Kevin Coogan

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Voter Attitudes = Record Turnout

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Election 2016           Forecast / Turnout:  Voter Attitudes Data Polls sometimes ask indirect questions to determine which respondents are Likely Voters.  These questions often relate to their attitudes regarding the election and voting in general.  Examples include: To what extent are you following the election? Is the election interesting? Does it really matter […]

“Likely Voter” Indicators

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Election 2016           Forecast / Turnout and Result:  “Likely Voter” Indicators that worked in 2008 and what it means for 2016 There are many stages to poll analysis.  And, in each stage, an incorrect assumption can produce poor or misleading overall results.  One of these stages is calculating Likely Voters. Many polls include questions […]

Summary, Forecasting Turnout

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Election 2016           Forecast / Turnout and Result:  Summary => Republicans to Benefit The election of 2016 is considerably different from previous US Presidential Elections by many metrics including those that help to forecast turnout.  Furthermore, these metrics considerably point to the Republicans benefiting from the increased turnout. There are two general ways […]

Problems with Polls

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Election 2016           Problems with Current Election Analysis:  Polls, What are They Good For? Before looking closer at polls and polling, we should review some of their basics to highlight how something that is so often conducted by academics could go so wrong. Polls provide very little transparency in how they actually determine the results.  […]

Increase Transparency

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Election 2016           Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Journalists, Media, Political Analysts – Time to be Transparent, Copy Investment Advisors Investment advisors have a few things hammered into them. One of them is to avoid conflicts of interest and if there are any to disclose them very specifically and publicly. Journalists, media, […]

Fundamental Forecasts Needed

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Election 2016          Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Overly Reliant on Polls and Pundits, Dearth of Actual Forecasts, Create better Forecasting Models Current election analysis is basically a two pronged approach. Pundits control the qualitative analysis and polls provide the life blood for analyst’s quantitative analysis. Unfortunately both of these approaches have […]

Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Summary

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Election 2016           Problems with the Current Election Analysis: Summary Election analysis concerning the 2016 US Presidential race is truly awful. This series of posts will discuss this topic and of course how to improve upon it.  There are many issues and problems with the current US presidential analysis. Highlighting some of […]

Media’s Voting Record

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Election 2016           Social Desirability Bias / Media Bias:  Media’s Voting Record As explained elsewhere, the national media play a central role in setting the tone for political discourse.  Certainly, it is the transference mechanism that can most effectively show the general public which parties, candidates, and policies should be considered socially acceptable.  […]

Media Bias, Social Desirability Bias

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Election 2016           Social Desirability Bias / Overview:  Is the Media really Biased? In order for people to feel that an answer in a survey or poll is not socially acceptable, there needs to be a transference mechanism from which they ‘learn’ the standard for socially acceptable responses. For national political campaigns, the […]

Conditions Ripe for Social Desirability Bias

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Election 2016           Social Desirability Bias / Overview:  Conditions Ripe for Social Desirability Bias Poll bias is alive and well. Different polls should show more or less similar results if there is no bias involved.  If polls begin to vary considerably for an apparent inexplicable reason, more research is needed to understand why.  […]