What is the Probability that Barack Obama Will Be Re-Elected in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election?
Eric Schulman and Daniel Debowy calculate the odds, in a study called “What is the Probability that Barack Obama Will Be Re-Elected in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election?“, newly published as an online supplement to the Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 16, no. 4, Jul/Aug 2010. They report:
The Annals of Improbable Research U.S. Presidential Election Algorithm (Debowy and Schulman 2003) correctly predicted the outcome of the 2004 and 2008 United States presidential elections. Once the 2012 campaign for U.S. President officially started in November of 2008, Schulman and Debowy (2008) applied this proven algorithm to 18 potential Republican candidates for this election, compared their electabilities to that of President Barack H. Obama II and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and concluded that seven would win the general election if they were nominated by the Republican Party. In this paper, we consider a sample of 23 potential Republican candidates and estimate the probability that they will win the nomination based on their prices at the political prediction market Intrade.com.