US 2008 Elections: Who would be the best nominee ?

All democrat and republican voters in the primaries ask the crucial question, "which candidate is most likely to win the presidential election if nominated"? Politimetrics provides you with the best estimate of this likelihood for each candidate [only candidates with more than 5% chance of being nominated are shown].

Probability of winning the Presidential election if nominated - Democrat.

Probability of winning the presidential election if nominated - Republican.

These estimates are computed from prediction market prices and take into account all the information regarding different candidates, the evolution of the campaign and the voters. They are updated every 10 minutes.

Numerous research studies in Economics and Applied Finance show that prediction market prices give excellent estimates of relevant probabilities. They summarise, in only one number, all of the information available on an issue. This is the first time that estimates of each candidate’s ‘ability to win’ have been made accessible live and to a large audience. Doing so, the Politimetrics team aims to help citizens make a better choice with the relevant information in their hands.

Time trends

It is interesting to show how this probability of winning the presidency evolves over time for each candidate, if they were nominated; a candidate on an upward trajectory during the campaign is appealing to more and more of the electorate and we might expect them to continue this pattern of increasing credibility.

The graphs are updated every five days. For this reason the last point of the curves may be different from the numbers displayed in the bar charts above which are updated live.

Democrats

Recent evolution during the campaign:

Republicans

Recent evolution during the campaign:

Who would be the best president?

Polls attempt to answer very important questions, such as who is the most likely to win the nomination or the presidency. However, it is now possible to also shed some light on a much more interesting question for the voters: "who would be the best president?"

Thanks to markets proposed by Peter McCluskey Politimetrics provides predictions about the effect of the next president on the level of debt of the USA, and on the level of troop in Iraq: