith perfectly explains the futility of swimming “against the tide" of how the world really works and the benefit of going “with the tide" whenever possible. He recognizes that people are not chess pieces, to be moved around as desired.
Instead, he encourages us to remember that everyone we deal with has their own goals, feelings, aspirations, and motivations, many of them not always immediately obvious. We must construct human systems with human nature in full view, fully harnessed, fully acknowledged.
Any system of human relations that doesn’t accept this truth will always be fighting the world, rather than getting it to work for them.
The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it.
He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.
If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.
Think of how many policies, procedures and systems of organization which forget this basic truth; systems of political control, price control, social control and behavioral control — from bad workplaces to bad governments – which have failed so miserably because they refused to account for the underlying motivations of the people in the system, and failed to do a second-step analysis of the consequences of their policies.
It’s just as true in personal relations: How often do we fail to treat others correctly because we haven’t taken their point of view, motivations, aspirations, and desires properly into account? How often is our own “system of relations" built on faulty assumptions that don’t actually work for us? (The old marriage advice “You can either be right, or be happy" is pure gold wisdom in this sense.)
Smith’s counsel offers us a nice out, though. If our own system for dealing with people and their own “principles of motion" are the same, then we are likely to get a harmonious result! If not? We get misery.
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Gritty Noted and Quoted Takes Chandelier
Noted and Quoted wins a battle with talented With Honors to take the Chandelier Stakes (gr. I) Benoit PhotoGritty Noted and Quoted Takes Chandelier
by Frank Angst @BH_FAngst
After finishing fourth in her grade I debut in the Del Mar Debutante, Noted and Quoted found success in her second try at the top level with a half-length victory in the $300,000 Chandelier Stakes (gr. I) Oct. 1 at Santa Anita Park.
After tracking early leader With Honors through most of the 1 1/16-mile race, jockey Rafael Bejarano asked Noted and Quoted for more in early stretch and the daughter of The Factor surged to the lead as With Honors held second. Zapperkat finished third. The victory gives trainer Bob Baffert 10 wins in the Chandelier.
"I have to give Bob a lot of credit for this," said Bejarano who secured his fourth Chandelier win since 2011. "Baffert told me that he thought I might want to stay on Noted and Quoted because she was going to be prepared to run the mile and a sixteenth. And, he was right. American Cleopatra (who finished eighth) was right next to me but Stewart (Elliott, on American Cleopatra) didn't have enough horse and mine was the better horse today." The Chandelier marked her first try at two turns.
Speedway Stable's Noted and Quoted completed the distance in 1:44.88 on a fast track.
The Chandelier is a Breeders' Cup Challenge "Win and You're In" race to the Juvenile Fillies (gr. I). Peter Fluor of Houston races as Speedway Stable.
LNJ Foxwoods' With Honors, who was trying dirt for the first time after winning her first two starts on turf, including a stakes race at Del Mar, raced well from the inside post under Flavien Prat. The daughter ofWar Front skipped through a quarter-mile in :23.29 and a half-mile in :47.10, while Bejarano kept Noted and Quoted close.
Noted and Quoted challenged after six furlongs in 1:11.81 then powered to the lead in early stretch.
"When they turned for home, I thought, 'That's a good filly (With Honors) that ran second.' I have a lot of respect for her," Baffert said. "(Noted and Quoted) is a very slight filly. I don't have to do a lot with her, but the fact that she's already proved she can go two turns—that's what we were trying to find out with her. I'm pretty proud of her effort, because she ran against a really great filly."
Noted and Quoted paid $16.80 to win, $8.40 to place, and $5.80 to show, while With Honors paid $10.60 and $7.60 to place and show. Zapperkat, the 5-2 favorite in her stakes debut, paid $3.80 to show.
Trainer Keith Desormeaux believes With Honors will move forward in the Breeders' Cup.
