Posts by David Rothschild - Yahoo! News

Democrats will control 53-54 seats in the Senate, not including Maine independent Angus King

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:35:41 -0500

Update, Wednesday Nov. 7, 1:50 p.m.: Earlier today, Nevada was called for the Republicans and Montana for the Democrats, leaving only North Dakota unresolved. We give it a 90 percent chance of going Democratic. This means we expect the Democrats to have 54 seats in the next Senate, plus the likely addition of independent Angus [...]

The Signal’s election night scoreboard: Obama wins

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 21:53:20 -0500

Throughout the night, the Signal will be providing updates to our predictions for the presidency and Senate. This is not a real-time tally of results—Yahoo News has that covered—but rather a frequently updated set of our predictions, based on returns, exit polls and prediction markets. Update, 11:22 p.m.: Obama is not longer virtually certain to [...]

The Signal guide to watching election results

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:34:48 -0500

As liftoff approaches Tuesday evening, the Signal will be focusing (like everyone else) on a small handful of states whose outcomes are not certain or nearly certain well before polls close. Here's a viewer's guide: The no-drama states There are 37 states, plus Washington, D.C., who we consider certain for one candidate or another. President [...]

Romney camp hoping for a systematic polling bias in Ohio

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 09:05:59 -0500

In the last two days, six new polls of Ohio voters have been released, five of which favor President Barack Obama, by leads of 6 points, 4 points, 4 points, 3 points and 2 points. The last reports a tie, from right-leaning Rasmussen, which gave former Gov. Mitt Romney a 2-point advantage last week. Obama [...]

All eyes on—where else?—Ohio

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:33:54 -0400

Since the final presidential debate, 15 polls have surveyed voter opinion in Ohio, the state that is more likely than any other to determine the election. President Barack Obama leads former Gov. Mitt Romney in 13 of them. The candidates tied in one, and Romney leads in one. Those last two polls were both conducted [...]

National polls are meaningless at this stage in the election

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:54:15 -0400

One would think that Gallup, Pew, Rasmussen, every sufficiently wealthy news organization and anyone else interested in conducting a poll would be familiar with the basics of the American electoral system. Why they all insist on continuing to waste precious ink on national polls, then, is completely mystifying. Gallup's latest poll of registered voters reports [...]

Happy first birthday, 2012 presidential campaign

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:42:53 -0400

If this election is starting to feel interminable, Sunday was an incredible anniversary: Oct. 28, 2012, was the one-year anniversary of the filing date for the New Hampshire primary. I do not want to sell the election season short. The official campaign began a year ago, but the unofficial campaign began well before that. This [...]

Senate race in Indiana now leaning Democratic after Mourdock’s abortion comment

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:01:09 -0400

The Republican Party has historically leveraged the subject of abortion far more effectively than Democrats. This year, it could cost them control of the Senate. The Senate has been up for grabs since the beginning of the cycle. Democrats currently control 53 seats, including the two independents in their caucus, but are defending 23 seats [...]

The election is over! (Results embargoed two weeks)

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:43:41 -0400

Monday night was the final set piece of the 2012 election—the last scheduled event in which a significant national audience will tune in to develop or refine their impressions of the candidates. Barring any more secret tapes or raids on high-value terrorists, the remainder of the election is largely outside the candidates' control. Instant polls [...]

Romney could win the popular vote and lose the election

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 10:23:47 -0400

For Democrats still stinging from the 2000 election—that is to say, any Democrat born before about 1985—2012 could be the year of retribution. There is a distinct possibility that former Gov. Mitt Romney could win the popular vote and still lose the election to President Barack Obama. In roughly 45 clinical trials, American democracy has [...]

Obama still on defense

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:06:33 -0400

Woody Allen is often quoted as saying that "80 percent of success is showing up." Hackneyed though this expression has become, it applies quite accurately to the election as it stands today. President Barack Obama showed up at the debate on Tuesday night and stabled his teetering campaign. Given the wide consensus that Obama did [...]

The Senate is the Democrats’ to lose as five more states shift

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 13:27:19 -0400

The six-year terms in the Senate produce a curious electoral quirk: The party that controls the chamber going into the election is not necessarily the one in the best position to control it coming out of the election, even in a neutral political environment. This is because the 33 or 34 seats up for election [...]

Who won the vice presidential debate? Doesn’t matter.

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:17:18 -0400

Both campaigns declared victory in last night's debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, with Democrats focusing on Biden's passion and Republicans focusing on Biden's aggression. Neither acknowledged that it is a futile point. Immediate polls from CBS, NBC, and Xbox Live all reported that a majority of undecided voters believed Biden won, and the [...]

