Princeton Election Consortium

The meta-analysis has helped me stay rational in this election cycle, but some thought needs to go into future action. The election was close, but in a binary event 0.51 rounds up to 1. Anyway, here are some cogent post-election thoughts from Josh Marshall.

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A few items of business. First, note that without my optimistic assumptions, I nailed the Electoral College tally. This, even in the face of single-state probabilities that give a different map and EV total. Poll margins are also quite close: see these validations of the method (still under modification but viewable). Now there’s a testament [...]

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Dear readers, I am getting lots of mail on my brilliant prediction. Thanks to all of you on both sides of the aisle. For many opponents of Bush, this election has been a wrenching event, not unlike a death in the family. This election was a highly significant political event that we will be feeling [...]

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To summarize points so far this morning: So far, the electoral outcome matches pre-election polling data very closely, with the possible exception of Florida. Therefore the electoral count looks a lot like the decided-voters median listed above. However, my final predictions were wrong. It appears that my add-on assumption about undecideds (the rule that they [...]

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In Ohio, many provisional ballots are left to be counted. In the meantime, here is some general analysis. Overall, pre-election polls, exit polls and actual voting are mostly correlated. An exception occurs in Florida, suggesting that something unusual might have happened there, either in voting or in exit and opinion polling. The effect is probably [...]

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Good morning. First, the basic points: the polling data were fine, but my follow-up assumptions about net undecideds and turnout were wrong. The statistical approach is fine, and indeed still the best way to look at the data. The final result will be very near, and perhaps exactly equal to the decided-voters calculation. Finally, now [...]

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I was very wrong about FL and about the overall offset. The outcome is somewhere between the decideds-only and the with-undecideds medians. However, for months I have been saying that it was about Ohio, and it is. The margin there seems headed for about 1%, without absentee or provisional ballots. Another squeaker – though things [...]

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Possibly K259, B254 (assuming MN, IA, HI, MI). Then Ohio (20EV) – returns here. May come to Cuyahoga County (includes Cleveland) and absentees. Also NV (5EV), but at this point that doesn’t matter.

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Consistent with the gender imbalance, exit polls seem to be biased toward Kerry relative to final totals. Not crunching numbers yet but will try later.

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Zogby’s projections, which resemble mine, are here. Here is a plot of afternoon exit polls against my last poll margins. As you can see, most of the data points fall around Kerry +3%, the assumption that went into my final projection. However, the gender breakdown is 59F-41M, suggesting a biased sample, and thus indicating a [...]

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