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Gormley Wins Stakes Debut in FrontRunner
Gormley wins the FrontRunner Stakes (gr. I) by 3 1/2 lengths Benoit PhotoGormley Wins Stakes Debut in FrontRunner
by Frank Angst @BH_FAngst
Gormley made his stakes debut a winning effort, scoring a three-length, front-running win in the $300,000 FrontRunner Stakes (gr. I) Oct. 1 at Santa Anita Park.
Trained by John Shirreffs for owners Jerry and Ann Moss, Gormley broke well from the rail under Victor Espinoza and cruised through a quarter-mile in :23.72 and a half-mile in :47.18. The son of Malibu Moon opened a big advantage in the far turn, extending that advantage to 3 1/2 lengths in the stretch, and was not seriously threatened by 1-5 favorite and last-out Del Mar Futurity (gr. I) winner Klimt, who rallied for second. Straight Fire came in another 4 1/2 lengths back in third.
Gormley improved to two-for-two, completing 1 1/16 miles in 1:43.57. He returned $23.60 to win, $5 to place, and $3 to show while Klimt paid $2.20 and $2.10. Straight Fire paid $2.20 to show.
Gormley won his maiden special weight debut going 6 1/2 furlongs Sept. 4 at Del Mar and easily made the jump to grade I winner.
"You know, it's always a surprise as you train in the morning and you hope they can improve in the afternoon. You don't ever know until the afternoon," Shirreffs said. "After you've won your first race you settle in and you just move on. He's a young horse, he's learning. He needs to focus a little bit and once he gets focused he's got it handled."
Espinoza, who secured his fourth FrontRunner victory, said he didn't necessarily plan to go to the lead with Gormley.
"I originally wanted to take back a little bit and let him run in the end ... I was on the rail and didn't want to take him back then, so I let him run," Espinoza said. "This horse can run well wherever he runs. He's a very talented young horse and he's going to improve for the future."
Gormley punches his ticket to the Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Juvenile (gr. I) as the FrontRunner is a Breeders' Cup Challenge "Win and You're In" race. The winners of the 2014 and 2015 FrontRunner, American Pharoah (under Espinoza) and Nyquist, went on to win the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I). Bred in Kentucky by Castleton Lyons and Kilboy Estate, Gormley is the first starter out of the stakes-winning Bernstein mare Race to Urga.
Bob Baffert, trainer of Klimt, said the son of Quality Road made a nice rally but was probably too far back early.
"That gave him a lot to do. He just didn't fire away from the gate, didn't break like we were hoping he would. But he ran a good race; he closed," Baffert said. "We know he can handle the distance. The quality is there; it just needs to come out of him."
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Forever Unbridled Glides to Beldame Victory
Forever Unbridled easily wins the Beldame Stakes (gr. I), her second grade I score Coglianese PhotosForever Unbridled Glides to Beldame Victory
by Evan Hammonds @BH_EHammonds
Charles Fipke’s Forever Unbridled, the 3-5 favorite, swept to the lead turning for home and won Belmont Park’s Beldame Stakes (gr. I) by 2 1/4 lengths. Tiger Ride finished second, 2 3/4 lengths ahead of Penwith in third. Off the Tracks, the 7-2 second choice, finished another three-quarters of a length back in fourth.
The time for the nine furlongs was 1:50.24 over a track listed as muddy (sealed). Joel Rosario was up for trainer Dallas Stewart. Stewart had a big day, as his Tom's Ready upended Runhappy in the Ack Ack Stakes (gr. III) at Churchill Downs.
Forever Unbridled paid $3.80 to win, $2.60, and $2.40. Tiger Ride returned $8.40 and $5.30 and Penwith paid $4.50 to show.
Forever Unbridled was unhurried early as Paola Queen set the early pace over the wet going. She had a clear lead through an opening quarter of :24.34 and a half-mile in :49.03 as Off the Tracks gave chase in second with Tiger Ride (on the rail) and Penwith not far behind. The field bunched as they rounded the bend, as Penwith made great headway on Paola Queen, but Forever Unbridled was inhaling them all. After six furlongs in 1:14.06, Forever Unbridled was well clear after a mile in 1:38.07. Her final eighth came in a quick :12.17.
