With two notable exceptions, opinion polls released this month about Scotland’s independence referendum vote gave an accurate picture: “No,” a vote against leaving the United Kingdom, was the steady favorite. But pollsters underestimated the extent of “no” support, making this the latest referendum with a voting-day swing toward the status […] Read more »
Scotland’s No Vote: A Loss for Pollsters and a Win for Betting Markets
Thursday’s Scottish referendum was interesting not just for what it said about Britain, but also for what it said about the state of political forecasting. I’m calling it a loss not only for the pro-independence movement — the BBC is projecting a 55 percent vote for No — but also […] Read more »
American National Election Studies receives $10 million in federal funding
The National Science Foundation has awarded $10.23 million to researchers at the University of Michigan and Stanford University to conduct a series of surveys on political participation and vote choice in the 2016 presidential election. The project is part of a continuing project, the American National Election Studies, that is […] Read more »
Stop trying to predict the future
… I’m as geeky as they come, but I don’t see much point in arguing over which forecasting model is more accurate when we can just hold on for another 46 days, and then we’ll know for sure. The purpose of political science is not to give us a six-week […] Read more »
How The FiveThirtyEight Senate Forecast Model Works
The FiveThirtyEight Senate forecast model launched earlier this month. Right now, it shows Republicans with about a 53 percent chance of picking up the Senate next year. We owe you a lot more detail about how that forecast is calculated and how it might change between now and Nov. 4 […] Read more »
Video: Will the GOP take control of the Senate?
Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium discusses Senate poll trends with Michael Smerconish. Read more »