Follow @accuscore on Twitter
AccuScore Picks Clinton to Beat Trump But It’s Close
Accuscore predicts Clinton to win narrowly.
Accuscore is well known of its sports predictions. We cover all major sports in USA as well as top 10 soccer leagues round the world. Top of sports we have predicted Eurovision song contests and different elections in Europe. Now it is time to predict next president of the United States.
The same methods that we are using in sports are used in the presidential elections as well. Gathering historical elections data, national polls and statewide polls into simulation algorithm that predicts the probability of the winner in each state. Based on this overall probability to win race to the white house has been calculated.
As many of you know, the elections are decided in handful of states. Our simulations count 20 “sure” states for Donald Trump that would result 154 electoral votes. At the same time Hillary Clinton should have ensured 182 electoral votes from 15 states. The probability to win these states is over 80% for respective candidates.
Donald Trump has the win probability between 60% and 80% in Arizona, Missouri and Georgia. He is the favorite to win additional 37 electoral votes from these states. Hillary Clinton has similar edge in our simulations in New Jersey, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado. However, in Michigan and Colorado just above 60%. These five states count 54 votes to Clinton’s result.
The state is a swing state if either of the candidates have under 60% probability to win the state based on the 10000+ simulations. In this race following states are included into this category:
- Iowa: Trump 52%
- New Hampshire: Clinton 55%
- Nevada: Trump 51%
- Virginia: Clinton 57%
- Florida: Trump 52%
- North Carolina: Trump 53%
- Ohio: Trump 56%
- Pennsylvania: Clinton 56%
Simulation results show extremely tight race with Clinton taking the grand prize with 273 electoral votes against Trump’s 265. When we look at the probabilities for a win, Clinton has slight edge around 62% probability for a win against Trump’s 38%.
Why our simulation shows better chances for Trump compared to some other predictors and polls? What we have seen in elections and referendums in many European countries, is that populistic movements that are trying to shake political establishment, are generally not shown even 98% correctly in polls.
Studies have found out many reasons for this, but most notable are:
1) Shyness: people don’t want to tell pollsters that they are voting for this party or candidate
2) Sample: some of these people are not usually voting or have otherwise been underrepresented in polling samples
3) Calculation corrections: pollsters smooth some of the opinion changes with corrective calculation formulas that are usually bias against populists
Even though polls were showing Donald Trump’s support reasonably well during primaries, there is quite a bit uncertainty in his results. Many swing states are very close calls and it won’t be a very big surprise, if Trump would end up winning. Or Hillary win with 330+ electoral votes.
For betting, Trump’s odds around 6.0 (+500) or 16% probability is worth of betting and a great value bet. Only problem for making great money in presidential elections betting is that the games are only every fourth year. Even though you make money by hitting your value bets now and then, you could end up losing 12 years in a row. That’s why we prefer sports betting.