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Modeling undecided voters to forecast elections: From bandwagon behavior and the spiral of silence perspective

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  • Liu, Yezheng
  • Ye, Chang
  • Sun, Jianshan
  • Jiang, Yuanchun
  • Wang, Hai

Abstract

Forecasting election results has been a highly attractive activity among political and social scientists. Different forecasting methods have been proposed, but those based on public opinion polls are the most common. However, there are challenges to using opinion polls, especially because they neglect undecided voters. Due to the significant number of undecided participants and their impact on voting outcomes, we analyze the potential behavior of undecided voters by considering opinion polls and sentiment based on voter expectation from the perspective of the bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence. We establish a hierarchical Bayesian forecasting model to predict voting results, and apply it to the 2016 United States presidential election and the 2016 Brexit referendum. The results of our model suggest that voting outcomes are more predictable when fully utilizing the impact of undecided voters. The results indicate that integrating aggregated polls into the hierarchical Bayesian framework is a strong predictor for forecasting outcomes, and they provide evidence for the influence of sentiment based on voter expectation in forecasting election results.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Yezheng & Ye, Chang & Sun, Jianshan & Jiang, Yuanchun & Wang, Hai, 2021. "Modeling undecided voters to forecast elections: From bandwagon behavior and the spiral of silence perspective," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 461-483.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:37:y:2021:i:2:p:461-483
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2020.06.011
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