Putting South at the Top and Working Backwards

It’s a new year (or at least a year partially consumed but previously unexposed to the prognostications of this blog), and any responsible author would have set aside time to address the results of several outstanding analyses from the previous twelve months.

Instead, this publication rests entirely on my time-poor and scatterbrained mind to lumber ever forwards, so here we are, less than a week from the South Australian elections, and I have emerged to once again throw a prediction onto the ever-growing pile for future me to reassess at some unspecified and greatly belated juncture.

Fortunately (with the exception of perfectly calling the 2021 Fat Bear Week winner), the analysis has always come back the same: not a bad prediction, but I would do better to stick to applying the swing to the pendulum and calling it a day. All my attempts at a more nuanced analysis raise the complexity while reducing the accuracy of my guesses. So instead, this time, we’re trying something different: using the swing-and-pendulum to predict the final results, then reverse engineering the map to work out which seats will fall which way to give us that outcome.

Conclusion

The current distribution of seats and their pendulum positions (adjusted following redistribution of boundaries) were taken from here. The swing is derived by taking the difference between the 2018 two party preferred election results election results (Liberal 52%, Labor 48%) and the latest polling provided on the ever reliable Wikipedia (Liberal 47%, Labor 53%) for a swing of 5 percentage points towards the ALP (or -5 to the government).

Applying a net swing of -5 to all electorates evenly indicates a loss of 3 seats for the Liberals (Adelaide, Elder and King). This is hardly dramatic, but from one seat majority with 24 of the state’s 47 seats in the Legislative Assembly this would at the very least put them into minority government and realistically into opposition.

ELECTORATE	PENDULUM		RESULT
Adelaide	Lib	1.0	ALP	-4.0
Badcoe	ALP	-5.2	ALP	-10.2
Black	Lib	9.4	Lib	4.4
Bragg	Lib	17.8	Lib	12.8
Chaffey	Lib	18.0	Lib	13.0
Cheltenham	ALP	-16.2	ALP	-21.2
Colton	Lib	6.1	Lib	1.1
Croydon	ALP	-23.3	ALP	-28.3
Davenport	Lib	8.0	Lib	3.0
Dunstan	Lib	7.1	Lib	2.1
Elder	Lib	2.1	ALP	-2.9
Elizabeth	ALP	-17.2	ALP	-22.2
Enfield	ALP	-6.4	ALP	-11.4
Finniss	Lib	14.4	Lib	9.4
Flinders	Lib	26.8	Lib	21.8
Florey	Ind	N/A	N/A
Frome	Ind	N/A	N/A
Gibson	Lib	9.8	Lib	4.8
Giles	ALP	-14.1	ALP	-19.1
Hammond	Lib	16.8	Lib	11.8
Hartley	Lib	6.5	Lib	1.5
Heysen	Lib	7.5	Lib	2.5
Hurtle Vale	ALP	-8.3	ALP	-13.3
Kaurna	ALP	-16.2	ALP	-21.2
Kavel	Ind	14.6	Lib	9.6
King	Lib	0.7	ALP	-4.3
Lee	ALP	-5.2	ALP	-10.2
Light	ALP	-7.6	ALP	-12.6
MacKillop	Lib	25.3	Lib	20.3
Mawson	ALP	-0.7	ALP	-5.7
Morialta	Lib	9.7	Lib	4.7
Morphett	Lib	11.6	Lib	6.6
Mount Gambier	Ind	N/A	N/A
Narungga	Ind	18.2	Lib	13.2
Newland	Lib	-0.3	ALP	-5.3
Playford	ALP	-19.0	ALP	-24.0
Port Adelaide	ALP	-16.8	ALP	-21.8
Ramsay	ALP	-18.6	ALP	-23.6
Reynell	ALP	-9.4	ALP	-14.4
Schubert	Lib	14.9	Lib	9.9
Stuart	Lib	N/A	N/A
Taylor	ALP	-12.2	ALP	-17.2
Torrens	ALP	-5.6	ALP	-10.6
Unley	Lib	11.2	Lib	6.2
Waite	Ind	7.3	Lib	2.3
West Torrens	ALP	-14.3	ALP	-19.3
Wright	ALP	-3.1	ALP	-8.1

Let us take that as our result and work backwards to figure out which seats are likely to be won or lost.

Method

In general usage, a pendulum margin of less than 6 percentage points is considered “marginal”, with more than that being “fairly safe” or better. In the absence of any better measure, let us assume that all electorates where the above calculation left an electorate within 6 points of of flipping are still up for play, and that the others will fall as suggested.

