Pollyvote - Election Forecasting

PollyVote Project

Polly the parrot uses the high-profile application of election forecasting to demonstrate advances in forecasting methodology.

Her focus is on the principle of combining by averaging forecasts from different component methods. This approach has lead to highly accurate forecasts for the past five U.S. presidential elections.

Polly's caretakers are Scott Armstrong, Andreas Graefe .

You have comments, suggestions, or corrections? Contact us at info@pollyvote.com.

Are you fit to be president?
You think about running for president? Check out your chances to beat Obama in the 2010 U.S. Presidential Election using our nomination helper. This application is based on the PollyBio model, developed by Armstrong and Graefe (2010). The model uses information about candidates' biographies to predict the election outcome. It correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote in 27 of the last 29 elections from 1896 to 2008.

Note: For questions with checkboxes, multiple selections are possible.
  • Yes No

    Descent from renowned families has been shown to have a positive impact on an individual’s career chances (Simonton, 1984).

  • We expected voters to favor candidates who fit the social norm of being married and have not been divorced and having children (own or adopted).

  • Yes No

    Simonton (1984) summarizes research showing that first-born children tend to achieve more than later-born children. Newman and Taylor (1994) analyze samples of 45 male U.S. Governors and 24 Australian prime ministers. Compared to the population at large, the politicians in both samples are more likely to be first-born and less likely to be middle-born.

  • Yes No

    Single children have an advantage over children from larger families. For example, Simonton (1981) finds a negative correlation between family size and political performance for the 38 U.S. presidents up to Jimmy Carter. Andeweg and Van Den Berg (2003) analyze birth-order data for almost 1,200 Dutch politicians. Compared to the general population, they find single children to be overrepresented, whereas middle-children were underrepresented.

  • Simonton (1999, p.115) reports empirical evidence that supports the idea that the development of genius may be enforced by traumatic experiences, particularly in childhood or adolescence. He refers to literature that finds people, who lost a parent during childhood, to be more likely to achieve more in life. Following Simonton (1981), a candidate is considered an orphan if one (or both) of his parents died before the age of 30. Similarly, scores of 1 are assigned if a candidate lost one (or more) children, siblings, or a spouse.

  • Similar to Simonton (1981), we coded the level of formal education by assigning values of 1, if a candidate went to college, graduated from college, obtained a Master’s degree, obtained a PhD degree, obtained a Law (J.D.) degree, or worked as a university professor.

  • To have an objective and unambiguous criterion for the reputation of a college, all Ivy-League colleges as well as the U.S. Naval and Military Academies were considered as prestigious.

  • Yes No

    Similar to Simonton (1981), scholastic performance is measured by quantifying whether a candidate was an in-course (not alumnus or honorary) member of Phi Beta Kappa.

  • Similar to Simonton (1981), prior political experience was assessed by assigning values of 1 if a candidate had occupied one of the offices listed on the left.

  • Yes No

    The role of a candidate’s father may have an impact of a candidate’s chances to be elected. Similar to Simonton (1981), a score of 1 was assigned if a candidate’s father held one of the offices listed in question 9.

  • Yes No

    Being a famous person in a field other than politics should have a positive impact on the wide recognition of a candidate among voters. This can include being a famous actor, athlete, artist, or TV (radio) moderator.

  • Yes No

    In his review of the literature, Stogdill (1948) summarizes several studies that found a positive relationship between leadership and athletic ability.

  • Yes No

    The number of books that a president published prior to be elected has been found to have a positive impact on his political performance (Simonton 1981). In addition, a publishing record should have a positive impact on the wide recognition of a candidate among voters.

  • Traumatic experiences that may have a positive impact on leader emergence may be the survival of a major life-threatening disease, physical or sensory disability, or chronic illness in childhood (Simonton 1999, p.115).

  • Yes No

    Similar to Simonton (1981), military experience is coded if a candidate served as wartime recruit, professional soldier, or military general.

  • Yes No

    Scores of 1 are assigned if a candidate was awarded with military honors.

  • Yes No

    In analyzing results from a lab experiment, Thornton (1944) finds people wearing eyeglasses to be perceived more industrious, dependable, and honest. Another lab experiment finds that eyeglasses enhance an individual’s perceived authority (Bartolini et al.1988). Terry and Krantz (1993) find eyeglasses to be associated with heightened competence but also diminished forcefulness. Eyeglasses were expected to have a positive impact on the evaluation of candidates.

