Nate Silver's election forecast model (Silver Bulletin) currently includes RFK in its calculations. He recently said on Twitter that if RFK drops out, he'll need to update the model to exclude him.
This market resolves based on the "Electoral College Probability" for Kamala Harris displayed on Silver Bulletin for the first model update that excludes RFK.
If RFK does not drop out before the election, this market resolves N/A. (I will follow the resolution of this market). If Nate Silver never updates the model to exclude RFK, it resolves N/A.
I am guessing that the "first post-RFK model probability" will be easy to determine because it'll be announced by a blogpost, but if not, I will do my best to look for the first reported probability.
Again, this is not the probability displayed by the model at the moment RFK drops out of the race—it's the probability after RFK has been excluded from the model.
At the time of question creation, Kamala Harris' Electoral College probability is 53.7% (so if unchanged, it would resolve to the [52%, 54%] bucket).
🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ733 | |
| 2 | Ṁ465 | |
| 3 | Ṁ273 | |
| 4 | Ṁ179 | |
| 5 | Ṁ150 |
@creator Last night, Nate made some updates, but not fully yet, I assume this doesn't count yet?
Last update: 8:30 p.m., Friday, August 23: RFK Jr. endorsed Donald Trump today and dropped out of the race — sort of.
....
For the time being, all that we’re doing is removing RFK from our projections in the four states where his campaign never claimed to qualify — these are Kentucky, Wyoming, Mississippi and Rhode Island — plus New York, where lawsuits knocked him off the ballot, and Arizona, where he’s already taken steps to withdraw
....
We will be making further changes, but we need a day or two to sort through the options:..
...
Again, this is not yet the full post-RFK version of the forecast.
yup. i admit i didn't consider the edge case where RFK is only dropped from the ballot in a few states. but this question is about when RFK doesn't appear in the model as an option. RFK still appears in the forecast.
Luckily this time nate added:
Again, this is not yet the full post-RFK version of the forecast.
so there's no ambiguity. hopefully his post-RFK update (if it comes) will be unambiguous. (but if RFK stays on the ballot in other states, not sure what Nate will do)
also, note this in the description:
If Nate Silver never updates the model to exclude RFK, it resolves N/A.
if nate decides that because RFK is still on the ballot in many states, he shouldn't be excluded from the model, then this market will N/A, whether or not you think RFK has dropped out. there needs to be a model excluding RFK (which Nate has said is a specific change to the model)
For context, Nate's full quote:
Just a quick warning that if RFK Jr. drops out, in principle it's simple just to reverse out the third party adjustment and default to the non-RFK version of the polls, but it's probably like 10ish hours of work to make sure everything is working properly.
So that probably means a few of days of model downtime, given that I'm busy AF and would have to split that work over a couple of days. Or we might continue to publish the with-RFK version in the interim.
In particular, defaulting to the non-RFK version of the polls seems like it could have a meaningful impact.