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Readers See Obama Slightly Ahead, With Ohio Crucial for Romney

In our overview of the state-by-state electoral projections issued by other media outlets, we asked FiveThirtyEight readers to weigh in using The Times’s build-your-own electoral map...

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Calculating ‘House Effects’ of Polling Firms

One of the ways that our forecast model seeks to make polling data more robust is by calculating and adjusting for “house effects,” which are systematic tendencies for polling firms to favor either the...

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The Problems With Forecasting and How to Get Better at It

Are political scientists any good at making predictions? Jacqueline Stevens, a professor of political science at Northwestern University, argued in an Op-Ed last Sunday that political scientists make...

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Measuring the Effect of the Economy on Elections

The most significant change to our presidential forecast model this year is that it contains an economic index, which is used to guide forecasts along with the polls.In fact, as you may have seen since...

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What the New G.D.P. Figures Mean for the Election

Let me begin with an important reminder. Unless you have a particular interest in economic or political forecasting, the major upshot of Friday’s gross domestic product report, which estimated that the...

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Aug. 1: Obama Extends Electoral College Advantage

Barack Obama’s standing in the FiveThirtyEight forecast reached its strongest position to date on Tuesday as a result of favorable polls in a set of swing states. The forecast model now gives Mr. Obama...

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Models, Models, Everywhere

We assign a lot of bandwidth to the FiveThirtyEight presidential forecast model, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing you should look at to get a sense for where the election is headed. So it’s...

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How Romney’s Pick of a Running Mate Could Sway the Outcome

We haven’t had that much to say about Mitt Romney’s choice of a vice-presidential nominee — mostly because it just isn’t something that lends itself to rigorous analysis.But let’s focus on the part of...

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Jobs News Makes Obama’s Case Easier

Whenever a new set of jobs numbers is announced, it is important to keep in mind just how noisy the data can be. Forecasts of the monthly growth in nonfarm payrolls miss by 68,000 jobs on average. That...

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Oct. 11: Obama’s Swing State ‘Firewall’ Has Brittle Foundation

President Obama’s position has been stronger in state polls than in national surveys on recent days, a streak that extended itself in Thursday’s polling.Although Mr. Obama got a distinctly poor poll in...

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Oct. 18: Obama Gains in Forecast on Resiliency in Swing State Polls

One of the risks in focusing too much on the results of any one poll, like the Gallup national tracking poll, is that you may lose sight of the bigger picture.On Thursday, that story was one of...

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Oct. 22: Ohio Has 50-50 Chance of Deciding Election

The supposition that Ohio is the most important state in presidential elections is not always true. The decisive state in the 2000 election, of course, was Florida. (Al Gore also could have won by...

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Oct. 24: In Polls, Romney’s Momentum Seems to Have Stopped

The term “momentum” is used very often in political coverage — but reporters and analysts seldom pause to consider what it means.Let me tell you what I think it ought to mean: that a body in motion...

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State and National Polls Come Into Better Alignment

It appears that President Obama is likely to go into Election Day with a very modest lead in the average of national polls.As of this writing, on Sunday evening, Mr. Obama led by an average of 1.3...

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Where Obama and Romney Beat Their Polls

I’m traveling for Thanksgiving, so we’ll keep this relatively brief. But I thought this map was worth sharing. It shows how President Obama and Mitt Romney performed on Election Day relative to the...

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Oscar Predictions, Election-Style

Twice before, in 2009 and 2011, I sought to predict the Academy Award winners in six major categories based on a mix of statistical factors. My track record? Nine correct picks in 12 tries, for a 75...

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Evaluating the Odds for Florida Gulf Coast and the Rest of the Final 16 Teams

Scott Mcintyre/Naples Daily News, via Associated Press Florida Gulf Coast players celebrate after their win over San Diego State on Sunday.The story of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament is...

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I Went To A Psychic And Then Found Out How Right She Really Was

Here at FiveThirtyEight, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to predict stuff. The science of prediction is pretty hard to get right consistently. But in keeping with the philosophy of exploring...

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It’s In The Cards: I Should Be Drinking, Boating And Feeling Anxious

In an article Thursday, I applied the tools of statistical analysis to my future — as told by a Manhattan tarot card reader who goes by the name Angela Lucy. Here was my basic question: Do fortune...

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Checking The Accuracy Of My Tarot Card Reading

It’s the end of the year, and my colleague Harry Enten is working on a “what I got wrong in 2014” post. This is an admirable exercise, and I’d love to participate. But I made only a few predictions...

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