"She's not quick (out of the gate) but she broke OK," Rosario said. "I ended up being very close to the lead because they were going slow. I was just trying to take my time with her, not turn her loose and stay on the outside. I could feel she was getting over the track very good. She was taking me there nicely and I was pretty much just a passenger."
With a $400,000 purse, Forever Unbridled took home $240,000, increasing her bankroll to $1,411,600 off a record of 5-3-3 in 13 starts.
“I thought it was great,” Stewart said. “The rain just drove me nuts. If you looked at the weather the last three days, I almost had her on a van and got her out of here. They said like three inches of rain and you don't want to get into a bad racetrack going into the Breeders' Cup but they kept changing the forecast, things got better. So, thank God, we left her here. The track superintendent did a great job with how good the track looks.
“This filly…I think there’s more to come. She's tough, she really is. So long as she comes back good and everything's good (she'll run in the Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff, gr. I)."
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Chrome' Takes Awesome Again with Ease
California Chrome wins the grade I Awesome Again Stakes with ease, remains undefeated in six stakes starts this year Benoit Photoby Jeremy Balan @BH_JBalan
California Chrome ’s winning margin in the $300,000 Awesome Again (gr. I) was 2 1/4 lengths over Dortmund, but anyone who watched knows better.
Under pressure on the outside by Dortmund through most of the 1 1/8-mile test, California Chrome clicked off very fast fractions, inched away from his rival in the backstretch with a little asking from jockey Victor Espinoza, opened up a clear lead in the turn, and galloped geared down to the wire in the final strides.
With a professional break from the rail, the 5-year-old son of Lucky Pulpit trained by Art Sherman set fractions of :22.76, :46.08, and 1:09.28 through six furlongs. He covered a mile in 1:34.45 and finished off the race in 1:48.07 to clinch his sixth victory of the year.
"When he gets in front, he's a hard horse to get by, and I knew he'd wear Dortmund down with the fractions the way they were," Sherman said. "He took Dortmund's game plan away from him. He tried and ran a hell of a race, but you're looking at maybe the best horse in the world right now."
Essentially a match race from the start, the top pair opened up 10 1/2 lengths on the field after four furlongs of running and 12 lengths through six. The only horse who made up any significant ground wasWin the Space, who came in 4 1/2 lengths behind Dortmund.
"He's on his game right now," Espinoza said. "(Dortmund) wasn't a threat today. Maybe the first quarter-mile, but after that, I just kept pulling away, which only helped me get some breathing room between us and the rest of the field."
"Second-best—no excuses," said Dortmund's jockey, Rafael Bejarano. "The winner had a lot of pressure on him and that was the only chance I had."
Off as the 2-5 favorite, California Chrome paid $2.80, $2.10, and $2.10 across the board. Dortmund paid $2.20 and $2.10, and Win the Space delivered $2.80 to show. Hard Aces came in fourth and Soi Phet followed to complete the order of finish.Hoppertunity and El Huerfano were scratched.
Still undefeated in 2016, California Chrome is now eligible for a $1 million bonus if he wins the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic (gr. I) Nov. 5 at Santa Anita. The bonus was offered to any horse who could sweep the Pacific Classic (gr. I), Awesome Again, and Breeders' Cup Classic.
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Confirmation Bias
The Misconception: Your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis.
The Truth: Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions.
Source: EIL
Have you ever had a conversation in which some old movie was mentioned, something like “The Golden Child" or maybe even something more obscure?
