Backdated - Puerto Rico - the 51st state?

I recently had the great pleasure of discussing with more than one of my closest friends the Puerto Rico referendum held in conjunction with the US elections. You know who you are, and I'm not going to embarrass you as terrible nerds by naming you.

Suffice to say, I am not the only person I know who discusses foreign voting beyond the presidential election.

I was not personally following the referendum. My understanding is that my friends weren't either, they just heard it on the news... (Sure, guys. Whatever you say.)

As I pointed out at the time, several referendums to this effect have been held, so I did not expect too much to come out of this. However, this is not entirely fair of me, on further examination.

• The 1967 referendum saw over 60% support Puerto Rico remaining a commonwealth under the U.S.
• The 1993 referendum saw a closer result, with 48.6% for remaining a commonwealth and 46.3% for statehood. In both referendums, independence received significantly less than 10% of the vote.
• The 1998 referendum independence received 2.6% of the vote, with free association with the U.S. and remaining a commonwealth dropping below 0.5% - when combined! I don't know what caused this shift in 5 years, but it was dramatic. Statehood received 46.6% of the vote, but 'none of the above' got over 50%, and no progress was made.

in 2012, independence is still well under 10%, but entering a free association leapt to around a quarter of the total vote, and a third of all valid votes. The question of remaining a commonwealth was treated separately, and 'none of the above' was not included. All of this seems to me to be playing with statistics so the driving force behind the referendum get the results it wants.

By spiting the question in two, it unites everyone against remaining a commonwealth to outnumber those who favour it, giving a ~150,000 vote lead to those who want change. If this was treated as one question, the 817,241 voters who favour remaining a commonwealth (Q.1) would rival the 824,238 in favour of statehood (Q.2.), and possibly out-rank them if 'none of the above' or another option was given. I think the numbers were close, so the question was split to get the desired result.

Even so, statehood received less than 45% of the total vote, and only exceeded 60% due to many invalid votes (incorrectly filled in ballots, not filled in ballots, etc.). How many of those would have opted for an alternative, valid option if remaining a commonwealth had been an option in Q.2.?

Still, technically Puerto Rico has voted for statehood. The ball is now in the U.S. court (or rather, the U.S. government, as the judiciary is separate to the legislature and executive (government puns!)) but I'd expect fast(ish) movement. The U.S. will probably take this as an ego boost: look, another example of countries that envy us and want to join us.

(An interesting contrast can be seen in Stephen Fry in America (I think it was SFiA, anyway) where people patrol the Canadian border because "a lot of people would love to enter this country, where we have democracy" (paraphrased). P.S. for the U.S.: Canada is a democracy too, even if it does have socialised health care!)

Futhermore, many past and present presidents (well, technically only one present president) have been pushing Puerto Rico to join the union - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_statehood_movement#Historical_support_in_American_politics

So, I'll finish with (a) an observation by my referenda-aware friends, and (b) a few other statistics from wikipedia:

(a) Puerto Rico, as the 51st state, would be entitled to 5 seats in the House of Reps (assuming the 435 seats are not added to), which with 2 new senate seats would make 7 seats on the electoral college.

(b) Puerto Rico would be the 29th largest state by population, just ahead of Connecticut, and 49th largest state by area, ahead of Delaware and Rhode Island. It would be the only state to have been visited by Columbus, and have both the oldest state capital and the oldest U.S. city with continuous inhabitation by Europeans. It would be the eastmost and southmost state, replacing Maine and Hawaii respectively, and add another timezone (AST: Atlantic Standard Time) to the many in use across the U.S.

Backdated - Election review - what I got wrong.

Okay, I'm back after a busy week to break down the election results. And by “break down the election results” I really mean discuss the accuracy of my predictions.

This is not just a chance for me to brag about being right – it is about me learning what I failed to account for to ensure more accurate predictions in the future; it is about explaining my mistakes to you, the hypothetical reader, rather than just shrugging them off; it is about transparency, and validity, and all those things; and it is also a chance for me to brag about being right.

So, let's start at the top:

Presidential Elections

Okay, we all know Obama won. Now I called it while official news sources were still saying it was 50-50, but I also said it would be close, and basically, it wasn't. Not even close to close. So I was righter than the mainstream media but wronger than I would like. Why?

