Candidate Scoring System, First Release

By kbog @ 2019-03-05T15:15 (+11)

The first release of CSS is out, with tentative ratings of most of the contenders in the 2020 US presidential election.

Here is the link.

There are five files here - "Scoring Criteria" gives the overview, methodology and preferred policy platforms; read it first if you want to understand everything. "Party Priors" sets prior expectations to help fill in values for unknown candidates from either party. "Candidate Evaluations" gives the actual scores of each person, with results and discussion. "Model" is the actual spreadsheet running the whole thing. "Sensitivity Analysis" is an R program for checking results across different input weights.

Any ideas for improving the report with new/differing points of view are welcome. This is the first edition so it has a long way to go before it can be authoritative and convincing to most people. You can download a copy of the model spreadsheet to try it with your own assumptions. Under the suggested default inputs, these are the results:

Booker 123

Delaney 103

Inslee 97

Gillibrand 83

Warren 82

Sanders 59

Harris 58

Gabbard 57

Biden 52

Castro 51

O’Rourke 43

Brown 40

Buttigieg 32

Klobuchar 29

Haley -23

Trump -126

Thanks to Daniel Eth, Ben Henry, Michael St. Jules and other people who contributed arguments and sources. Let me know if you want to be involved with creating the next release.

Pablo_Stafforini @ 2019-03-13T15:59 (+4)

Thanks for doing this. Maybe add Andrew Yang? From a recent Vox article by Dylan Matthews:

Yang, a startup veteran and founder of the nonprofit Venture for America who has never run for elected office before, has made a $12,000-per-year basic income for all American adults the centerpiece of his campaign. He averages 0 to 1 percent in public opinion polls, but as of this writing, he’s surged on prediction markets, with bettors giving him slightly worse odds than Warren, Booker, and Klobuchar, and better odds than Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Julián Castro.
...successful or not, Yang is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. He blends a traditionally left-wing platform (a mass expansion of the safety net and a big new value-added tax, or VAT, to pay for it) with massive appeal to the young, predominantly male, and, in their unique way, socially conservative audiences of people like Joe Rogan and Sam Harris.
kbog @ 2019-03-13T21:49 (+2)

Yes he is in the 2nd version.

HaydnBelfield @ 2019-03-08T22:55 (+4)

Warren introduced the No First Use Act (“It is the policy of the United States to not use nuclear weapons first.”) and Gillibrand is a co-sponsor.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/272/cosponsors?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22warren+nuclear%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=1

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/11/18216686/elizabeth-warren-ban-nuclear-weapons-no-first-use

kbog @ 2019-03-09T08:14 (+4)

Thanks. I am now writing a pretty extensive section about this.