ELECTORATE	PENDULUM		RESULT
Adelaide	Lib	1.0
Badcoe	ALP	-5.2	ALP	-10.2
Black	Lib	9.4
Bragg	Lib	17.8	Lib	12.8
Chaffey	Lib	18.0	Lib	13.0
Cheltenham	ALP	-16.2	ALP	-21.2
Colton	Lib	6.1
Croydon	ALP	-23.3	ALP	-28.3
Davenport	Lib	8.0
Dunstan	Lib	7.1
Elder	Lib	2.1
Elizabeth	ALP	-17.2	ALP	-22.2
Enfield	ALP	-6.4	ALP	-11.4
Finniss	Lib	14.4	Lib	9.4
Flinders	Lib	26.8	Lib	21.8
Florey	Ind	N/A
Frome	Ind	N/A
Gibson	Lib	9.8
Giles	ALP	-14.1	ALP	-19.1
Hammond	Lib	16.8	Lib	11.8
Hartley	Lib	6.5
Heysen	Lib	7.5
Hurtle Vale	ALP	-8.3	ALP	-13.3
Kaurna	ALP	-16.2	ALP	-21.2
Kavel	Ind	14.6	Lib	9.6
King	Lib	0.7
Lee	ALP	-5.2	ALP	-10.2
Light	ALP	-7.6	ALP	-12.6
MacKillop	Lib	25.3	Lib	20.3
Mawson	ALP	-0.7
Morialta	Lib	9.7
Morphett	Lib	11.6	Lib	6.6
Mount Gambier	Ind	N/A
Narungga	Ind	18.2	Lib	13.2
Newland	Lib	-0.3
Playford	ALP	-19.0	ALP	-24.0
Port Adelaide	ALP	-16.8	ALP	-21.8
Ramsay	ALP	-18.6	ALP	-23.6
Reynell	ALP	-9.4	ALP	-14.4
Schubert	Lib	14.9	Lib	9.9
Stuart	Lib	N/A
Taylor	ALP	-12.2	ALP	-17.2
Torrens	ALP	-5.6	ALP	-10.6
Unley	Lib	11.2	Lib	6.2
Waite	Ind	7.3
West Torrens	ALP	-14.3	ALP	-19.3
Wright	ALP	-3.1	ALP	-8.1

A couple of quick observations: Firstly, there are some strange things going on in the above tables. Newland has a Liberal incumbent but is nominally Labor following boundary changes. For reasons we'll get into later Newland gets even more complicated and won't be predicted for either by the end of this process. Stuart also has a Liberal incumbent but is not measured as such in the Pendulum as boundary changes have imported an Independent who is incumbent in Frome (and thus Frome has the converse situation where it is held by an Incumbent but is measured as a Liberal seat by the pendulum). This plays a particular kind of havoc with 2PP calculations I usually rely on so both are excluded from 2PP analysis in my tables. Kavel, Narungga and Waite were won by Liberals in 2018 and are measured as Liberal seats in the pendulum, but are currently held by independents who left the Liberal party putting them into minority government.

Secondly, as the swing is -5 and any result between 6 and -6 is up for play, every seat predicted to change hands by the pendulum is still in play. This feels right at this stage, as these narrow seats are probably the most likely to buck general trends for a number of reasons (focus of campaign resources and sandbagging, larger comfort with protest voting in safe seats etc.) However, this method could be applied where swings of more than 6 percentage points occur with the potential to “guarantee” a change of seat in some electorates at this early stage. Whether or not this is appropriate requires further analysis than I will go into here.

Thirdly, of the 14 “in play” seats, only (Mawson and nominally Newland) are considered to be currently Labor. I have excluded Florey, Frome, Mount Gambier and Stuart from this number, simply because they cannot be assessed easily through 2PP data. This doesn’t leave the Liberals with much space to gain, so this is already a very promising result for Labor. On the other hand, as we are taking the pendulum result of Lib 20, ALP 23 (and four electorates with 3 independents doing their own things) the change of government is virtually a built-in assumption at this point. The real question is which five of the 14 seats still in play do we assign to Labor--and do these replace or confirm Adelaide, Elder, King, Mawson and Newland? (Ah, but I've already hinted that Newland won't nake Labor's final cut!)

