Political forecasting
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Political forecasting aims at
forecasting Forecasting is the process of making predictions based on past and present data. Later these can be compared with what actually happens. For example, a company might Estimation, estimate their revenue in the next year, then compare it against the ...
the outcomes of political events. Political events can be a number of events such as diplomatic decisions, actions by political leaders and other areas relating to politicians and political institutions. The area of political forecasting concerning elections is highly popular, especially amongst mass market audiences. Political forecasting methodology makes frequent use of mathematics, statistics and data science. Political forecasting as it pertains to elections is related to psephology.


History

People have long been interested in predicting election outcomes. Quotes of betting odds on papal succession appear as early as 1503, when such wagering was already considered "an old practice." Political betting also has a long history in Great Britain. As one prominent example, Charles James Fox, the late-eighteenth-century Whig statesman, was known as an inveterate gambler. His biographer, George Otto Trevelyan, noted that"(f)or ten years, from 1771 onwards, Charles Fox betted frequently, largely, and judiciously, on the social and political occurrences of the time." Before the advent of scientific polling in 1936, betting odds in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
correlated strongly to vote results. Since 1936,
opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll, is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of qu ...
s have been a basic part of political forecasting. With the advent of statistical techniques, electoral data have become increasingly easy to handle. It is no surprise, then, that election forecasting has become a big business, for polling firms, news organizations, and betting markets as well as academic students of politics. Academic scholars have constructed models of voting behavior to forecast the outcomes of elections. These forecasts are derived from theories and empirical evidence about what matters to voters when they make electoral choices. The forecast models typically rely on a few predictors in highly aggregated form, with an emphasis on phenomena that change in the short-run, such as the state of the economy, so as to offer maximum leverage for predicting the result of a specific election. Election forecasting in the United States was first brought to the attention of the wider public by
Nate Silver Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who Sabermetrics, analyzes baseball, basketball and Psephology, elections. He is the founder of ''FiveThirty ...
and his FiveThirtyEight website in
2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...
. Currently, there are many competing models trying to predict the outcome of elections in the United States, the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, and elsewhere. In a national or state election, macroeconomic conditions, such as employment, new job creation, the interest rate, and the inflation rate are also considered.


Methods


Averaging polls

Combining poll data lowers the forecasting mistakes of a poll.


Poll damping

Poll damping is when incorrect indicators of public opinion are not used in a forecast model. For instance, early in the campaign, polls are poor measures of the future choices of voters. The poll results closer to an election are a more accurate prediction. Campbell shows the power of poll damping in political forecasting.


Regression models

Political scientists and economists oftentimes use
regression models Regression or regressions may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Regression'' (film), a 2015 horror film by Alejandro Amenábar, starring Ethan Hawke and Emma Watson * ''Regression'' (magazine), an Australian punk rock fanzine (1982–1984) * ...
of past elections. This is done to help forecast the votes of the political parties – for example, Democrats and Republicans in the US. The information helps their party's next presidential candidate forecast the future. Most models include at least one public opinion variable, a trial heat poll, or a presidential approval rating. Bayesian statistics can also be used to estimate the posterior distributions of the true proportion of voters that will vote for each candidate in each state, given both the polling data available and the previous election results for each state. Each poll can be weighted based on its age and its size, providing a highly dynamic forecasting mechanism as Election day approaches. http://electionanalytics.cs.illinois.edu/ is an example of a site that employs such methods.


Nomenclature

When discussing the likelihood of a particular electoral outcome, political forecasters tend to use one of a small range of shorthand phrases. These include: *Solid (e.g., "Solid Republican"), also Safe. Very unlikely that the party which currently holds the seat will change in the upcoming election. *Likely (e.g., "Likely Democratic"), also Favored. It is not thought at the moment that the seat will be particularly competitive, and hence the party is likely to remain unchanged, but there is a possibility this may alter. *Lean (e.g., "Leans Independent"). One candidate / party has a slight advantage in polling and forecasting, but other outcomes are possible. *Tilt. Used less widely than the other terms, but indicates a very small advantage to one or another party. *Toss-Up. These are the seats that are considered to be the most competitive, with more than one party having a good chance of winning.