Well, I - like many other sources - was looking at nation-wide polling. And on the nation-wide vote I would have been right, with Obama beating Romney by a margin of less than 3%. However I, and many others, failed to take the electoral college system into account. If you didn't hear about the EC during the coverage, it basically works like this: the 50 states get a certain number of votes on the EC. This number is their senate seats (2 per state) plus their house seats (between 1 and 53 depending on population). D.C. Is also counted as a state, getting 3 votes (2 for it's imaginary senators and 1 for its illusory house member determined by its real, but puny, population). This makes 539 votes all up, so a candidate needs 270 to win a majority and take the throne. In most states the winner takes all the votes, thus California gave 55 votes to Obama. The exceptions are Maine (4 votes) and Nebraska (5 votes) who divide their votes; if Barak Obama got 40% of Nebraskan votes and Mitt Romney got 60%, for example, Nebraska would give 2 votes to 'The Big O' and 3 to 'Mittens'. (Side note: I love that our federal elections are organised, you know, FEDERALLY! None of this state-by-state interpretation of electoral codes that mean you cannot vote outside your hometown.)

So while the popular vote was pretty evenly split, Obama was a fraction ahead in the key 'swing states', and most of them fell to him giving a landslide of votes on a tiny margin as preferred POTUS.

Senate Elections

I predicted no net change, giving the final result as Democrat 51, Republican 47, Independent 2. In actual fact there was a 2-seat swing to Dem (53, Rep 45, Ind 2).

What went wrong here is pretty straight forward: all of the safe and predicted seats fell as I expected, including the independents in Maine and Vermont (Go Bernie Sanders!). The flaw was my ego in playing guesswork with the seats I considered tossups. In the mid-terms my senate predictions were equally accurate, and the tossups fell 50-50. I noted prior to this election that tossups could just as easily go all one way as split down the middle, but without thinking I called the 7 tossups 4-3 to the Democrats. There was no real logic behind this, and it didn't influence the predictions for the balance of power. In the real world, the tossups went 5-2, and that is the 2 seat swing (from a 1 seat gap in the tossup predictions to a 3 seat gap).

In my defence I did back the tossups favouring the Democrats. I was also only out by one seat, if that gives you any confidence in my predictions. But this is where transparency is important. Tossups are tossups, and if I even call their split in the future I certainly should not be factoring it into the final predictions.

House Elections

Two years on, I haven't reviewed my midterm predictions for the house. Don't hold your breath either. It will probably never happen. I am reviewing the 2012 predictions now:

Puerto Rico R.C. – I predicted a Democrat other than Pedro R. Pierluisi Urrutia, favouring Rafael Cox Alomar. Alomar came second, but Pedro R. Pierluisi Urrutia held the seat. Right party, wrong member. This was just a lack of research and a reliance on trends which I said at the time were inaccurate. Basically, I was just plain wrong. I don't plan to correct this in the future because mistakes happen and not even I have time to fully research and cover Puerto Rico every two years.

American Samoa Delegate – I called this a safe Democrat seat. It is a safe Democrat seat. Eni Faleomavaega returns, as he has for over two decades.

D.C. Delegate – As with American Samoa. Always was Democrat, still no change in 2012. Eleanor Holmes Norton is returned.

Guam Delegate – Although one of the closer non-voting seats, it was pretty clearly Democrat. I was correct in my predictions that Madeleine Bordallo would return.

Mariana Islands Delegate – Another close seat, another Democrat win, another correct prediction. Gregorio Sablan returned.

U.S. Virgin Islands – Democrat seat is Democrat. Donna Christian-Christensen is returned as predicted.

So, 5 out of 6 right on a candidate level, and 6 out of 6 on a party level. That sound's alright, and I'm happy with that, but that was the easy part. Now, the voting seats:

Firstly, NC7 has not been called. I don't know why, but it hasn't. Secondly LA3 has decided it's Republican, as predicted. It just hasn't decided which Republican. Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry will be fighting it out on December 8.

As far as settled seats are concerned, there were some errors made. Five seats called for the Democrats turned Republican (NE1, NE2, NE3, KY6, MI1), while nine called Republican were in fact Democrat (CA36, FL14, FL18, GA12, MA6, MI11, NH1, NY18, TX23). Of some concern, I had some of these down as safe.

Reassessing the data I used for NE2 – the only data I can find in the post-election deluge of actual results – I should have ruled NE2 Republican, not Democrat. I suspect NE1, NE2 and NE3 (that is, the entire state of Nebraska) should have been called Republican, and I pasted it in the wrong column. I will spend some time tracking down the other data and working out if this is all the result of my clerical errors, or if I made some bad calls. I expect a mix, but hopefully none of my predicted “Safe” seats changed.

On the up said, I got 411 of 425 right (plus ten tossups which I called a 7 to 3 split in favour of the Republicans, but wisely didn't factor into the final results. In fact it was a 6 to 4 split to the Republicans) so that makes 96.7% accuracy. Many of those were predictable, but I'm not unhappy with that result.