Components

Some progress can be made by process of elimination factoring the history and nature of the seats. Davenport has been some form of Liberal since it was founded in the 1970s. So has Heysen, barring the 8 years it was abolished. Morialta is the updated name of Coles, which with one exception in 2006 has been consistently won by the Liberals. And when its members don’t defect to the crossbench (2014 and 2020) Waite is another reliable Liberal seat and has been since its creation in 1993 (and before this as Mitcham at least as far back as 1982 and arguably with a short interregnum from the Democrats as far back as 1938).

Dunstan is a relatively new seat that hasn't yet had a change of MP, but it is effectively identical to the electorate of Norwood which it replaced in 2014. Norwood does have a mixed history with long-serving Liberal and Labor members; however the electorate's current MP is SA Premier Steven Marshall and while it is not unheard of for leaders to lose their seat it is rather rare, with name recognition and proximity to decision making power making it tough to budge the needle.

On the other hand, Colton is South Australia’s strongest bellwether seat—the party that has won the election has won Colton every year since it was founded in 1993. While pundits often read too much into bellwethers generally, they have a proven ability to swing consistently with public opinion, perhaps as seats with highly representative populations. The trend, of course, is to treat the bellwether as an indicator of who will win the election; here I propose the reverse—on the assumption that Labor will form government, Colton is likely to be one of their gains. This is contrary to the pendulum which with a 6.1 margin is outside the expected 5-point swing.

Everywhere else is a bit of a mess, so in alphabetical order:

Adelaide is an old (1902) seat with an extensive but complicated Labor history. On the other hand, when Liberals hold it, they hold it for over a decade with Michael Armitage (1989-2002) and now Rachel Sanderson (2010 onwards). Perhaps it is time once more for Labor to take back the reigns? This is the closest seat to a toss-up in my view.

Black has only been around for one election. It is considered to replace Mitchell with a rainbow of previous candidates (largely due to Kris Hanna serving Labor, then Greens, then as an independent all between 1997 and 2010). However, when Black was founded it also inherited a number of voters from Bright and its incumbent David Spiers while Mitchel’s incumbent went to Gibson. Overall, Mitchel more often voted Labor when the Liberals won than vice versa suggesting a historical leaning to Labor, but the opposite is true of Bright. It the absence of more illuminating data I assume the incumbency of David Spiers will carry this one for the Libs.

Since its creation in 1993 Elder has only voted against the winning party once, in 1993 and in favour of Labor. If we can call Colton for Labor, we can do the same for Elder.

Gibson is considered “safe” for the Liberals with a 10% margin, but to accept that is to undermine the process used here to identify the risky seats. It has only been around for one election and before that theoretically replaced mildly Liberal Bright but also took in voters from mildly ALP-leaning Elder and Mitchel as well as long-term Liberal stronghold Morphett. How these groups have merged may be reflected in the strong Liberal victory here in 2018, or it may just be a particularly volatile seat. Purely because we need to fill more Liberal slots than Labor, I’m setting this as a Lib seat.

Hartley is a highly variable seat that should be a close contest. There’s not much decisive data to work with, but there are more Liberal slots to fill than Labor, so for now Hartley is tipped to stay blue.

To quote Wikipedia “The Electoral District Boundaries Commission considered that it had renamed the electoral district of Napier to King, but only 1479 of the estimated 27,002 voters in King had previously been voters in Napier... The majority of voters in King came from Wright…” Both Napier and Wright would be considered Labor seats generally, yet when King was formed last election, it was won by a narrow margin for the Libs. I’m going to take a chance that this was an outlier after 12 years of Labor government and not reflective of the seat’s natural tendency. Therefore, I’m calling this for Labor.

Mawson is the one seat worth a second look with a Labor incumbent. Mawson has been ALP for the last 16 years under Leon Bignell who is running again. His predecessor was Liberal with a run almost equally impressive at 13 years. Despite this it’s probably fair to call this a Labor seat generally with only one other Liberal serving a single term since the seat was formed in 1970. More importantly, it looks like Mawson doesn’t like switching things up too often. Therefore, Mawson becomes our 5^th and final ALP call to round out the 23 ALP seats predicted by the pendulum.

That is contrary to the pendulum-and-swing prediction for Newland, which is already nominally Labor following redistribution and the most marginal seat the Liberals have. The seat has also absorbed long-running Independent Frances Bedford from Florey so for now I’m preserving it as un-called.