Markets

Forecasting can involve skin-in-the-game
crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...
via
prediction market Prediction markets, also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures or event derivatives, are open markets that enable the prediction of specific outcomes using financial incentives. They are exchange-traded mar ...
s on the theory that people more honestly evaluate and
express Express, The Expresss or EXPRESS may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''Express: Aisle to Glory'', a 1998 comedy short film featuring Kal Penn * ''The Express: The Ernie Davis Story'', a 2008 film starring Dennis Quaid * The Expre ...
their true perception with money at stake. However, individuals with a large economic or ego investment in the outcome of a future election may be willing to sacrifice economic gain in order to alter public perception of the likely outcome of an election prior to election day—a positive perception of a favoured candidate is widely depicted as helping to "energize"
voter turnout In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voti ...
in support of that candidate when voting begins. When the prognosis derived from the election market itself becomes instrumental in determining voter turnout or voter preference leading up to an election, the valuation derived from the market becomes less reliable as a mechanism of political forecasting.
Prediction market Prediction markets, also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures or event derivatives, are open markets that enable the prediction of specific outcomes using financial incentives. They are exchange-traded mar ...
s show very accurate forecasts of an election outcome. One example is the Iowa Electronic Markets. In a study, 964 election polls were compared with the five US presidential elections from 1988 to 2004
Berg et al. (2008)
showed that the Iowa Electronic Markets topped the polls 74% of the time. However, damped polls have been shown to top prediction markets. Comparing damped polls to forecasts of the Iowa Electronic Markets
Erikson and Wlezien (2008)
showed that the damped polls outperform all markets or models.


Impact

According to a 2020 study, election forecasting "increases oters'certainty about an election's outcome, confuses many, and decreases turnout. Furthermore, we show that election forecasting has become prominent in the media, particularly in outlets with liberal audiences, and show that such coverage tends to more strongly affect the candidate who is ahead."


Related forecasting models

Other types of forecasting include forecasting models designed to predict the outcomes of international relations or bargaining events. One notable example is the expected utility model developed by American political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, which solves for the Bayesian Perfect Equilibria outcome of unidimensional policy events, with numerous applications including international conflict and diplomacy. Various implementations of political science forecasting tools have become increasingly common in political science, and numerous other Bayesian models exist with their components increasingly detailed in scientific literature.
Ranked voting Ranked voting is any voting system that uses voters' Ordinal utility, rankings of candidates to choose a single winner or multiple winners. More formally, a ranked vote system depends only on voters' total order, order of preference of the cand ...
requires polling ranked preferences to predict winners.


See also

*
British Polling Council The British Polling Council (BPC) is an association of market research companies whose opinion polls are regularly published or broadcast in media in the United Kingdom. The current President is Jane Green. The BPC was established in 2004, ...
* Electoral Calculus *
Electoral geography Electoral geography is the analysis of the methods, the behavior, and the results of elections in the context of geography, geographic space and using geographical techniques. Specifically, it is an examination of the dual interaction in whic ...
* Larry Sabato * Political analyst * Political data scientists * PollyVote * Psephologist *
Swing (politics) An electoral swing analysis (or swing) shows the extent of change in voter support, typically from one election to another, expressed as a positive or negative percentage. A multi-party swing is an indicator of a change in the electorate's prefere ...
*
Types of democracy Types of democracy refers to the various governance structures that embody the principles of democracy ("rule by the people") in some way. Democracy is frequently applied to governments (ranging from Local government, local to Global governance ...


References

:*Brown, P.J., Firth, D., & C. D. Payne, C.D. (1999). ''Forecasting on British election night 1997'',
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society The ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of statistics. It comprises three series and is published by Oxford University Press for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of ...
: Series A, 162 (2), 211–226. {{DEFAULTSORT:Political Forecasting Statistical forecasting Political science Survey methodology Regression with time series structure