Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Antipolls

Various polls collected by Now News. All the pro-KMT polls show a big lead for Ma and growing. The pro-DPP Liberty Times poll has Tsai ahead. Apple Daily, widely regarded as in-between the two camps, has Ma up by the biggest lead. In the prediction market as of this moment, for who will win, Tsai is ~$51.00, Ma ~$36.00, in the prediction of the victory margin, Tsai is up by 7 over Ma.

I think I need a Beerlao to handle all this conflicting data.

ADDED: As my friend Ben Goren observed: "We essentially won't know shit until election night and the shooting the day before."
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10 comments:

les said...

The prediction market should tell us who will be shot the eve of the election, since this is now a tradition.

Anonymous said...

Do polls actually even influence election results?

Raj said...

Michael

I think the question is which polls/futures market were most accurate for the recent and 2008 elections. The fact that the polls disagree is not unusual, though the fact they do so much is strange.

Also you need to analyse voting sample size and voter weighting.

Michael Turton said...

Generally the prediction market is considered the most accurate though it is not always right. TVBS consistently overestimates KMT support by about 8 points.

Unfortunately the media usually doesn't release the data we need to compare....

Michael

DavidTJYuun said...

So many politicians and media are so irresponsible for public interest.
I feel so sad...will Taiwan still be a country or just an island without tomorrow? Everytime, it's like an unbearable burden for us to face such an election....

Anonymous said...

Ma is the high horse for another 4 years. not doubt about it. get used it, ye who value stability.

Anonymous said...

How did the prediction market do for the 2008 presidential election? Ma was obviously going to win that one, but I'd be curious how the percentage win numbers lined up. Also if it predicted the huge sweep of legislative seats.

Taiwan Echo said...

A comparison of Xfuture market's prediction on the past presidential elections can be found here:

預測市場與民意調查對選舉預測的準確度比較_20111123

It shows that the Xfuture is a much more reliable sources than China Times, TVBS, UDN, and Apple.

I'm also very interested in the trend than the current numbers. The trend is, IMO, the most valuable feature of Xfuture. You can read how Tsai, Ma and Soong's trend changed during the past couple of months :

Future Market predicts: Ma falls behind by 8% and keeps falling fast

My extrapolation in that article is probably over-stretched, but following the trend, it doesn't seem that Ma is gonna rise back up.

Buckle up for a rough ride 'cos there will be more negative moves from Ma's camp.

Anonymous said...

Have there ever been any instance where the KMT matched or beat the poll predictions in the "Blue" media? It seems whatever the polls say, the KMT always falls below.

Michael Turton said...

Have there ever been any instance where the KMT matched or beat the poll predictions in the "Blue" media? It seems whatever the polls say, the KMT always falls below.

That's generally the trend. I was looking at the 2008 election and a couple of weeks before, Ma was up 25 points. I figure if you subtract 5-8 points from TVBS you'll be close to the actual situation.

Michael