Predictions Thread

Here are Allahpundit's -- he explains his hunches, and it's all plausible enough. Good starting point for your own guesswork, maybe.

I'm going to stick to my own prediction -- Trump comes in 2nd -- not because I particularly believe it, but just because I already made it and backing off from it gains me nothing, whereas sticking by it, should this lottery ticket pay money, makes me look like a genius, which, of course, I actually am, but this fact is not broadly nor enthusiastically enough proclaimed.

I stand by my other prediction that Rubio comes in first. for similar reasons, plus, of course, my own not-very-subtle attempt to play the Expectations Game against him.

Whoah: Okay, bear in mind, the Decision Desk crew is a crowdsourced effort. Further, keep in mind they do not have the institutional wisdom that other polling outfits have -- they're still learning their craft.

So I wouldn't put much stock in this. That's not a knock on them; it's just an acknowledgement of the hugely ambitious project they've chosen for themselves.

But this is what their own exit polling says:

Also bear in mind these are exit polls only of "bellwether precincts." But a bellwether is really only predictive in a 2-man or 2-party race. How do you have a bellwether which can be expected to be predictive of a 10-man race?

And please, let this not turn into "Elevated expectations for Cruz, which are then dashed (proving him a loser!!!) should he not meet them."

This is a new kid on the block doing their first exit poll. It should not set expectations. It's just some interesting data.

Update: Per Fox, Belknap county is a bellwether which has a good record of predicting the 1-2-3 finishes in the whole state.

That said, their predictiveness might be off when, say, you trade a social conservative in the third slot for a moderate. Like, predicting Huntsman in third does not mean you can predict Cruz in third, as a different kind of voter would vote Cruz.

Beyond the first three places, who knows?

posted by Ace at 06:59 PM

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