Oh, mirror, mirror on the wall. We have been laboring under a presidential campaign for what seems like centuries and it has barely begun.
Who can deliver us from our travails? Who was the greatest pundit of all? Who can tell us who will be the next president of the United States — or even the winner of the Florida primary?
Nostradamus, the 16th Century French apothecary and seer, of course. Unfortunately, he’s been dead for 446 years.
But have no fear: PJ Media is running a contest to discover a new Nostradamus — in fact three of them — and that could be you!
Be one of three top contestants to guess the order of the remaining Republican candidates — Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul — down to percentage points (e.g. 37.7%) in the Florida Primary of Tuesday, January 31 and you will win an iPad from PJ Media. And have some fun doing it!
You’re free to put your predictions at the bottom of this post. But they DO NOT count in the contest. To enter the contest go HERE.
Participants have to provide a valid email address to enter to win. By providing their email address, participants will be signed up to receive the PJ Media Daily Digest. Delivered every Monday through Friday, this email highlights editors’ picks and the most popular stories featured on PJMedia.com that day. It’s a quick read that will help you stay in the know about current events — delivered straight to your mailbox. We think you will love it, but if you decide you no longer want to receive the email, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link located at the bottom of the email.
People who are already signed up for the PJ Media Daily will be allowed to enter the contest. You also have to be 18 years of age or older and a resident of the United States to enter.
The contest closes at 12:00 p.m. Eastern (9 a.m. Pacific) on Tuesday, Jan. 31.
The top three people who come closest to predicting the actual results will win an iPad. We will compare predictions to the results posted on the FL Division of Elections website. Winners will be notified on Wednesday, February 1.
The winners also will be featured in the PJ Media Daily Digest email, the PJ Tatler, Facebook, and Twitter.
Again, to enter the contest, go HERE.
Who can tell (Nostradamus?) … if it’s successful, we may do it again on Super Tuesday.
good idea.
The entry site should force double entry of the email id to prevent errors.
I think it will be close, with Newt’s lead cut to much less than SC and Santorum gaining some ground. Ron Paul should fall back in a large state.
It was interesting to see pravda controlling Newt last night by restricting applause during the debate. I didn’t expect to see such an evident example of how Soros and co will be working for McRomney in Florida. There is absolutely no way the marxists will let Newt’s momentum escalate.
What do you mean by closest? Is guessing two exactly right and one off by 3 points closer than off by 1 point for each?
“We will compare predictions to the results posted on the FL Division of Elections website. Winners will be notified on Wednesday, February 1.”
So you are assuming that Florida can tally all their votes in one day?
I gotta tell ya: there is some precedent that says otherwise.
IMHO you ought to use the least of the sum of the squares of the errors. It’s a basic information theory measure that is used by most everyone.
sweet
i’ll play
but i’ll wait for the deadline and try to “snipe” as these things can switch 10 points in a day
Newt wins, Romney in big trouble.
Interesting game. I’ll play here only, while offering my views to the rest of participants:
I think the difference between them will be around 5%, with Gingrich leading Romney.
This is how I got it:
* I assign to the “early voting” a weight of 0.15 while the .85 to the rest of votes, roughly based on the percentage of people that voted early.
* I define (for statistical purposes) “early voting” all the votes that happened BEFORE the Gingrich winning of SC primary. “Later voting” is everything that happened AFTER the SC primary.
* Why? Because SC primary signs a major change of the “information” in the minds of the voters (e.g. “inevitability” was washed away after SC)
* Input data: the “early” FLA polls (before SC primary) show Mitt leading Gingrich 36 to 24 (more or less, according to the poll); this is assigned the above mentioned 0.15 weight.
* Input data: the late FLA polls (after SC primary) show Gingrich leading Romney 34 to 26 (more or less, according to the poll); to this, I assign the above mentioned 0.85 weight.
SO, keeping constant all these numbers (and this is MY assumption that could go wrong), I project:
Gingrich: 0.15*24 + 0.85*34 = 32.5% final support between the FLA voters.
Romney: 0.15*36 + 0.85*26 = 27.5% final.
I.e. Gingrich wins by a 5% margin.
