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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 (resolved) against what happens. For example, a company might estimate their revenue in the next year, then compare it against the actual ...
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 Psephology (; from Greek el, ψῆφος, psephos, pebble, label=none) or political analysis is a branch of political science, the "quantitative analysis of elections and balloting". As such, psephology attempts to explain elections using the ...
.


History of Election Forecasting

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 (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
correlated strongly to vote results. Since 1936,
opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinion ...
s have been a basic part of political forecasting. More recently,
prediction market Prediction markets (also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures or event derivatives) are open markets where specific outcomes can be predicted using financial incentives. Essentially, they are exchange-trad ...
s have been formed, starting in 1988 with
Iowa Electronic Markets The Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) are a group of real-money prediction markets/futures markets operated by the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. Unlike normal futures markets, the IEM is not-for-profit; the markets are run for educa ...
. 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. An early successful model which is still being used is
The Keys to the White House ''The Keys to the White House'' is a prediction system for determining the outcome of presidential elections in the United States. It was developed by American historian Allan Lichtman and Russian geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok in 1981, adapt ...
by
Allan Lichtman Allan Jay Lichtman (; born April 4, 1947) is an American historian who has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 1973. Lichtman created the Keys to the White House model, which he created with Soviet seismologist Vladimir Kei ...
. 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, writer, and poker player who analyzes baseball (see sabermetrics), basketball, and elections (see psephology). He is the founder and editor-in-chief of '' FiveThirtyE ...
and his
FiveThirtyEight ''FiveThirtyEight'', sometimes rendered as ''538'', is an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in th ...
website in
2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
. 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 Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, 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 of Election Forecasting


Averaging polls

Combining poll data lowers the forecasting mistakes of a poll. Political forecasting models include averaged poll results, such as the
RealClearPolitics RealClearPolitics (RCP) is an American political news website and polling data aggregator formed in 2000 by former options trader John McIntyre and former advertising agency account executive Tom Bevan. The site features selected political new ...
poll average.


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: Science * Marine regression, coastal advance due to falling sea level, the opposite of marine transgression * Regression (medicine), a characteristic of diseases to express lighter symptoms or less extent ( ...
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 for Election Forecasting

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 digita ...
via
prediction market Prediction markets (also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures or event derivatives) are open markets where specific outcomes can be predicted using financial incentives. Essentially, they are exchange-trad ...
s on the theory that people more honestly
evaluate Evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative ...
and
express Express or EXPRESS may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * '' Express: Aisle to Glory'', a 1998 comedy short film featuring Kal Penn * '' The Express: The Ernie Davis Story'', a 2008 film starring Dennis Quaid Music * ''Express'' ...
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 can be the percentage of registered voters, eligible voters, or all voting-age people. According to Stanford Univ ...
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 where specific outcomes can be predicted using financial incentives. Essentially, they are exchange-trad ...
s show very accurate forecasts of an election outcome. One example is the
Iowa Electronic Markets The Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) are a group of real-money prediction markets/futures markets operated by the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. Unlike normal futures markets, the IEM is not-for-profit; the markets are run for educa ...
. 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 of Election Forecasting

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."


Other Types of 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 The term ranked voting (also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting) refers to any voting system in which voters rank their candidates (or options) in a sequence of first or second (or third, etc.) on their respective ballots. Ra ...
requires polling ranked preferences to predict winners.


See also

Psephology *
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 BPC was established in 2004, twelve years after the perceived failure ...
*
Electoral Calculus Electoral Calculus is a political forecasting web site which attempts to predict future United Kingdom general election results. It considers national factors but excludes local issues. Main features The site was developed by Martin Baxter, ...
*
Electoral geography Electoral geography is the analysis of the methods, the behavior, and the results of elections in the context of geographic space and using geographical techniques. Specifically, it is an examination of the dual interaction in which geographic ...
* 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 prefer ...
*
Types of democracy Types of democracy refers to pluralism of governing structures such as governments ( local through to global) and other constructs like workplaces, families, community associations, and so forth. Types of democracy can cluster around values. Fo ...


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 Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of London was founded ...
: Series A, 162 (2), 211–226. {{DEFAULTSORT:Political Forecasting Statistical forecasting Political science Survey methodology Regression with time series structure