ELECTORATE	INCUMBENT	PENDULUM	5% SWING	PREDICTION
Adelaide	Lib	Lib	ALP	ALP
Badcoe	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Black	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Bragg	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Chaffey	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Cheltenham	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Colton	Lib	Lib	Lib	ALP
Croydon	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Davenport	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Dunstan	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Elder	Lib	Lib	ALP	ALP
Elizabeth	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Enfield	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Finniss	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Flinders	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Florey	Ind	Ind	N/A
Frome	Ind	Lib	N/A
Gibson	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Giles	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Hammond	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Hartley	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Heysen	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Hurtle Vale	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Kaurna	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Kavel	Ind	Lib	Lib	Lib
King	Lib	Lib	ALP	ALP
Lee	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Light	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
MacKillop	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Mawson	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Morialta	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Morphett	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Mount Gambier	Ind	Ind	N/A
Narungga	Ind	Lib	Lib	Lib
Newland	Lib	ALP	ALP
Playford	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Port Adelaide	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Ramsay	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Reynell	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Schubert	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Stuart	Lib	Ind	N/A
Taylor	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Torrens	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Unley	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Waite	Ind	Lib	Lib	Lib
West Torrens	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Wright	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP

This also still leaves the independent-affected seats of Florey, Frome, Mount Gambier and Stuart. As mentioned, Florey’s independent incumbent since 1997, Frances Bedford, is now running elsewhere. The pendulum still shows the seat as independent with a 1.9% margin against the ALP. Unless all of Ms Bedford’s voters fall back to the Liberals (and in 2019 a number of these seem to have come from the Greens to push her ahead of the Libs so this is very unlikely) this should be an easy with for the ALP.

Similarly, Frome’s independent Geoff Brock has transferred to Stuart so where the Liberals were once trailing, they will now be the dominant power—on primary votes last election the Liberals picked up 38% while the ALP took 10%.

These results require a small deviation from the method we’ve used so far, with 24 seats now called for Labor when the pendulum required Lib 20, ALP 23. This is because we had 4 (now 5) seats excluded for the complexities of independents, when there are only three independents we’re considering (Bedford in Florey/Newland, Brock in Frome/Stuart and Mount Gambier’s Troy Bell). Some manipulation of the numbers is inevitable; if I were to switch Adelaide to Lib, for example, we would then have to many of those.

Troy Bell, at 39% of the primary vote, out-polled both Labor (10%) and the Liberals (24%) as an independent. Unless Mount Gambier is seeing some significant swing not detected anywhere else, we can expect him to hold his seat. The redistributions that moved Brock and Bedford into new seats are also some of their strongest supporters, but both have the challenge of building recognition and support from new constituents. Still, with their experience and existing supporter base this is not an impossible task and indeed there seems to be an apatite in Australia generally for a viable alternative to the major parties. With nothing more than a gut feeling and a desire not to distort this post’s trial of a new method too much I’m going to predict all three independents will return, but for me that really will be the interesting part to watch on Saturday.

Hypothesis

This completes the prediction. The table below shows (1) the incumbent as they currently identify, (2) the party holding the seat as assumed by the pendulum (e.g. Liberal-defecting crossbenchers will be replaced with new liberal faces and there are some nominal changes based on redistributions), (3) the results we would get by applying a uniform 5% swing which I will one day test my guesses against and (4) the final prediction.

ELECTORATE	INCUMBENT	PENDULUM	5% SWING	PREDICTION
Adelaide	Lib	Lib	ALP	ALP
Badcoe	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Black	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Bragg	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Chaffey	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Cheltenham	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Colton	Lib	Lib	Lib	ALP
Croydon	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Davenport	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Dunstan	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Elder	Lib	Lib	ALP	ALP
Elizabeth	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Enfield	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Finniss	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Flinders	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Florey	Ind	Ind	N/A	ALP
Frome	Ind	Lib	N/A	Lib
Gibson	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Giles	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Hammond	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Hartley	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Heysen	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Hurtle Vale	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Kaurna	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Kavel	Ind	Lib	Lib	Lib
King	Lib	Lib	ALP	ALP
Lee	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Light	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
MacKillop	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Mawson	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Morialta	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Morphett	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Mount Gambier	Ind	Ind	N/A	Ind
Narungga	Ind	Lib	Lib	Lib
Newland	Lib	ALP	ALP	Ind
Playford	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Port Adelaide	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Ramsay	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Reynell	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Schubert	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Stuart	Lib	Ind	N/A	Ind
Taylor	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Torrens	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Unley	Lib	Lib	Lib	Lib
Waite	Ind	Lib	Lib	Lib
West Torrens	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP
Wright	ALP	ALP	ALP	ALP

That’s Liberal 20 seats, Labor 24 and a 3-seat crossbench. This would give Labor a 1-seat majority and put them in power after a single term in opposition.