Now, the flaws of this analysis are:
* the numbers may not keep constant, this is easily seen. It could be corrected with any new poll coming, for instance: I don’t know of any new one taken after the debate (and then: was the debate a changer of the info in the minds of the voters? ).
* The input data may be flawed (I used Insider Advantage poll for the “early data” and Quinnipiac University poll for “later data”)
* The percentage of early votes (the 0.15 weight) could be wrong. I estimated 15% of votes were cast before the SC primary, this could be not accurate.
* This is not taking into account any confluence of the other candidates support towards Romney or Gingrich. I think R. Paul’s support is quite constant while Santorum’s voters are proclive to change their minds (IMO).
Would be interesting to make a Bayesian simulation of this, any volunteers?
oh please enough….
newt by 4%….. at least
mitt’
santorum’
paul…simple
UPDATE: new polls seem to show a tie between Mitt and Newt.
I don’t think the debate has anything to do with this, but the ads have. So, IF the newer polls are reliable, there has been some changing of the info in the minds of the voters. Let’s remember this is Newt’s primary to lose, and it’s now possible for Mitt to win.
Gradual changes, like the ones coming from the attrition Ad war and not from a debate performance, are more difficult to track and model statistically, so now we’d need a true Nostradamus, lol.
During a calm on the seas a foreign ship
shall falter and be forced to the shore
and a forgetful captain will ignore the chart,
afterwards there is death and pillage. Good advice comes too late.
Newt 42%, Santorum 37%, Mitt 18%, Paul 3% – I don’t need an iPad… already have one.
I think Ron Paul will do rather better than 3%, his following is very faithful, more like 5-8%, but still dead last. Mitt will do better than 18%— more like 25-30%. Santorum is likely to come in 3rd as he’s a relatively unknown quantity in the South, I’d hate to guess at this point but I’d say in the teens or 20′s. I still like Newt to finish ahead of the pack with +40′ish%. Newt is the only one who seems to really understands what Obama is really all about and has the answers to turn thing around. I think the Floridians are smart enough to have seen the handwriting on the wall.
Good luck in November.
and, BTW, Mr. Simom,,, Keep your I-Pod in case I win, I’m not smart enough to operate one, I gave my I-Phone to my daughter-in-law who seems to understand these things. It would be a waste of modern technology to give it to me.
Sincerely,
An Old Geezer
you are spot on! congrats!!!
I know Ron Paul’s supporters are loyal, I listed him at 3% because I doubt Florida has that many young Republican voters. Remember this is a CLOSED primary so no Democrats or Independents will be allowed to vote… that could greatly reduced the pool of young people…It’s a guess…not scientific at all… so I could be totally wrong.
not sure it should be the Nostradamus contest. he’s not the most precise prognosticator. I like Anga’s approach. WWNW: what would nostradamus write…
men in a contest
there is sand on the beach
one will win in vain
perhaps all will fail
As a resident of Canada, I am launching a class action suit against PJ Media for making me ineligible…even though I’m never eligible for any other US contests either.
Nostradamus was was ahead of his time a dopehead
You need to publish criteria in advance on how to calculate the winner, since “best prediction” might be a subjective term. I would suggest the following:
Add up the differences, for each candidate, between the entrys predicted % of the vote, and the actual %. Whoever gets the lowest total of all 4 diffferences wins. Thus the likely winner would be somebody that gets their % close to the real % for each of the 4 candidates.
Isn’t anyone taking into account the fact that Florida’s primary is closed? C’mon, folks…! Only independents (=sore crotch fence riders) and Democrats vote for Romney. Republicans will be split between Gingrich and Santorum. Nor Luap will finish a poor fourth. Again.
I wish I ‘d remembered this before I put in my entry. Drat.
I pray it is Newt and Allen West in the end. Romney is NWO and that’s why the left likes him. They would love to see Romney in and so would George Soros. WE NEED NEWT and West! Ron Paul is has a few good ideas but he is just crazy and I have to check and see if Santorum really said after being raped a baby is a gift! THAT is Ridiculous!!! Hard for me to believe anyone could mouth those words.