"Math whizzes are behind an abundance of Web sites dedicated to drawing electoral maps in red and blue. And now this elite cadre of political amateurs is unleashing the tools of statistics and mathematics on an extraordinarily close presidential race," the Wall Street Journal reports.
These statistical modelers "contend that isn't enough to go one-by-one through the states and call them for Mr. Bush or Mr. Kerry. That, they say, misses substantial nuances that are greatly magnified by the large number of states in play. For example, a candidate polling slim margins of victory in a number of small states is less likely to win them all than an opponent who has larger leads in fewer, but larger, states. The distinction is hard to represent on a color-coded map; it is more easily captured by statistical software."
One site mentioned is by Princeton Professor Sam Wang which currently predicts a Democratic victory when allocating undecided voters: Kerry 307, Bush 231.
Another site by Cal State's Matthew Hubbard, which "chomps through 16.8 million possibilities in the Electoral College in 72 seconds," also predicts a Kerry victory. His most recent prediction gives Kerry a 73.9% chance of reaching the winning threshold of 270 electoral votes, with Bush at 24.6%. He rated the probability of a 269-269 tie at 1.6%.
Meanwhile, Political Wire reader Jesse Reichler sends me a link to his Mouser's Election Predictor, a program for estimating "the likelihood that a given candidate will win the presidential election based on estimates of how each seach state is leaning, and taking into account the electoral college all-or-nothing voting system." This program ideal for use on election night as states results come in. Check the online documentation for updates in the coming days.
