Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:22:45.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Curtice, J and Firth, D (2008) Exit polling in a cold climate: the BBC–ITV experience in Britain in 2005. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 171(3), 509–539.10.1111/j.1467-985X.2007.00536.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, SD (2015) Predictable and unpredictable changes in party support: a method for long-range daily election forecasting from opinion polls. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 25(2), 137–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, SD (2016) Piecing it all together and forecasting who governs: the 2015 British general election. Electoral Studies 41(1), 234–238.10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, SD et al. (2011) From polls to votes to seats: forecasting the 2010 British general election. Electoral Studies 30(2), 250–257.10.1016/j.electstud.2010.09.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, SD and Lewis-Beck, MS (2016) Forecasting the 2015 British general election: the 1992 debacle all over again? Electoral Studies 41(1), 225–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, R et al. (2016) From polls to votes to seats: forecasting the 2015 British general election. Electoral Studies 41(1), 244–249.10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graefe, A (2014) Accuracy of vote expectation surveys in forecasting elections. Public Opinion Quarterly 78(S1), 204–232.10.1093/poq/nfu008CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanretty, C, Lauderdale, B and Vivyan, N (2016) Combining national and constituency polling for forecasting. Electoral Studies 41(1), 239–243.10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, A, Wybrow, RJ and Gallup, A (2001) British Political Opinion, 1937–2000: The Gallup Polls. London: Politico's Publishing.Google Scholar
Leiter, D et al. (2018) Social networks and citizen election forecasting: the more friends the better. International Journal of Forecasting 34(2), 235–248.10.1016/j.ijforecast.2017.11.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, MS (2005) Election forecasting: principles and practice. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7(2), 145–164.10.1111/j.1467-856X.2005.00178.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, MS and Skalaban, A (1989) Citizen forecasting: can voters see into the future? British Journal of Political Science 19(1), 146–153.10.1017/S000712340000538XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, MS and Stegmaier, M (2011) Citizen forecasting: can UK voters see the future? Electoral Studies 30(2), 264–268.10.1016/j.electstud.2010.09.012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, MS and Tien, C (1999) Voters as forecasters: a micromodel of election prediction. International Journal of Forecasting 15(2), 175–184.10.1016/S0169-2070(98)00063-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murr, AE (2011) ‘Wisdom of crowds’? A decentralised election forecasting model that uses citizens' local expectations. Electoral Studies 30(4), 771–783.10.1016/j.electstud.2011.07.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murr, AE (2015) The wisdom of crowds: applying Condorcet's jury theorem to forecasting US presidential elections. International Journal of Forecasting 31(3), 916–929.10.1016/j.ijforecast.2014.12.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murr, AE (2016) The wisdom of crowds: what do citizens forecast for the 2015 British general election? Electoral Studies 41(1), 283–288.10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.018CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murr, AE (2017) Wisdom of crowds. In Arzheimer, K, Evans, J and Lewis-Beck, M (eds), The Sage Handbook of Electoral Behaviour. London: Sage, pp. 835–860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murr, AE, Stegmaier, M and Lewis-Beck, MS (2019) Replication data for: Vote expectations versus vote Intentions: rival forecasting strategies. Available from https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/9JLCSY, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:nOvPAVfJ3QJlQYIErnwwYQ== [fileUNF]Google Scholar
Nadeau, R, Lewis-Beck, MS and Belanger, E (2009) Election forecasting in the United Kingdom: a two-step model. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 19(3), 333–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stegmaier, M and Norpoth, H (2017) Election forecasting. In Valelly, R (ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science. Oxford University Press. Available from http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0023.xml.Google Scholar
Whiteley, PF (2005) Forecasting seats from votes in British general elections. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7(2), 165–173.10.1111/j.1467-856X.2005.00179.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiteley, P et al. (2016) Forecasting the 2015 British general election: the seats-votes model. Electoral Studies 41(1), 269–273.10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.015CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiteley, PF et al. (2011). Aggregate level forecasting of the 2010 general election in Britain: the seats–votes model. Electoral Studies 30(2) 278–283.10.1016/j.electstud.2010.09.010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wlezien, C et al. (2013) Polls and the vote in Britain. Political Studies 61(S1), 66–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Murr et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/9JLCSY
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Murr et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Murr et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 114.7 KB