On the whole, Political Calculations' prototype election outcome prediction tools did well, although some minor reprogramming will be in order to make them more useful for playing the "how will the votes have to break" election night game! Here's the election night wrap-up:
Virginia Governor
In the end, this race turned out to not be anywhere near as close as the average of polls in the days preceding the election indicated it might be. Tim Kaine won a convincing majority of the vote with 1,021,914 votes, with Jerry Kilgore winning just 911,861 votes and Russ Potts an embarrassingly low 43,884 votes. On a personal note, I really have to compliment Virginia's Department of Elections, who's real-time online reporting of the state's election results is simply the best I've seen anywhere.
New Jersey Governor
John Corzine, as expected, has won a clear majority of the vote, collecting 879,388 votes to Doug Forrester's 711,186 votes. Given that these two candidates spent an estimated $70,000,000 between them for the privilege of being able to sleep in New Jersey's governor's mansion, each vote cast (at this point) in this election is worth approximately $44.01!
King County (WA) Executive
With 2550 of 2573 precincts now reporting, Ron Sims has taken a large lead of 163,256 votes over David Irons 119,648 votes in the election night vote count. Political Calculations prediction tool for the King County Executive race has been adjusted to take these latest figures into account. It will still be several days before the race will be finalized, although at this point, supporters of reform in King County have to be disappointed, as David Irons needs to win roughly 56.7% of the estimated number of remaining uncounted ballots to win, assuming a 60% turnout.
Update: A much lower than expected turnout in King County has sharply decreased the likelihood that Irons will win, and he has conceded the race.
Washington State I-912 (Fuel Tax Rollback)
Political Calculations prediction tool for I-912 has been updated to show the results for all 39 counties, with 581,159 votes against rolling back the state's fuel tax and 517,899 votes in favor. The count is still a long way from being over, as a large number of absentee ballots will need to be counted over the next several days. Assuming a voter turnout of 60%, the measure will need 53.2% of the estimated remaining uncounted ballots to pass.
Update: Much lower than predicted turnout and strong opposition in Washington's urban areas will result in the likely failure of I-912 to pass. For Washington state drivers, Political Calculations offers a tool that allows you to estimate how much you'll pay annually in fuel taxes.
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
ironman at politicalcalculations
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