Gubernatorial Elections

I could list each governorship individually, but there is only one I want to pay detailed attention to; Montana was the only one I got wrong. I had Montana as a predicted Republican win, but it went all Democrat on me.

A predicted win, as opposed to a safe win, means there was some room for doubt when I called it, but I was confident enough to label it and move on. A predicted win means a closer election than a safe win, but this election was very close. The designation Tossup would have been more appropriate, and looking back on my meandering dialogue I wonder if I even considered Tossup as a possibility of gubernatorial elections. I will definitely remedy this next election.

So, how close was the election? 8,674 votes close. The relatively minor Libertarian Party got 17,364 votes, but as these parties rarely (if ever) win governorships I ignored them. I don't intend to change this, as minor parties just bog down the number crunching with no predictable value in the outcome. However, in a two-horse Dem vs Rep race, these 17,364 votes could have put the Republicans ahead.

Did people voting for the Libertarian Party throw my results? Possibly. In terms of it's political position it is pretty well in the centre of the major parties, so it's difficult to guess where the votes would have landed otherwise (or, indeed, whether those voters would have turned up). On the one hand the Libertarian Party is in favour of small government and less financial regulation – strong Republican platforms – while also supporting same-sex marriage and open immigration which are far closer to Democrat positions.

I guess, all in all, getting one predicted position wrong is par for the course. After all, if we could predict results with 100% certainty, we wouldn't need to vote.

Summary

• Presidential prediction was accurate in terms of outcome, but well off as far as vote numbers. Next election, closer attention should be placed on electoral college divisions of votes. 100%.
  
• Senate predictions were spot on. The tossups did not fall evenly, and this should not be assumed in future predictions. 100%, excluding tossups.
  
• House numbers were generally accurate. How much of the inaccuracy stems from clerical error rather than poor prediction is under investigation. 96.7%, excluding tossups.
  
• Gubernatorial elections largely as predicted. One error in a very close seat. Tossups should be considered next election. 90.9%
  

Backdated - Short look at Gubernatorial Elections, and a summary of my predictions

Okay, US voting starts tomorrow (although due to time delays, it will finish on Wednesday), so this will be my last post.

There is no need to look so relieved about it.

Okay, so finally Gubernatorial elections. Unlike the previous mid-term elections, the gubernatorial elections will not be a big deal for us outside the affected states this time (search Gerrymandering in my 2010 coverage for why it mattered last time). Also, Governors really aren't that powerful on the international stage. However, I am covering them anyway for three reasons:

1. Least important of all, I have one last day to bore you with this information
   
2. Of medium importance, this is one arena where the Status Quo is not predicted to be retained
   
3. Most importantly, Gubernatorial is still my favourite word. Gubernatorial!
   

TO BUSINESS:

Most states have their governors serve 4 years, and most set their gubernatorial elections in the Midterms so their campaigning isn't drowned out by the presidential race. However, 11 states have taken pity on us poor recreational psephologists and given us a little something to talk about.

A big thank you to:

1.  Delaware – currently Democrat
2. Indiana – currently Republican (term limited)
3. Missouri – currently Democrat
4. Montana – currently Democrat (term limited)
5. New Hampshire – currently Democrat (retiring)
6. North Carolina – currently Democrat (retiring)
7. North Dakota – currently Republican
8. Utah – currently Republican
9. Vermont – currently Democrat
10. Washington – currently Democrat (retiring)
11. West Virginia – currently Democrat

Retiring means the current Governor (a.k.a. the incumbent) is retiring and will not run in this election, possibly severing long-term loyalties and/or hatreds. Term limited means the incumbent has served the maximum legal number of terms and is required by law not to run. (The same thing happened to Queen Amidala in Star Wars episode II, if that helps).

PREDICTIONS

In the words of Friar Lawrence (Romeo and Juliet, Act 5:Scene III) I will be brief.

1.  Delaware – Safe Democrat
2. Indiana – Safe Republican
3. Missouri – Safe Democrat
4. Montana – Predicted Republican
5. New Hampshire – Predicted Democrat
6. North Carolina – Safe Republican
7. North Dakota – Safe Republican
8. Utah – Safe Republican
9. Vermont – Safe Democrat
10. Washington – Safe Democrat (although I differ from Larry Sabato's call of “tossup” at my peril)
11. West Virginia – Safe Democrat

So, two governorships move to the right. A slight change, but a change none the less. Added to the 12 Democrats, 26 Republicans and an independent not up for election, this makes 18 Democrats, 31 Republicans and an independent. In a hypothetical House of Governors, the Republicans have the majority, but that's no real achievement when their carry-over incumbents not up for election already have 26 of the 50 states and start with the majority before the first governorship is won.

