What Nate Silver really accomplished

… I believe people are seriously misstating what Silver achieved. It isn’t that he predicted the election right where others botched it. It’s that he popularized a way of thinking about polling, a way to navigate through conflicting numbers and speculation, that would still have remained invaluable even if he’d […] Read more »

Votamatic: Evaluating the Forecasting Model

Since June, I’ve been updating the site with election forecasts and estimates of state-level voter preferences based on a statistical model that combines historical election data with the results of hundreds of state-level opinion polls. … With the election results (mostly) tallied, it’s possible to do a detailed retrospective evaluation […] Read more »

More Evidence Regarding Importance of Economic Fundamentals in 2012 US Presidential Election

On August 1, 2012, we prepared a forecast of the 2012 presidential vote for PS. Our model contains two variables: (1) the cumulated weighted growth in leading economic indicators (LEI) through the 13th quarter of the current presidential term and (2) the incumbent party candidate’s share in the most recent […] Read more »