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 »
Election Result Proves a Victory for Pollsters and Other Data Devotees
It was not on any ballot, but one of the biggest election contests this week pitted pundits against pollsters. It was a pitched battle between two self-assured rivals: those who relied on an unscientific mixture of experience, anecdotal details and “Spidey sense,” and those who stuck to cold, hard numbers. […] Read more »
How Did Pollsters Fare on Election Night?
Despite the challenges facing pollsters, including declines in landline telephone penetration and in response rates, polling firms generally did a good job of calling the presidential election. National polls just ahead of the election showed President Barack Obama holding a slim lead, and he was ahead by 2.2 percentage points […] Read more »
Election Results 2012: Nate Silver on How He Got It Right
Nate Silver and Megan Liberman discuss President Obama’s re-election win. Read more »
Signal forecast goes 50-50 with Florida outstanding
Last February, the Signal predicted that President Barack Obama would win reelection with 303 electoral votes to his opponent’s 235–a prediction we made before the Republican party had chosen the identity of that challenger. This struck many people as absurd at the time: There were nine months of campaigning left, […] Read more »
Tom Holbrook: Final Forecast
Jay has finished gathering the last of the state and national polling data and we now have a final forecast: Electoral College: Obama 303, Romney 235 National Popular Vote (two-party): Obama 51.4%, Romney 48.6% Based state and national polls, as well as historical patterns of party support in the states, […] Read more »