Published November 3, 2024
Legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes used to say there are three things that can happen with a forward pass, and only one of them is good.
Predicting elections is like that: You can get it wrong, say it’s too close to call or get it right.
No wonder most analysts prefer the middle course, rationally relying on polling margins of error and the unpredictability of turnout to avoid making tough calls in races like this year’s.
I’ve been predicting elections for 20 years and believe I owe the people who read my work my best estimate of what will happen. That’s what I’ll do again this year, even though every statistical tool we have available says the outcome could be decided by tenths of a point, the political equivalent of scoring a touchdown by inches.
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Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.
