Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:09:27.970Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Election Forecasts in 1984: How Accurate Were They?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Michael S. Lewis-Beck
Michael S. Lewis-Beck*
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One autumn out of four, election forecasting surpasses baseball as America's national pastime. Then, everyone wants to know who will win, and everyone has a guess. Now, with the ballots carefully counted, forecasters await their awards. Below, I evaluate the quality of a wide range of 1984 presidential and congressional forecasts. The evaluation proceeds from nonscientific to scientific approaches, although this distinction is sometimes blurred. To lower the level of suspense, I should say that some forecasts turned out to be quite good. By way of conclusion, I offer a set of rules for selecting a high-quality forecasting instrument.

Lucky Guesses

Many popular election forecasting rules take advantage of chance, which has been working in their favor. Perhaps the most famous is the World Series forecast, which says, “If the American League wins the World Series, then the Republican presidential candidate will win.” This technique was accurate from 1952 to 1976, missed in 1980, but worked again in 1984 with the victory of the Detroit Tigers. A lesser known rule of this type, which is my personal favorite, is based on the Beaujolais wine harvest. Accordingly, “If the Beaujolais vintage looks bad, then the Republican will take the presidency.” This has held post-1960, and continues to do so with the poor 1984 crop (yielding a wine too light, with little color). There are other such rules that relate more directly to the candidates themselves and, in that sense, have more verisimilitude.

Type
The 1984 U.S. Elections
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Winter 1985 , pp. 53 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1985

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

Bean, Louis, How to Predict Elections (New York: Knopf, 1948).Google Scholar
Brody, Richard and Sigelman, Lee, “Presidential Popularity and Presidential Elections: An Update and Extension,” Public Opinion Quarterly 47 (1983):325–328.10.1086/268793CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hibbs, Douglas A. Jr., “President Reagan's Mandate from the 1980 Elections: A Shift to the Right?”, American Politics Quarterly 10 (1982):387–420.10.1177/004478082010004001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C., “Strategic Politicians and Congressional Elections, 1946–1980.” Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, Sept. 3–6, 1981.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Gary C. and Kernell, Samuel, “Strategy and Choice in the 1982 Congressional Elections,” PS: Political Science & Politics 15 (1982):423–430.10.2307/418903CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koestler, Arthur, The Case of the Midwife Toad (New York: Vintage, 1973).Google Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. and Rice, Tom W., “Presidential Popularity and Presidential Vote,” Public Opinion Quarterly 47 (1982):534–537.10.1086/268750CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. and Rice, Tom W., “Localism in Presidential Elections: The Home State Advantage,” American Journal of Political Science, August, 1983.10.2307/2110984CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. and Rice, Tom W., “Forecasting Presidential Elections: A Comparison of Naive Models,” Political Behavior 6 (1984):39–51.10.1007/BF00988226CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S. and Rice, Tom W., “Forecasting U.S. House Elections,” Legislative Studies Quarterly 9 (1984):475–486.10.2307/439492CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polsby, Nelson W. and Wildavsky, Aaron, Presidential Elections, sixth edition (New York: Scribner's, 1984).Google Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., Forecasting Presidential Elections (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).10.2307/j.ctt1xp3vfxCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tufte, Edward R., Political Control of the Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).10.1515/9780691219417CrossRefGoogle Scholar