My favorite.
http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-winner
Also very good:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-polls-forecast.html?_r=0
Both are saying 67 – 68% chance for Clinton.
Stay tuned,
Dave
Month: July 2016
Election Predictions
The best way to figure who will win, is to keep a close eye on state-wide polls of the swing states. Since the beginning of this current madness, there have been hundreds of polls, most of which at this point, only confirm what we already know. New York votes Democrat. Similarly, Texas votes Republican. These are the solid blue and red states.
National polls show the candidates to be close. Trump is likely to win more states than Hillary. But, winning the most states doesn’t win the election.
The only way any candidate can win an election, is to win some of the swing states. Hillary Clinton is in Florida right now. Donald Trump, of course, is getting ready to make a grand entrance in Cleveland, OH. These are the two really key swing states. The other really big one is North Carolina.
So, while a ton of predictions are being churned out, few understand the prediction process. Each state is assigned a probability that the Republican or Democrat will win in November. Texas, for example has a 99% chance of going to Trump. The reason for this is simple. All the polls show Trump beating either Sanders or Clinton. Similarly, Trump has nearly no chance to win New York. This leaves about 10 to 13 swing states, with probabilities much closer to toss up status (50%). North Carolina is closer to a solid “anyone’s guess” or 50% than any other state.
Overall, using probabilities by state, Clinton has a 70-75% chance of winning. It is noted that the effect of third party candidates has not been taken into account in most polls.
These predictions are remarkably close to the odds given by the bookies from across the pond.
New York Times – Who will be the next president?
The predictions change as poll numbers change. Each candidate will focus on states where they are lagging. If more states move closer to the 50% probability value, the net result may be a decrease in election predictability.
Stay tuned,
Dave
Ted Cruz – the ultimate recycler
Ted had his acceptance speech written for sometime, I guess. Not wanting it to go to waste, he could have kept it handy until he was re-elected to the Senate in 2018. But, it was such a good speech, about his conservative values, he just could let it go to wait until then. A lot of the speech was about recent events, and by 2018, it would look really stale. O what to do! Folks from the NY delegation realized this speech was all about Ted and not a mention about the Donald.
Many thought he would just take the lead from Chris Christie, comparing Hillary to some demonic spirit, for putting the nation at peril with her lie about “more than one device.”
It will be the most talked about speech because what he did not say, which was “Vote for Trump.”
Stay tuned,
Dave
Third party candidates
There is Gary Johnson, for the Libertarian Party and Jill Stein for the Green Party. Polls show that Stein receives about 1% of the vote. I think this reduces the Democratic polls. Johnson has polled as much as 14%- that’s a lot. Libertarians I feel are closer to Republicans than Democrats, but it very much depends on the issues. One thing is clear, and they want much less government spending. So, that makes them seemingly like Republicans. But, they may also be very against bail out of Wall Street- and more aligned with Bernie Sanders.
As Republicans and Democrats escalate their campaigns, I suspect the third party candidates will be drowned out, and Johnson will be lucky to get 1- 3%. But for the toss-up states, this could be significant and hard to factor in to the polling data.
Stay tuned,
Dave
Predicting the 2016 Presidential Election
There are a number of approaches. The two approaches I particularly like are: (1) the bookies and (2) swing state poll opinions. Right now, if the 7 to 13 swing states are evenly divided between Trump and Clinton, Clinton wins with at least 50 electoral votes above what she needs to win. The swing state method usually considers many of the states as solid democrat or solid republican based on the last 4 elections, of which 2 went to Obama and 2 went to Bush. I’ll have more on this later. The bookies still have Clinton ahead, with an approximately 75% chance of winning.
These predictions haven’t changed much in the last couple of months. Some believe the third party candidates could effect the results. On this issue, it is too early to tell.
Stay tuned,
Dave
Veepstakes – Trump’s pick
“Frequently wrong, but never in doubt” …. Trump will pick Gov. Mike Pence. Christie and Gingrich come with too much baggage. Christie’s reputation as a bully doesn’t help Trump at all. Plus, the odds makers across the pond, put Gov Pence ahead.
Stay tuned,
Dave
One American News- Biased Reporting
Florida is the largest of the battleground states, in the 2016 election. One American News reported Florida’s voters now lean more toward Trump following the release of Benghazi reports. Gravis Marketing did the polling. I have no reason to believe their polling was biased. Their sample size of 1619 registered voters is above average. The bias is the way the results were reported.
The polls showed in a race between Clinton and Trump, 52% of the respondents favored Clinton verses Trump with 48%. However, in a three way race, Trump led with 49% verses Clinton with 45% and “Other” with 6%. So, it really looks like Florida is too close to call or still a toss up state.
There are two Benghazi reports. The Democrat’s version, approximately 300 pages, was released on Monday, July 27 and the official version, backed only by Republican members with 800 pages was released mid-day on Tuesday, July 28. The poll took place from July 27 to 28, 2016. So, how many of the respondents might have reacted to each report is unknown, but it is likely a wash in the end.
It is unfortunate the biased reporting from OAN. They said they don’t mix news with commentary like Fox News . They just did exactly that.
Stay tuned,
Dave
Veepstakes
Trump will pick Jeff Sessions. It’s a close call. The bookies are divided between Sessions and Gingrich with lower odds on Christie and Kasich. Bob Corker has recently been added to the short list by CNN, although the bookies have him ranked lower than the rest.
You can argue until the cows come home who Trump should nominate. I originally said he would pick Joni Ernst, but she’s out based on her recent comments. Trump will win most southern states, so Corker and Sessions don’t bring much to the ticket.
Stay tuned,
Dave
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