  • Yes No

    Although not identifying a voter bias, Sigelman et al. (1990) find that bald and balding men are underrepresented among governors and Congress members as compared to the general public.

  • Yes No

    Several studies examine how facial hair (i.e. clean-shaved, mustache, goateed, beard) influences perception of people. For example, in their experimental study, Terry and Krantz (1993) find beards to be associated with lessened competence. Findings from an experiment by Shannon and Stark (2003) show that the rate of bearded applicants that are selected for management positions is lower compared to non-bearded applicants. By comparison, results from an experiment by Reed and Blunk (1990) find consistently more positive perceptions of social/physical attractiveness, personality, competency, and composure for men with facial hair. Given that most politicians, especially in recent years (note that William Taft was the last U.S. president with facial hair), are clean shaved, facial hair is expected to have a negative effect on the evaluation of candidates.

  • Under 47 year Between 47 and 64 year Over 64 years

    Candidates might have a disadvantage if they are either too young or too old. Prior research supports this assumption for high-level positions in large public firms. In analyzing a sample of more than 10,000 CEOs, Nelson (2005) finds that the median age was 57 years, the 10th percentile 47 years, and the 90th percentile 64 years.

  • Male Female

    In their meta-analysis, Eagly & Karau (1991) find men to emerge more often than women as leaders from initially leaderless groups. This goes back to the fact that leadership is perceived in terms of male stereotypical characteristics, which makes it more difficult for women to emerge as leaders.

  • Taller than 6 ft 2 in Exactly 6ft 2in Shorter than 6 ft 2 in

    Height is a well-known predictor for leadership emergence and performance. In their meta-analysis, Judge & Cable (2004) find physical height to be positively correlated to esteem (r=.41), leader emergence (r=.24), performance (r=.18), and income (r=.26). In estimating factors to predict presidential greatness, both McCann (1992) and Simonton (1981) find a positive correlation between height and political performance.

  • Heavier than 170lbs About 170lbs Lighter than 170lbs

    In his review of the literature, Stogdill (1948) provides evidence that weight is positively correlated with leadership (r = .23): seven studies find leaders to be heavier, whereas two studies find leaders to be lighter; another two studies find no difference.

  • Yes No About the Same

    Several studies measure competence ratings based on people’s assessments of candidates?headshots (Todorov et al., 2005, Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009). These studies show that candidates with higher ratings of ‘facial competence?are more likely to win elections. Evaluations of facial competence are available for the 2004 (Little et al., 2007) and 2008 elections (Armstrong et al., 2010).

  • Yes No About the Same

    Results from a meta-analysis show that intelligence predicts leader emergence (Lord et al., 1986). Simonton (2006) correlates IQ scores for all 42 U.S. Presidents before Barack Obama with evaluations of presidential leadership performance. He found that intelligence is positively correlated with political success.

  • Yes No About the Same

    King & Leigh (2009) assess the beauty of political candidates from major political parties and then estimate the effect of beauty on vote share for candidates in the 2004 Australian election. They find that beautiful candidates are more likely to win elections. Berggren et al. (2010) report a similar effect. In analyzing more than 10,000 visual assessments of almost 2,000 Finnish political candidates, the authors report a positive relationship between attractiveness and the received vote share of candidates.

  • Yes No About the Same

    Gregory & Gallagher (2002) analyze the acoustic frequency of candidates?voices in presidential debates. The authors find that this nonverbal vocal communication reveals social dominance and thus can be helpful to predict the popular vote. This study uses the data from the eight elections in their sample for our analysis.

  • Yes No About the Same

    Candidates are likely to win the votes of their home state. Thus, the candidate coming from the state with more electoral votes was assumed to have an advantage. The numbers for electoral votes by states in each election were derived from http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/votes/votes_by_state.html.

  • Yes No About the Same

    Candidates with the more common first name were expected to have an advantage. Name popularity was obtained from 1990 U.S. census (http://names.mongabay.com).

  • Yes No About the Same

    Candidates with the more common surname were expected to have an advantage. Name popularity was obtained from 1990 U.S. census (http://names.mongabay.com).

  • Voters were expected to more likely endorse a candidate that represents their race. Thus, the candidate that represents the larger race was expected to have an advantage. Also, in analyzing ballot photographs for low-information elections, Banducci et al. (2008) find that the probability of winning for white candidates is 38% greater than for nonwhite candidates.

  • Yes No About the Same

    Voters were expected to more likely endorse a candidate that identifies with their religious beliefs. Thus, the candidate that identifies himself with the larger religion was expected to have an advantage.