Here’s a couple of p…

Here’s a couple of predicted electoral maps that it will be interesting to compare to. The first is from electoral-vote.com, which predicts states based on the most recent state-by-state polling. It shows a Kerry victory 298 to 231 with 9 electoral votes left in states where the latest poll was a tie. The second is a composite of the information from TradeSports, showing how real money contracts for the outcome of each states voting were selling this morning. This map comes from GeekMedia.org, with the value of the contract (and thus the prediction for the state) based on the last actual trade, rather than being based on the bid or ask prices). Using that valuation, it shows a Kerry lead 252 to 232, but with 54 electoral votes too close to call. On both maps, red states are predicted for Bush and blue states are predicted for Kerry, while white states are considered.

They look very similar, although the biggest differences are which states are considered too close to call. TradeSports has more states white, but all those states are blue (though barely) on the electoral-vote site. Additionally, one of the white states on electoral-vote (New Hampshire) is light blue at TradeSports. The only real discrepancy I see between the two is Hawaii, which has consistently voted Democrat in the past, but looks to be in play this year, with electoral-vote even predicting it "barely Bush".

As I said, it’ll be very interesting to compare these predictions to the actual results. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Apparently, electoral-vote.com has more than one way to predict the outcome. I’m on a mailing list for a web game called The Foresight Exchange (kinda like TradeSports, but for fake money). One player asked this question:

I don’t understand www.electoral-vote.com.

I just found out that it actually has four predictions, as of Nov. 1:
www.electoral-vote.com/fin/nov01z.html, Kerry 248, Bush 283, tied 7
www.electoral-vote.com/fin/nov01p.html, Kerry 238, Bush 256, tied 44
www.electoral-vote.com/, Kerry 298, Bush 231, tied 9
www.electoral-vote.com/pred/index.html, Kerry 306, Bush 218, tied 14

Same date, same analyst, same polls, different results. Can someone make some sense of this?

One of the folks replied:

Those pages use different models to predict the outcome. All I remember is that one of them is a linear trend oriented approach, and one allots 2/3 of undecideds to the challenger, which apparently has some historical basis for validity.

Anyway, just some food for thought. Of the 4 predictions, 2 favor Bush and 2 favor Kerry. Still a toss-up.

UPDATE #2: The electoral-vote.com site has been updated this morning with the latest polls, putting Kerry ahead only by 1with 15 too close to call. Some states switched candidates. Here’s Tanenbaum’s notes on this:

Another bumper crop of polls, 47 in all. Five states changed since yesterday. A University of New Hampshire poll breaks the tie there and gives Kerry a 1% edge in New Hampshire 49% to 48%. According to Zogby, Kerry is also edging ahead in New Mexico, 51% to 48%.

Now come some controversial polls. Yesterday we had Kerry ahead in Ohio on the strength of a Gallup poll showing him 7% ahead there. Today we have a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll showing Kerry 3% ahead there Please don’t send e-mail telling me what you think of Fox News. I’m pretty good at guessing, but I am trying very hard to be impartial. Tomorrow we’ll know. Similarly, in Wisconsin a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Kerry’s 7% lead has vanished overnight and been replaced by Bush’s 3% lead. Again, PLEASE no e-mail about this. Instead, come back tomorrow for the post-mortem. If you don’t buy these numbers, add 30 to Kerry and subtract 30 from Bush to get Kerry 292, Bush 231.

Finally, Strategic Visionn (R) says New Jersey is a tie. Yesterday I had an Eagleton-Rutgers poll showing Kerry up by 8% and today there was a Quinnipiac University poll showing Kerry ahead by 5% in New Jersey. But the rule still holds: most recent poll wins, and that is Strategic Vision. If you don’t like this result, award Kerry another 15 electoral votes.

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