2016 Presidential (Novice Predictions)

Obama is out on term limits, and so we find ourselves with a bit of uncertainty in the nominations.

Two main Democrats are up: One who wants to repeat the last eight years (Clinton), and a self-declared socialist who is too far left for the American mainstream, but wants to see a change in America (Sanders). In my opinion, both were bad candidates, but Sanders is more popular, so he does have at least a 25% chance to take it. The question is: will the superdelegates go for an ultraliberal? My guess is no, because they know it's failed three times before (McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis), and they want to win.

A whole field of Republicans came forth. If you asked me who I thought would get the nomination, I would give you three people: Kasich, Rubio, and Trump. Kasich is a moderate, and from Ohio. Rubio is from Florida, and also a moderate. Trump was just well-known, but he got so much attention. I placed my bets on Kasich initially, but Trump's attention on the media made him really the only unique candidate.

And so, we have the two most hated candidates in US politics. Funnily enough, both are from former swing states (Clinton was from Illinois, and Trump is from New York). Both VP picks were quite mundane, and nothing too special.

This was the first election where I was truly serious about doing a prediction.

Enough of the overview though, let's see the predictions.

Unfortunately, no editable maps here either.

Very High Confidence:

Competitive:

Very Close:

Final Predictions:

Final Results:

Clinton was better in the south than I thought, and Trump did very well in the Midwest.

It's also surprising to see how competitive this election was. 2012 only had four states within five points, while 2016 had 11 states decided within that same margin, plus Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. It could be that both candidates were historically unpopular.