… In a Reuters poll of nine leading forecasters, the median prediction was for Obama to win 50.5 percent of the vote. … In 2008, the median forecast of the same group, which estimated that Obama would receive 52 percent of the vote compared with Republican John McCain’s 48 percent, […] Read more »
Fasten Your Seat Belts: Polarization, Weak Economy Forecast Very Close Election
… The estimates for the revised model indicate that in the current era of partisan polarization, the advantage enjoyed by a first-term incumbent is less than half of what it was earlier — about 2.5 percentage points instead of 5.2 percentage points. This is not only a statistically significant difference; it […] Read more »
Do campaigns really change voters’ minds?
In a few short weeks, Alan Abramowitz will predict whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will win the popular vote for president — and he’s almost certain to be right. … His method acknowledges something that political operatives, journalists and candidates rarely do: Presidential campaigns don’t matter much in determining […] Read more »
When the Crowd Isn’t Wise
… After the better part of a decade in which various markets, from Intrade to the stock market, became many people’s preferred way to peer into the future, a backlash is clearly under way. Not so long ago, knowing about the existence of Intrade was a mark of being in […] Read more »
The Problems with Forecasting and How to Get Better at It
… Theories and statistical models are different types of approximations about the real world. Without testing them by means of prediction, how do we know they are true and objective approximations? [cont.] Nate Silver, New York Times Read more »
Why the Stevens Op-Ed is Wrong
… The claim that real politics is messier than the statistics are capable of capturing is obviously correct. But the implied corollary – that the government shouldn’t go out of its way to support it – doesn’t follow. [cont.] Henry Farrell, George Washington U. Read more »