There is, of course, no camera of government composed of Governors, however if a nation wide issue is legally decided on a state-by-state basis (e.g. gay marriage) this can be a useful way of analysing the layout.

CONCLUSION

Okay, that's it. No more updates until the votes are in. Thanks if you did actually read any of this. If you didn't you wont benefit from anything I write here, but here's a summary anyway:

• Obama for President, Status Quo maintained - although with a much smaller majority than in 2008.
• Senate maintains Status Quo, right down to the number of independent seats. (Democrats 21 seats, Republicans 10, Independents 2 - both siding with Dems.)
• The House, too, maintains a similar distribution to before. (Democrats 197, Republicans 238), with a very minor swing to the left (net change of 3 seats.) Effectively Status Quo.
• 3 of the 11 governorships up for election shift go to the GOP, with the majority of the national total in Republican hands before the first vote is counted. (Democrats 6, Republicans 5 for a national total of Democrats 12, Republicans 26, Independents 1.)

Enjoy your 6th of November everyone!

Backdated - US Senate (Upper House) Elections

Who loves Senate elections? The PsephologyKid loves Senate elections.

The great thing about Senate elections is that two-thirds of the seats carry over. Senate elections occur every two years, and a term lasts 6 years. This means, even if some extra seats are up for re-election due to retirement, deaths or other factors, you can normally bank on at least 50% of seats being known with 100% certainty before you even start. In other words, you have to look at current polling data and a seat's history as usual and then factor that into a known, but constantly changing base of Senators. If party A is guaranteed to win 100% of the seats this year, they may still not dominate the Senate if party B has more than fifty seats already. In more probable situations, either party (though rarely, if ever, a third party in the US) can take the majority, but one side has an advantage – a bias to add into the calculations.

Look, it's fun for me, Okay?

Okay. So, there are 100 seats – two per state – and one third are up for re-election. Now I don't need to tell you that 100 is not divisible by three. I simply choose to tell you 100 is not divisible by three. So this year, 33 seats are up for re-election. Basically, the system relies on one person dying, retiring or otherwise losing a seat every six years. With an average age of over 60 years* after the midterm elections, this is far from impossible but not something I'd want to bank on. Why not elect half of the Senators at the midterms and half at the full-term election, America?

Sometimes more than 33 seats are up for re-election, though, so you never get the civil servants knocking on senator's doors saying “constitutionally, we need a 1% mortality rate over 6 years. You're it.”

Now, obviously, you need more than 50 of these aged senators to hold the majority in the Senate (referred to as Fifty Seats of Grey)(okay, it's not called Fifty Seats of Grey, but it could be)(although, technically, I called if Fifty Seats of Grey, so it has been referred to as such).

WHO GETS VOTED OFF THE ISLAND?

21 Democrats, 10 Republicans and 2 Independents will have their seats subject to an election. Not all of these will be running for re-election.

No state has two seats up for election this year, meaning that I can abbreviate the seat names to their respective states:

• Arizona (currently Republican)
• California (currently Democrat)
• Connecticut (currently Independent)
• Delaware (currently Democrat)
• Florida (currently Democrat)
• Hawaii (currently Democrat)
• Indiana (currently Republican)
• Maine (currently Republican)
• Maryland (currently Democrat)
• Massachusetts (currently Republican)
• Michigan (currently Democrat)
• Minnesota (currently Democrat)
• Mississippi (currently Republican)
• Missouri (currently Democrat)
• Montana (currently Democrat)
• Nebraska (currently Democrat)
• Nevada (currently Republican)
• New Jersey (currently Democrat)
• New Mexico (currently Democrat)
• New York (currently Democrat)
• North Dakota (currently Democrat)
• Ohio (currently Democrat)
• Pennsylvania (currently Democrat)
• Rhode Island (currently Democrat)
• Tennessee (currently Republican)
• Texas (currently Republican)
• Utah (currently Republican)
• Vermont (currently Independent)
• Virginia (currently Democrat)
• Washington (currently Democrat)
• West Virginia (currently Democrat)
• Wisconsin (currently Democrat)
• Wyoming (currently Republican)

This means the carry over from the currently Democrat-led Senate is Democrats, 30 seats, Republicans 37.

WHEN IS THE STATUS QUO NOT THE STATUS QUO?

Unlike Congress, we cannot simply say that we expect a similar result to the midterms because different states are due for senate elections. However, even if we did see the same result, this would – ironically – change the Senate entirely. The midterms, as predicted, saw a strong Republican swing but the Democrats hold power due to their large carry-over majority. The midterms and seats in contest this time have eroded that majority, giving the GOP a 37 seat head-start. A similar swing will result in a landslide Republican majority.

