What is the purpose of the simulation runs?
To account for three types of error in interpreting polling data: sampling error, state-specific movement, and national movement. Please see my thorough discussion here. The most important concept to grasp is that the error in predicting electoral outcomes is much larger at this stage of the election cycle than would be implied by the margins of errors from the polls alone. That is, the election may ‘break’ in any number of different and unpredictable directions, both at a state-by-state and at a national level. As we get closer to November 4, the potentiality for these trends will become lesser, and therefore the error assumed by my simulation model will become progressively less. However, even on election eve, the errors in predicting electoral outcomes are larger than those implied by each pollster’s margin of error calculation alone.
