Category: Data and Methods

German Pre-Election Polls: Ms Merkel’s Inevitable Victory?

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In 335 hours, the campaign will be history, and it does not look good for the opposition parties. This round includes five new polls. They bring the probability of a third term for Merkel (aka the Merkel-O-Meter) to a new high of 98.4/99.7 per cent. And the Greens are plummeting a bit. Take the figures with loads of salt, but a change in government looks very unlikely.

German Bundestag Election: Six New Polls, Little Change

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The Polls [caption id="attachment_12655" align="alignleft" width="300"] Support for the Major German Parties, Estimates and Predictions (Week 35, 2013)[/caption] Exactly three weeks before the 18th Bundestag election, it’s time for another look at the polls. This weekend brings six new entries: One late result from week 33 that was only published a week ago, three polls…

Nine New Polls Say Merkel Will Still Be Chancellor in October

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Last week’s post on Merkel’s very good chances to win a third term created a bit of a stir. This week, I’m back with nine new polls (conducted between August 6 and August 19 by six different companies), which all point into the same direction: The probability of Merkel continuing as chancellor is 98 to 99 per cent.

Just How Certain is Merkel’s Victory? 96 per cent, give or take

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The Polls Are Noisy Just over five weeks before the Bundestag election, there is much merriment about the current state of play. Support for the Liberals has been consistently below the electoral threshold of  five per cent for months, which implies that Merkel’s coalition would not be able to continue after September. Consequently, everyone is…

Stata Software for Assessing Survey Bias

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BinaryApe / Foter / CC BYIn a recent paper, we derive various multinomial measures of bias in public opinion surveys (e.g. pre-election polls). Put differently, with our methodology, you may calculate a scalar measure of survey bias in multi-party elections. Thanks to Kit Baum over at Boston College, our Stata add-on surveybias.ado is now available…

A Scalar Measure for Bias in (Multi-Party Pre-Election) Surveys

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All surveys deviate from the true distributions of the variables, but some more so than others. This is particularly relevant in the context of election studies, where the true distribution of the vote is revealed on election night. Jocelyn Evans and I present a method for calculating a scalar measure that neatly summarises such bias for multi-party elections. We also present a Stata module that implements our new method.

Statistical Songs Roundup

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Today is clearly a day for statistical songs (are there any other days?), so here are some links to get you started. To kick of the stat song roundup, here are some … interesting insights into the culture that is biostatics, complete with some remarkably dreadful audio material. Obviously, youtube has a whole channel devoted…