You are flipping channels one night and all of the sudden you see “The Golden Child" is playing. Weird. The next day you are reading a news story, and out of nowhere it mentions forgotten movies from the 1980s, and holy shit, three paragraphs about “The Golden Child." You see a trailer that night at the theater for a new Eddie Murphy movie, and then you see a billboard on the street promoting Charlie Murphy doing stand-up in town, and then one of your friends sends you a link to a post at TMZ showing recent photos of the actress from “The Golden Child."
What is happening here? Is the universe trying to tell you something? No. This is called the frequency illusion.
Since the party and the conversation where you and your friends took turns saying “I-ah-I-ah-I want the kniiiife" you’ve flipped channels plenty of times; you’ve walked past lots of billboards; you’ve seen dozens of stories about celebrities; you’ve been exposed to a handful of movie trailers. The thing is, you disregarded all the other information, all the stuff unrelated to “The Golden Child." Out of all the chaos, all the morsels of data, you only noticed the bits which called back to something sitting on top of your brain. A few weeks back, when Eddie Murphy and his Tibetan adventure were still submerged beneath a heap of pop-culture at the bottom of your skull, you wouldn’t have paid any special attention to references to it.
If you are thinking about buying a new car, you suddenly see people driving them all over the roads. If you just ended a long-time relationship, every song you hear seems to be written about love. If you are having a baby, you start to see them everywhere. The frequency illusion is often confused with confirmation bias, and the two are pretty similar, but the major difference is that confirmation bias involves an active pursuit for the truth.
Check any Amazon.com wish list, and you will find people rarely seek books which challenge their notions of how things are or should be. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Valdis Krebs at orgnet.com analyzed purchasing trends on Amazon. People who already supported Obama were the same people buying books which painted him in a positive light. People who already disliked Obama were the ones buying books painting him in a negative light. Just like with pundits, people weren’t buying books for the information, they were buying them for the confirmation.
Krebs has researched purchasing trends on Amazon and the clustering habits of people on social networks for years, and his research shows what psychological research into confirmation bias predicts: you want to be right about how you see the world, so you seek out information which confirms your beliefs and avoid contradictory evidence and opinions.
Half-a-century of research has placed confirmation bias among the most dependable of mental stumbling blocks. Journalists looking to tell a certain story must avoid the tendency to ignore evidence to the contrary; scientists looking to prove a hypothesis must avoid designing experiments with little wiggle room for alternate outcomes. Without confirmation bias, conspiracy theories would fall apart. Did we really put a man on the moon? If you are looking for proof we didn’t, you can find it.
“If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirmation bias would have to be among the candidates for consideration. Many have written about this bias, and it appears to be sufficiently strong and pervasive that one is led to wonder whether the bias, by itself, might account for a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misunderstandings that occur among individuals, groups, and nations."
– Raymond S. Nickerson
In a 1979 University of Minnesota study by Mark Snyder and Nancy Cantor, people read about a week in the life of an imaginary woman named Jane. Throughout the week, Jane did things which showcased she could be extroverted in some situations and introverted in others. After a few days the subjects were asked to return, and the researchers divided the people into two groups. The scientists asked people in each group to help decide if Jane would be suited for a particular job. One group was asked if she would be a good librarian; the other group was asked if she would be a good real-estate agent. People then searched their memories for examples that might suggest she was right for that position. In the librarian group, people easily remembered all the moments that made her seem like an introvert, ignoring the moments she seemed more extroverted. They then said that she seemed perfect for that career. The real-estate group did the same thing, but upside down, searching the same kind of memories but for different information and coming to the opposite conclusion. After this, when the groups were asked if she would be good at the other profession, most people stuck with their original assessment, saying she wasn’t suited for the other job at all, that she was too introverted or too extroverted, depending on the original question. The study suggests even in your memories you fall prey to confirmation bias, recalling those things which support your beliefs, forgetting those things which debunk them.
An Ohio State study in 2009 showed people spend 36 percent more time reading an essay if that essay aligns with their opinions. Another study at Ohio State in 2009 showed subjects clips of the parody show “The Colbert Report," and people who considered themselves politically conservative consistently reported “Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said."
