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Vote Expectations Versus Vote Intentions: Rival Forecasting Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

Andreas E. Murr ,
Mary Stegmaier  and
Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Andreas E. Murr
Affiliation:
University of Warwick, UK
Mary Stegmaier*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, USA
Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Affiliation:
University of Iowa, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Are ordinary citizens better at predicting election results than conventional voter intention polls? The authors address this question by comparing eight forecasting models for British general elections: one based on voters' expectations of who will win and seven based on who voters themselves intend to vote for (including ‘uniform national swing model’ and ‘cube rule’ models). The data come from ComRes and Gallup polls as well as the Essex Continuous Monitoring Surveys, 1950–2017, yielding 449 months with both expectation and intention polls. The large sample size permits comparisons of the models' prediction accuracy not just in the months prior to the election, but in the years leading up to it. Vote expectation models outperform vote intention models in predicting both the winning party and parties' seat shares.

Keywords

election forecastingBritish electionsopinion pollsprediction modelselection surveysuniform swingcube rule
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 60 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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