Princeton Election Consortium

Hawaii has been added because of two recent polls showing possible leads for Bush. This seems very unlikely. In any event, what is really needed is a third poll.
With that, let’s think about a favorite subject of mine: why individual polls seem surprising or contradictory. I can think of three reasons:
1. Reporters often don’t understand [...]

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Statistically based analysis of the Electoral College is featured in today’s Wall Street Journal. Welcome to new readers!
The overall raw polling outcome (decided voters only) is still a statistical tie. This is true even with more than 100 polls used in today’s calculation. Bush has tiny leads among decided voters in Florida and Ohio, indicating [...]

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First, I apologize for the relative lack of updates and commentary! I face logistical hurdles, including my professional society’s annual meeting (where I am), intermittent Internet access, and university mail system failures.
This site is mentioned in an article on polls in today’s Newsday. However, there is one error – my margin of Bush over Kerry [...]

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A story in today’s Washington Post confirms what I am suspecting: the Bush campaign is in trouble, and Bush-Cheney campaign insiders recognize this. It’s consistent with the defensive move of pulling out of Ohio for a last stand in Florida.
By the way, I am having email troubles on the university server. To reach me cc [...]

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I am working on a reference sheet to give you late next week. In addition to bottom-line predictions, this reference will give you a list of things to watch for on Election Night, along with key combinations that Kerry and Bush need. The content will change a bit in the coming week as the last [...]

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At Slate, Will Saletan points out that based on Bush’s travels, his campaign may consider Florida more of a must-win state than Ohio. Looking at today’s decided-only numbers, this has merit. If Bush takes Ohio his win probability is 72%, but if he loses then this drops to 40% – not even a twofold difference. [...]

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I’ve received lots of feedback on undecided voter assignment, much of it constructive. This has led me to rearrange the way the results are presented.
First: the calculation is now set to its old definition from two days ago. Many of you are very familiar with the raw (decided voters only) calculation by now. Switching back [...]

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Today I implement the first major change to this calculation – I am allocating undecided voters. To do this I use past presidential election voting patterns, specifically the incumbent rule as described by Charlie Cook of the National Journal. This gives a more accurate snapshot and is a step toward making an actual prediction.
Rationale: [...]

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Although I don’t analyze national polls, I am asked about them frequently. For instance, how to interpret the latest Gallup poll reporting a Bush-Kerry margin of 8%? My brief reply: if you look carefully at all available polls, the race is closer than this single poll indicates. Consider the following.
Imagine that the race were perfectly [...]

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Colorado Democratic Senate candidate Ken Salazar has come out clearly against Amendment 36, the electoral vote splitting initiative. It seems likely to fail.
I have been asked to evaluate a tactical-voting idea proposed by Nader supporters, votepair.org. The idea is for swing state voters to agree to change their Nader vote in exchange for a vote [...]

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