“Thanks to Google, we can instantly seek out support for the most bizarre idea imaginable. If our initial search fails to turn up the results we want, we don’t give it a second thought, rather we just try out a different query and search again."
– Justin Owings
A popular method for teaching confirmation bias, first introduced by P.C. Wason in 1960, is to show the following numbers to a classroom: 2, 4, 6
The teacher then asks the classroom to guess why those numbers are in that particular order and to guess the teacher’s secret rule for selecting them in that way. The teacher then shows the number 10, 12, 14, and asks again to imagine what rule might be in play. Then the teacher reveals 22, 24, 26. The students are then tasked with coming up with three numbers of their own using the rule they think is in play. The teacher will then say “yes" or “no" if the order matches the rule. When the student thinks they have it figured out, they say their numbers out loud. Students typically offer sets like 6, 8, 10 or 32, 34, 36. The teacher then says “yes" over and over again, and the majority of people believe that the instructor’s confirmation means they have figured out the rule, but they haven’t. The teacher then reveals that 3, 9, 555 also follows the rule or 1, 2, 3. To figure out the rule, students would have had to offer sets like 2, 2, 2 or 9, 8, 7 – these, the teacher would say, did not fit the rule. With enough guesses playing against what the students think the rule may be focused on disconfirmation instead of confirmation, students finally figure out what the original rule was: any three numbers in ascending order.
The exercise is intended to show how you tend to come up with a hypothesis and then work to prove it right instead of working to prove it wrong. Once satisfied, you stop searching. In psychology they actually call this the “makes sense stopping rule." When you wonder why something happens or what the truth may be, you stop looking for answers once your presumptions are satisfied.
You seek out safe havens for your ideology, friends and coworkers of like mind and attitude, media outlets guaranteed to play nice. Whenever your opinions or beliefs are so intertwined with your self-image you couldn’t pull them away without damaging your core concepts of self, you avoid situations which may cause harm to those beliefs.
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it."
– Francis Bacon
Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views. If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn’t, you hate them.
Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.
“Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds…Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true."
Terry Pratchett through the character Lord Vetinari from his novel, “The Truth: a novel of Discworld
Over time, by never seeking the antithetical, through accumulating subscriptions to magazines, stacks of books and hours of television, you can become so confident in your world-view no one could dissuade you.
Remember, there’s always someone out there willing to sell eyeballs to advertisers by offering a guaranteed audience of people looking for validation. Ask yourself if you are in that audience.
In science, you move closer to the truth by seeking evidence to the contrary. Perhaps the same method should inform your opinions as well.
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Election Update: Clinton’s Debate Performance Is Helping Her In Swing States
FIVETHIRTYEIGHT
Election Update: Clinton’s Debate Performance Is Helping Her In Swing States
Nate Silver
National polls conducted since Monday’s presidential debate have shown Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump by an average of about 4 percentage points — a meaningful improvement from her position before the debate, when she led by just 1 or 2 points. Now, it’s becoming clearer that battleground state polls are moving toward Clinton as well. These include the first results since the debate from high-quality, live-caller telephone polls; the numbers we’d been getting earlier this week were all from online or automated polls.
Here’s what I wrote on Thursday about what we might expect to see in swing state polls, assuming that Clinton led Trump by 3 to 5 percentage points nationally, as national polls seem to show:
- A 4- to 8-point lead in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan, which have been slightly bluer than the national average this cycle.
- Somewhere between a tie and a 4-point Clinton lead in Florida and North Carolina, which have been slightly redder than the national average.
- A roughly tied race in Ohio and Iowa, which have been significantly redder than the national average.
So, what data have we gotten since then?
- In New Hampshire, a MassINC Polling Group poll (live caller) had Clinton up by 7 points.
- In Michigan, a Glengariff Group poll (live caller) had Clinton up by 7 points.
- In Florida, a Mason-Dixon poll (live caller) had Clinton up by 4 points.