So unlike the other races, it won't exhibit a similar swing to the GOP. Even if it did this would result, unlike the other races, in a vastly different scenario. But you know what's really funny? The general prediction for the Senate is... no change!** Status Quo again!

Republican wins

I usually start with the Dems because I follow alphabetical order whenever I want to avoid statistical misdirection. Today, I feel like starting with the GOP (because all Republican wins are safe by my calculation), so here is a disclaimer: this order implies nothing more than a personal whim.

Mississippi (Safe Republican)
Nebraska (Safe Republican)
Tennessee (Safe Republican)
Texas (Safe Republican)
Utah (Safe Republican)
Wyoming (Safe Republican)

Why are their no likely Republican seats? Why is it safe or nothing? I don't know. Something weird's going on.

Democrat wins

Connecticut (Predicted Democrat)
California (Safe Democrat)
Delaware (Safe Democrat)
Florida (Predicted Democrat)
Hawaii (Predicted Democrat)
Maryland (Safe Democrat)
Michigan (Safe Democrat)
Minnesota (Safe Democrat)
Missouri (Predicted Democrat)
New Jersey (Safe Democrat)
New Mexico (Predicted Democrat)
New York (Safe Democrat)
Ohio (Predicted Democrat)
Pennsylvania (Predicted Democrat)
Rhode Island (Safe Democrat)
Washington (Safe Democrat)
West Virginia (Safe Democrat)
Wisconsin (Predicted Democrat)

This seems like a massive win for the Democrats. There are 10 safe seats and 8 Predicted. Predicted seats are the ones I'm most likely to get wrong. In the midterms I got 100% accuracy***, but that's no guarantee this time round. I'm not even sure I used the same sources and formulae to aggregate predictions.

This is not, however, a swing to the Democrats, since the midterm Senators were mostly elected in different states. This years senate race includes several long-standing safe Democrat seats.

Also, remember that the GOP starts off with a 7-seat lead. With six safe seats, this means the Democrat's predicted margin of victory is only 5 seats. And there are more than that unaccounted for:

Tossups

Arizona
Indiana
Massachusetts
Montana
Nevada
North Dakota
Virginia

If all seven of these went to the Republicans, the Democrats would be behind by two seats. There are still two seats I have'nt covered, so adding these to the Democrat count (see below for why these are Dems) would create a tie. Now, being true tossups, it's unlikely they will all be Republican. In the midterms *** my tossups fell 50-50. So the Dems should probably win three or four of these, and winning just one will probably be enough to ensure victory.

Other

So, that leaves Maine and Vermont. Not predicted Democrat. Not predicted Republican. Not too hard to call, either. Heck, these don't even go to minor parties. These are my favourites: safe independent seats.

MAINE

Senator Olympia Snow (Republican) will not be running for re-election, fed up with the ultra-partisan nut-house that is the US Senate. Independent Angus King is the favourite at the moment. No-one knows for sure who he'll side with, possibly hoping to pull a Peter Lewis and hold the balance of power. General consensus, though, is that he'll play Democrat.

VERMONT

Bernie Sanders is running for re-election and is the firm favourite. In the current Senate he caucuses with the Democrats, and can be counted as such. It is no secret that I love independents, firstly as they are not bound by party loyalties or united fronts and can vote on their consciences, and secondly because you have to love an underdog fighting against the multi-million spending parties. However, reading Bernie Sanders's policies has made him my favourite politician at the moment. He's a smart, progressive activist stuck in the body of a crotchety old senator.

SUMMARY

So most seats are remaining the same, with most changes occurring in cases where the incumbent is not running. These seats tend to be tossups or lowest probability Predicted seats. Two independents side with the Democrats in the current Senate. This pattern is predicted to continue with Connecticut replaced by Maine and Vermont continuing as before.

I'll take a guess on the tossups falling 3 to the Dems, 4 to the GOP. This will give the Dems 21 seats (23 including the independents) and the Republicans 10. Since the seats up for re-election are 21 Democrats, 10 Republicans and 2 independents, this is no change in the over-all makeup of the Senate. Status Quo to the extreme.

EXTREME!!!

*http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=average+age%2C+us+senate&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.senate.gov%2Freference%2Fresources%2Fpdf%2FR41647.pdf&ei=uDaTUN3TJcqgigeNhIDQDg&usg=AFQjCNFzhf4A_jz6IHry0Sj8bzjB86YJ1w&cad=rja
** e.g. http://www.electionprojection.com/2012elections/senate12.php
*** http://psephologyplus.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/backdated-us-midterm-summary-senate.html