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The Art of Elections Forecasting

Posted by timothy on from the can-we-get-a-point-spread-in-vegas? dept.

ideonexus writes "Years ago Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, a blog seeking to educate the public about elections forecasting, established his model as one of the most accurate in existence, rising from a fairly unknown statistician working in baseball to one of the most respected names in election forecasting. In this article he describes all the factors that go into his predictions. A fascinating overview of the process of modeling a chaotic system."

3 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's all about the money by schwit1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Data doesn't support this statement. At least according to the Washington Post.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-wisconsin-recall-vote-outside-spending-may-have-influenced-very-few-voters--trail-mix-june-6/2012/06/06/gJQA5I6PIV_video.html

  2. Re:It's all about the money by Thomas+M+Hughes · · Score: 5, Informative

    Do remember that he [Obama] was the first (and so far only) Presidential candidate to forgo Federal matching funds for his campaign, since skipping those funds meant he didn't have to abide by the campaign finance limits.

    I don't believe that is accurate. This suggests that Steve Forbes skipped on matching funds in 1996 and 2000. G. W. Bush skipped on matching funds in 2000 and 2004, which caused Howard Dean and John Kerry to forgo in 2004 as well. Over the last decade, everybody who wins, forgoes matching funds, as well as a significant number of the losers.

    There are valid reasons to say Obama is doing things that are bad, but I think we have a real tendency to say "He's the first to do this!" when he's doing stuff that has been the trend for quite some time.

  3. No they don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Exit polls showed that 88% of Wisconsin voters had already made up their mind before the Democrats had put forward a candidate (in May).

    The Governor and friendly PACs had been advertising since before January when they knew the recall was coming.

    88% of voters made their call when the spending was completely one-sided. Only after the Democratic primary put forth a candidate did they have targeted supportive advertising.