Loading ...Politics and the economy will always be tied closely together. The 2012 Presidential Election will, more than ever, be about the nation’s economy. As a result, I’d like to highlight for you the status of the race on a regular basis.
If you know me, you know that I love numbers and statistics. So, I will attempt to summarize the situation using various sources that employ poll numbers, indexes and other statistical methods. Let me know if you’d like to see any changes to how I present the data.
Electronic Trading Markets
(People Making Bets)
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Quick ‘n Easy In electronic marketplaces where people bet real money on what will happen, we typically see accurate forecasts. Right now, the betting patterns suggest that the Democrats are firmly in control of the race to the White House. Mitt Romney is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination. |
Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM)
From the IEM website:
The IEM 2012 U.S. Presidential Election Markets are real-money futures markets where contract payoffs will be determined by the popular vote cast in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election.
This means that people use real money to make bets on who will win the election and are paid if they win. This has traditionally been one of the most accurate ways of forecasting almost anything, including elections.
The latest trading indicates that:
- Democrats and Republicans will each win virtually 50% of the popular vote
- The last completed trades suggested there is a 60.5% chance that a Democrat will win the election vs 40.0% for a Republican. This number has shifted in the Democrats’ favor by a huge amount since I last published this feature in late October. (Note: The reason they don’t always add up to 100% is that each market is independent and not perfectly accurate.)
- So, the popular vote looks nearly split, but the chances of victory are clearly higher for Democrats. That must mean the Democrats have an advantage in the key states that will provide the right number of electoral votes.
Intrade
Intrade is another website where people can use real money to place bets on all kinds of events. The latest trading indicates the following:
- There is a 60.1% chance that a Democrat will win the Presidential Election versus a 38.9% chance for a Republican victory
- There is a 77% chance that Mitt Romney will be the Republican candidate vs 10% for Rick Santorum. All the others have largely fallen off the map, although Jeb Bush (brother of former President George W. Bush) is now at 2.3% for some reason.
- The leading candidate for the Republican Vice Presidential ticket position is Marco Rubio (23.5% chance) followed by Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Rick Santorum and Susana Martinez each with between 7-13 percent each.
Betfair
Betfair is another website where people can use real money to place bets on all kinds of events. The latest trading indicates the following:
- There is a 64.5% chance that a Democrat will win the Presidential Election versus a 35.5% chance for a Republican victory
- There is a 72.5% chance that Mitt Romney will be the Republican candidate vs 13.4% for Rick Santorum. All the others have largely fallen off the map.
Polls
(People Saying How They’ll Vote)
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Quick ‘n Easy If the general election were to be Obama vs any of the leading Republican candidates, national poll averages suggest that Obama would be victorious by a healthy margin. Romney and Santorum both fare about the same versus Obama, but Santorum is the only one with a tie or lead in any poll conducted in February. |
RealClearPolitics Poll Averages
You can find averages of most every poll out there at RealClearPolitics. For our purposes, we’ll focus on the polls that pit President Obama against specific Republican candidates or a hypothetical Republican candidate. Here are my key takeaways from the most recent averages thru Feb 22, 2012:
- None of the Republican candidates matchup well against President Obama.
- For Obama vs Romney (average margin Obama by 5.7 percent), there were no polls that were started and completed in February that showed Romney ahead or tied.
- For Obama vs Santorum (average margin Obama by 6.4 percent), only one poll started and completed in February showed Santorum ahead – early February, ahead by 1 percent.
- It is unclear whether Romney or Santorum is the Republicans’ best hope to win the White House, according to the polls.
- Here is a graph of the average of polls for Obama vs Romney, the most likely matchup: (Obama = blue, Romney = red)
Source: RealClearPolitics.com
PollyVote
(Combining All Kinds of Info Into Predicted Percentage of Popular Vote)
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Quick ‘n Easy (NOTE: The information on PollyVote appears out of date right now, unfortunately.) A system that combines many different methods of forecasting the Presidential Election is currently suggesting that Obama will receive slightly over half (51.5 percent) of the popular vote in the 2012 Presidential Election. Thus, he would be a slight favorite for re-election. |
From the PollyVote.com website:
For predicting the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, Polly the parrot uses the same procedure that was so successsful in 2004 and 2008. That is, averaging forecasts within and across all available component methods. The current PollyVote forecast draws upon four component methods: polls, index models, econometric models and the Iowa Electronic Markets.
Easy Translation: PollyVote looks at the first two methods I’ve mentioned above, but then it also looks at a variety of numerical methods of forecasting elections. It takes the results of all these methods and averages them together to predict the percentage of the popular vote that President Obama is expected to receive for the 2012 election.
Here are the latest takeaways from PollyVote: (NOTE: The information on PollyVote appears out of date right now, unfortunately.)
- Based on all factors available, Obama is expected to receive 51.5% of the popular vote (as of Feb 4, 2012) – this is not much different than it’s been for the past few months
- The averages of the RealClearPolitics polls mentioned above suggest that Obama will receive 50.0% of the popular vote (as of Jan 26, 2012)
- The latest included updates of the Iowa Electronic Markets trading suggests that Obama will receive 51.9% of the popular vote (as of Jul 1, 2011) – strangely out of date, for some reason
- Based on econometric models created by economists and political scientists and released so far, Obama is expected to receive 49.8% of the popular vote (as of Jan 12, 2012)
- Based on index models that look at characteristics of the candidates and what voters value, Obama is expected to receive 54.2% of the popular vote (as of Feb 4, 2012)
Easy Take
Looking at all the up-to-date data right now, Obama is in excellent shape to win the 2012 Presidential Election. I am ignoring the data from PollyVote this time around, only because it looks out of date. There doesn’t appear to be any Republican candidate who is doing well in head-to-head matchups with him. The economy has been gaining momentum in recent months (see latest Economic Indicator Roundup, for example). Like it or not, the fate of the economy is closely tied with that of Obama. Unless a recession were to strike sometime before November, it looks more and more likely that Obama will be re-elected somewhat easily to a second term.
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