IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/nqcgs_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Combining survey questions with a Bayesian bootstrap method improves election forecasts

Author

Listed:
  • Olsson, Henrik
  • de Bruin, Wandi Bruine
  • Galesic, Mirta
  • Prelec, Drazen

Abstract

We present a new Bayesian bootstrap method for election forecasts that combines traditional polling questions about people’s own intentions with their expectations about how others will vote. It treats each participant’s election winner expectation as an optimal Bayesian forecast given private and background evidence available to that individual. It then infers the independent evidence and aggregates it across participants. The bootstrap forecast outperforms forecasts based on own intentions questions posed on large national samples before the 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections. The bootstrap forecast puts most weight on people’s expectations about how their social contacts will vote, which might incorporate information about voters who are difficult to reach or who hide their true intentions. Beyond election polling, the new method is expected to improve the validity of other social science surveys.

Suggested Citation

  • Olsson, Henrik & de Bruin, Wandi Bruine & Galesic, Mirta & Prelec, Drazen, 2021. "Combining survey questions with a Bayesian bootstrap method improves election forecasts," OSF Preprints nqcgs_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:nqcgs_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/nqcgs_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/602dc2e834d3040027e3c52c/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/nqcgs_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arzheimer, Kai & Evans, Jocelyn, 2014. "A New Multinomial Accuracy Measure for Polling Bias," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 31-44, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:nqcgs_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.