Romney chips away at Obama’s lead, but electoral math still favors president

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:21:01 -0400

Last week's debate between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney has inflicted severe turmoil on Obama's standing in the polls, breathing new life and energy into Romney's bid. If the United States elected its presidents by popular vote, the way sane electoral systems operate, Obama's odds of re-election would have plummeted in tandem. Unfortunately [...]

Debates don’t move polls. Debate winners do.

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 01:11:29 -0400

Mitt Romney won the first debate; virtual every snap poll and snap pundit agrees on this point. As the 90-minute debate wore on, the Republican challenger's odds of unseating President Barack Obama rose about 5 percentage points to 31 percent in the Signal's election model, driven by gamblers who dumped the president's stock during and [...]

Academics love models, but their window of opportunity has passed

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:03:21 -0400

In case the new issue of PS: Political Science and Politics is still on your junk mail table, here's a primer on the journal's recent publication of 13 distinct predictions of the 2012 election: Five academics predict an Obama victory, five predict a Romney victory, and three say it's too close to call. And here's [...]

Even before debates, electoral map appears largely written in stone

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:10:39 -0400

Many see potential for Wednesday's presidential debate to be a deciding moment in the 2012 election. From the Signal's perch here on Forecasting Mountain, we don't see a whole lot left to be decided. Since we posted our first forecast of the state-by-state presidential election on Feb. 16, 2012, six months before the Republican Party [...]

The downside of outside spending: Candidates are hard to shop for

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:39:59 -0400

Mitt Romney's campaign understands that almost every reasonable scenario for victory includes winning Ohio, Virginia and Florida—a troika that, along with all the states safely in the Republican column, would award the challenger 266 electoral votes, four shy of the magic number. Campaign spending figures published by National Journal verify this in no uncertain terms. [...]

Democrats likely to retain Senate as four critical races shift in their favor

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:16:57 -0400

After weeks in which the fate of the Senate simmered at nearly even odds of flipping for Republicans or remaining in Democrats' control, the outlook has shifted dramatically in the Democrats' favor. The incumbent party now has an 80 percent chance of retaining its majority, according to the Signal's prediction model. The break is largely [...]

Can Romney still win? Of course—just not the way things are going

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:47:27 -0400

This is not where the Romney campaign wanted to be three weeks after Tampa. The bounce in the polls that President Barack Obama netted coming out of the Democratic National Convention might have vanished by now, as those postconvention bumps tend to do, if not for the bad press that has pelted Republican challenger Mitt [...]

Search data shows wildly divergent narratives on right and left

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:34:10 -0400

Did Democrats really hold a Muslim prayer service during their convention? And what about Paul Ryan faking his marathon time? Search engine queries tell us a tremendous amount about the sort of fears and concerns unique to either political party. But scanning search engine data doesn't tell you much, even if you're able to filter [...]

Romney’s chief opponent is not Obama. It’s time.

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:47:39 -0400

The daily push and pull of the 2012 election—who said what stupid thing, which party threw a better convention—is unfolding against a backdrop of economic catastrophe unseen in recent history. To predict the outcome, we have to somehow reconcile the broad historical trends, which do not favor President Obama, with the more immediate factors that [...]

Markets sour on both Romney and Obama speeches, but conventions still boost Democrats

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:43:58 -0400

While the purpose of the political conventions was to draw clear distinctions between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, the two men remain identical in one key respect: When they open their mouths before a national audience, their odds of winning in November suffer. As you see here, the likelihood of Obama's re-election jumped [...]

Romney catches up in polls with convention bounce, but now it’s Obama’s turn

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:37:17 -0400

If only Mitt Romney could have convinced Congress to muster the votes for a law moving Election Day to Sept. 1, there's a very real chance he could have walked away with this contest. As expected, the Republican convention was good for a small boost in Romney's standing, bringing the race to a virtual tie [...]

Republican convention fails to move markets, but expect a bounce in polls (and ignore it, for now)

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:53:48 -0400

Two stories will play out today as the floors are swept and the balloons popped at the Tampa Bay Times Forum: That Republican nominee Mitt Romney will receive a bump in the polls after accepting the nomination, and to pay no attention to this bump. These stories evidently do not cancel each other out. The [...]

Christie’s keynote address comes with awkward political calculus: An economist’s view

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:27:44 -0400

Economists tend to view events like the Republican convention in the agnostic light of strategy and incentives, in which lawmakers are rational creatures trying to maximize their political profit. (Yes, that view of politicians as rational can be lonely.) This view exposes a curious dilemma for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as he prepares to [...]

