Mitt Romney and President Obama remain roughly tied in national polls, while state polls are suggestive of a lead for Mr. Obama in the Electoral College. Most people take this to mean that there is a fairly good chance of a split outcome between the Electoral College and the popular […] Read more »
Americans Still Give Obama Better Odds to Win Election
A majority of Americans continue to believe that Democratic President Barack Obama will win re-election Tuesday over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, by 54% to 34%. … Americans have a good track record regarding their collective prediction of the outcome of presidential elections, correctly predicting the winner of the popular vote […] Read more »
Obama win would sink markets
… Investment advisers have not been able to count on pollsters or pundits thus far to clearly predict winners and losers in next Tuesday’s elections, so some have lapsed back to their own political prejudices and preferences to chart a post-election course for their clients. [cont.] David Hill Read more »
What Too Close to Call Really Means
I am a political statistician, or, perhaps I should say, a statistical political scientist. Announcing this to someone can elicit diminished eye contact, but every four years I experience a temporary surge in popularity. For months now people I know have been stopping me on the street to ask who […] Read more »
The Polling Bias Debate
When the term “unskewed polls” entered the political lexicon this fall, courtesy of a conservative blogger convinced that national pollsters were missing a looming Romney landslide, there was a lot of talk about how the right’s polling skepticism was ushering in a landscape in which every observer would become a […] Read more »
The Nate Silver backlash
It seems to happen every few weeks. The race tightens or widens or simply continues on exactly as it’s been and some pundit or reporter declares it a staggering humiliation for the burgeoning world of election quants. [cont.] Ezra Klein, Washington Post Read more »