- Also in Florida, an Opinion Savvy poll (conducted by automated telephone and online) had the race essentially tied (Clinton up by 0.3 points).
- And finally, in Nevada, a Suffolk University poll (live caller) had Clinton ahead by 6 points.
As you can see, these results are pretty much exactly what we’d expect with a Clinton lead of 3 to 5 percentage points nationally. In fact, they’re mostly toward the high end of the range, which means that her lead over Trump nationally could eventually turn out to be more like 5 points than 3 points as more data comes in.
The most impressive result for Clinton is probably the Suffolk poll of Nevada. I didn’t establish a benchmark for Nevada in Thursday’s write-up because there’s been a divergence between polls and demographics there all cycle, with polls showing it as a Trump-leaning state while demographics imply it should remain Democratic. But her 6-point lead in the Suffolk poll — the largest lead she’s had in any live-caller poll in Nevada all year — is the sort of number our model was expecting to see there all along. As a caution, Suffolk’s sample sizes are on the smaller side (500 people) so we’ll need to see more data from the Silver State.
Still, the polls have told a pretty consistent story overall. Among the 11 swing state polls conducted since the debate, Clinton has led in all 11.
You may notice that I’ve focused on the top line numbers (“Clinton’s up by 4”) instead of trend lines (“she’s gained 2 points”) in these last couple of updates, because with trend lines there’s more to keep track of. The period from Sept. 11 through the Sept. 26 debate was one of Clinton’s worst polling stretches of the year, for example, so a new survey from a pollster that last tested the race in that period will probably show Clinton gaining ground since then. But if a pollster had last surveyed a state in early August, when she was up by 7 or 8 percentage points nationally, you’d still expect Clinton to lose ground since then.
Our models keeps track of all this stuff, of course, although they may not yet have Clinton’s debate bounce fully priced in. Her chances of winning have risen to 67 percent in our polls-only model and64 percent in polls-plus. But our hyper-aggressive now-cast has Clinton’s popular vote lead at 4.1 percentage points, as compared with 3.1 points in the polls-only model. Since the now-cast doesn’t need as much data to show a big change, the gap implies that Clinton has some further room to grow in polls-plus and polls-only if we get more polls confirming the results we’ve seen over the past couple days.
The FiveThirtyEight Elections podcast covers the twists and turns of the election each week. Subscribe on iTunes or listen online.
Posted on October 2nd, 2016
Kitten’s Joy’s Taareef Wins the Daniel Wildenstein
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6th at CHY, Gr. Stk, €200,000 G2 Qatar Prix Daniel Wildenstein (8f) Winner: Taareef, c, 3 by Kitten's Joy
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Taareef | Scoop Dyga
TAAREEF, 123, c, 3, by Kitten’s Joy
1st Dam: Sacred Feather, by Carson City
2nd Dam: Marianna’s Girl, by Dewan
3rd Dam: Marianna Trench, by Pago Pago (Aus)
($675,000 Ylg ‘14 KEESEP). O-Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum; B-Dixiana Farms LLC (KY); T-Jean-Claude Rouget; J-Ioritz Mendizabal. €114,000. Lifetime Record: 7-4-1-0, €223,000.
Successful in the nine-furlong G3 Prix Daphnis here June 22 before finishing fourth behind Almanzor (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {Ire}) in the G2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano over an extra furlong at Deauville Aug. 15, Taareef was clear-best here for a career high. Settled in fourth early, the 18-5 shot overhauled the long-time leader Hello My Love (Fr) (Literato {Fr}) with 300 metres remaining before drawing away to win by 1 3/4 lengths, with a short neck back to Moonlight Magic (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}) in third. “He’s a very consistent horse and he moved well with the ground on the soft side, but he’s better on fast," trainer Jean-Claude Rouget said. “I don’t know what will happen now, but I’d like to keep him in training next year. We shall see."
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Posted on October 1st, 2016