Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going and approval of the job Barack Obama is doing are below historical averages, and their economic outlook continues to be more negative than positive. Still, all of these measures are much improved from a year ago, helping the president narrowly win re-election. […] Read more »
Obama’s coalition, campaign deliver a second term
… Obama’s campaign, the most data-driven in the history of American politics, tweaked the electorate in enough places and enough constituencies to eke out victories in virtually every battleground state that had looked competitive on the eve of the election. Nothing was inevitable about the president’s victory. But against the […] Read more »
US election result a triumph for number nerds
… According to pundits, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama were on a knife’s edge – the race was too close to call, and the election count could take weeks. … Polling data analysts with a background in complex maths, rather than realpolitik, pored over poll after poll, to not only pick […] Read more »
Is Pennsylvania no longer a swing state?
Although Mitt Romney and Republican super PACs poured $10 million into the state in the closing week of the campaign, the election result was the same as in every presidential contest since 1992 – a Democratic win. “Six in a row is not just a fluke; it is part of […] Read more »
A Second Look at National Pollster Accuracy
Here are two more takes at it. First, courtesy of UNC Ph.D. student Brice Acree, takes my original plot and then adds an underlying measure of uncertainty—essentially, the margin of error for the estimated margin of victory. Second, spurred on by a friend who is also a pollster, I calculated […] Read more »
The Rise of the Quants in Political Prognostication
As President Barack Obama celebrated re-election, number-crunching geeks everywhere could revel in redemption. For months, political pundits and reporters said that the race between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney was too close to call. Not so, insisted a new breed of political analysts who rejected intuition and relied instead on […] Read more »