ASSESSING THE ACCURACY OF THE 2008 STATE AND DISTRICT FORECAST MODELS

Abstract

The October 2008 issue ofPSpublished a symposium of presidential and congressional forecasts made in the summer leading up to the election. This article is an assessment of the accuracy of their models.Ninety-nine days before the elections I utilized national- and district- or state-level information to forecast the 2008 U.S. presidential, House, and Senate elections (Klarner 2008). Overall, the presidential model performed very well, while the House and Senate models understated the extent of the Democratic wave.