All signs point to a Romney victory except one (a very big one)

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 12:05:49 -0400

When you squint your eyes and look only at the broad historical trends at play in this presidential election, all signs point to a victory for Mitt Romney in November. Back in February, the Signal's first draft of its elections model, which relied only on historical data, predicted that Obama would win the election with [...]

Akin’s ‘Macaca moment’ could flip the Senate race

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:00:18 -0400

Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin woke up Sunday morning with a 65 percent chance of unseating incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in the upcoming Senate race. By the end of the day, after facing a torrent of criticism over his claim that women rarely get pregnant as a result of "legitimate rape," the tables had [...]

Romney’s path to victory goes through Florida, Ohio and Virginia

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 13:28:24 -0400

Mitt Romney has one clear route to victory on Nov. 6: In addition to winning all the states we know he will win, he has to capture Florida, Virginia, Ohio and at least one of five other swing states. It's very possible Romney will win more than that. Our model of presidential elections, for example, [...]

Ryan pick damages market odds of Romney victory in Florida

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 12:18:39 -0400

Mitt Romney's choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate has thrown the state of Florida back into play in the prediction markets, suggesting political handicappers do not think the Republican wunderkind's budget proposals will play well in the retiree-heavy state. To be fair, these same markets gave Ryan only a 15.8 percent [...]

Prediction markets leaning toward safe choice for Romney’s running mate

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 08:10:04 -0400

With anywhere from days to weeks remaining in the long and tortured period of speculation over Mitt Romney's running mate, the Signal is increasingly convinced that either Ohio Sen. Rob Portman or former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will get the nod. The prediction markets currently give them a 35 percent and 16 percent chance of [...]

From now to the election, Obama’s economic record is set in stone

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:50:25 -0400

After being battered by the Clinton campaign over bad economic figures in the first two quarters of 1992, George H. W. Bush's reelection campaign should have been relieved that things started picking up over the summer. The nation added 141,000 new jobs in August of that year, dropped off in September, and then resurged with [...]

Is the healthcare decision a failure for Intrade? Maybe not

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:22:06 -0400

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the major components of the Affordable Care Act was a victory for Democrats and a defeat for all the people who went online to bet that the court would strike down the individual mandate. Going into the morning, the markets suggested that there was a 30 percent likelihood that [...]

Supreme Court could disrupt prediction markets with nuanced decision on health care

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:42:13 -0400

Many people have money riding on the Supreme Court's verdict on the Affordable Care Act, which is expected Thursday, from health care executives to 24-year-olds hoping to stay on their parents' insurance a few more years. But none has a more direct financial interest in the decision than those who have gambled on the outcome [...]

Can Republicans take the Senate? The odds are in their favor

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:19:07 -0400

With the unrelenting focus on every aspect of the fight for the White House, it's easy to forget that the Senate is also up for grabs on Election Day. In fact, it could be the presidential election that determines the upper body's control: If the Republicans win a net total of three seats, the Senate [...]

Gambling on war: The dark side of prediction markets

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:58:01 -0400

Over and over, we've found that the political prediction markets offer accurate, real-time information on the odds of a politician's victory in any major contest. But there's a darker, less tested corner to some of the sites that allow people to wager real money on the outcome of world events. The gambling site Intrade, for [...]

Save the American Community Survey!

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:33:46 -0400

When the U.S. Constitution became law in 1789, it made sense for the government to take a survey of its citizens only once a decade. The agrarian economy meant the population largely stayed put and grew at a much slower pace than it does today.

The rational case for why Obama supported gay marriage when he did

Mon, 14 May 2012 13:48:25 -0400

When Barack Obama announced his support for gay marriage on May 9, most commentators immediately turned to how this would affect his chances in the 2012 campaign. Now that a few days have elapsed, we can say with confidence that the effect was negligible. The following chart illustrates the most accurate and real-time forecasts, derived [...]

Pay no attention to the pollster behind the curtain

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:46:57 -0400

There are many ways to keep score on whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney has better odds of winning the general election, which is almost exactly six months away. Here at The Signal, we are fervent evangelists of the political prediction markets, where people place real money on the line to bet on the winner. [...]

Is the New Jersey tunnel project too big to succeed? The economist’s view.

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:40:26 -0400

Anyone who commutes in to New York from New Jersey knows that the smallest glitch can throw the entire rail system into chaos, delaying 1,300 trains worth of people. Many argue that there is an urgent need for a new rail link between the two states, but viable plans to build such a thing have yet [...]