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Interpreting The Predictive Uncertainty Of Presidential Elections, Ray C. Fair

Ray C Fair

This paper argues that there is an important type of election predictive uncertainty that is not captured by polling standard errors and that can be estimated using data from political betting markets. The idea is that there are a number of possible "conditions" of nature than can exist on election day, of which one is drawn on election day. The uncertainty is which condition will be drawn. A "ranking" assumption is then proposed that greatly restricts the possible conditions of nature. This assumption is strongly supported by data from the Intrade political betting market for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. …