Suchergebnisse

Reports on the outcome of a forecasting model for the 2004 presidential election that incorporates presidential approval ratings & aggregate satisfaction with personal finances weighted by the tone of economic news. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 2 References. Adapted from the source document.

The forecasting model I wrote about in the October 2004 issue of PS
(Holbrook 2004) is best described as a referendum model. It
incorporates presidential approval (Gallup polls averaged from June through August), a
measure of aggregate satisfaction with personal finances weighted by the tone of economic
news (averaged from June through August), and a dummy variable coded "1"
for years in which the incumbent party had held the White House for at least two consecutive
terms and "0" for all other years. The first two variables are intended to capture the
political and economic performance of the incumbent administration, while the latter
(borrowed from Abramowitz 1988) is based on the idea that it may
be easier to convince voters that it is "time for a change" if the incumbent party has held
the White House for at least two consecutive terms.

The forecasting model presented here is a revised version of a model developed prior to the 1996 election (Holbrook 1996) and is essentially a referendum model. The original model regressed the incumbent party percent of the two-party vote on presidential popularity, an aggregate measure of satisfaction with personal finances, and a dummy variable coded "1" for years in which the incumbent party had held the White House for at least two consecutive terms and "0" for all other years. The first two variables are intended to capture the political and economic performance of the incumbent administration, while the latter variable (borrowed from Abramowitz 1988) is based on the idea that it may be easier to convince voters that it is "time for a change" if the incumbent party has held the White House for at least two consecutive terms. This model provided a fairly accurate forecast of the 1996 election and also had close out-of-sample post-dictions of elections from 1952–1992. However, the 2000 election represented a significant bump in the road, and the model over-predicted Gore's percent of the vote by approximately 10 percentage points.

Deploys a revised forecasting model -- deemed a referendum model -- for the 2004 US presidential elections. Discussion opens with a consideration of the difficulty that the 2000 election posed for the model's performance. Al Gore's reluctance to run on Clinton's accomplishment resulted in his distancing himself from the positive economic record. Further, negative news on the economy did not mesh with the record-high levels of satisfaction with personal finances; a disconnect between economic performance & the information context is apparent, thus voters had a hard time translating their positive economic attitudes into a vote for Gore. The revised model incorporates information on economic news by weighting the aggregated personal finances measure by the tone of economic news. Data from the 1948-2000 elections are applied to produce a preliminary prediction of a Bush victory based on the assumptions that both candidates run effective campaigns & that the values of key independent variables do not change much from the time of forecast to Election Day. 3 Tables, 3 References. J. Zendejas

Although political campaigns have long been thought to have
relatively minimal effects, recent literature suggests a more
definitive role for campaigns in determining election outcomes. This
articles contributes to this growing body of research by focusing on
a campaign that is widely viewed (albeit in the absence of much
empirical analysis) as having been decisive—the presidential
campaign of 1948.

This author discusses his own forecasting model developed prior to the 1996 US presidential election. He then analyzes the erroneous predictions made by so many polls in the 2000 election. The author seeks an explanation as to why the prediction of so many people was wrong. 2 Tables, 3 Figures, 6 References. E. Miller