Bear With Me

It's been a busy time for voting and elections generally, but it would be remiss of me to not discuss the big news this week.

That's right! It's Fat Bear Week!

Fat Bear Week is an annual voting contest run every year since 2014 (though in 2014 it was called Fat Bear Tuesday and lasted only one day). Votes are placed through an elimination bracket system to determine a winner, but the rules are vague as to what the voting is on.

Photos of the Bears of Katmai National Park are shown in before-and-after style of their pre-winter torpor weight gain, suggesting the votes should reflect the fattest bear, the most weight gain, the most proportional weight gain or something similar to this. Each of these could be more objectively measured than through public collective guesswork so I have to expect that people are really just voting for their favorite bears.

Whatever the intent is, the votes are already underway and wherever there's a poll there's an opportunity for a statistically dubious prediction based on publicly available (i.e. incomplete) data!

It seems the contest has been run over multiple platforms, originating on Facebook and currently held on the Explore.org webpage. This made past results a little difficult to track down, but I am running off the following as my data sources: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.

As a first port of call, it's worth considering the past winners to see if there are any patterns, and early on there are:

2014: Bear 480 ('Otis')

2015: Bear 409 ('Beadnose')

2016: Bear 480 ('Otis')

2017: Bear 480 ('Otis')

2018: Bear 409 ('Beadnose')

2019: Bear 435 ('Holly')

2020: Bear 747

Evidently there is a good level of consistency among winners with two bears taking out the first 5 wins. This is promising as it suggests there is merit in considering past form, but as the two most recent winners break this streak it is possible that both Otis and Beadnose are past their prime.

Holly, as it happens, was eliminated in the first round and Beadnose is not in the running in 2021. This leaves Otis and Bear 747 as favourites at this stage and, at time of writing, they are paired off against each other for the Round 2 vote. In a matter of hours one of these will emerge victorious and be the hot favourite heading into the finals. Otis is coming in on the back of a Round 1 victory against Bear 402 who debuted in the first competition in 2014, while Bear 747 is coming in fresh from a bye. And this leads to an interesting point about the history of byes in Fat Bear Week.

An interesting point about the history of byes in Fat Bear Week

Since its inception, Fat Bear Week has run four Round 1 match ups followed by the winner taking on a bye. There is no shortage of bears in Katmai to flesh out the contest to 16 contestants and remove the byes. The bye system does work well for a week-long contest but I have to believe that is a coincidence as the 2014 contest introduced this format despite lasting only one day.

My theory is that the bye system is for the drama, introducing new bears into the contest after the first couple of days are done. Interestingly, the byes do very well in later rounds. Two thirds of byes (19/28, 2021 results unclear) win their debut match up, and with the exception of 2018 every Fat Bear Week winner had a bye. (In 2018 Bear 409 'Beadnose' won, and although not a bye that year has been one twice before this).

There is also a very select pool of bye bears. Over eight years only ten bears have held a bye:

Bear 32 ('Chunk') - 2017, 2019, 2021

Bear 128 ('Grazer') - 2020

Bear 409 ('Beadnose') - 2014, 2015 (won)

Bear 410 ('Four-Ton') - 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

Bear 435 ('Holly') - 2016, 2018, 2019 (won), 2020

Bear 480 ('Otis') - 2014 (won), 2015, 2016 (won), 2017 (won), 2018, 2020

Bear 503 ('Cubadult') - 2019, 2021

Bear 747 - 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 (won), 2021

Bear 856 - 2018

Cub of Bear 132 - 2021

This may provide a hint as to the success of the bye bears. Perhaps, to maximise the drama of Days 3 and 4, public favourites are preferred to fill the byes.

This may give us some insight on who to watch in 2021. Yesterday Cub of Bear 132 won from a bye, but Bear 151 'Walker' beat the other bye, Bear 32 'Chunk'. Currently the remaining byes (Bears 503 and 747) are lagging behind their rivals, which would make this only the second time that less than half the byes progressed. The other case was in 2018, when former bye Bear 409 'Beadnose' ultimately won.

While we're looking at form...  

There are a good number of bears who have competed across multiple years, but due to the elimination bracket system that's no guarantee they've run against each other. The table below compares all multi-contest competitors (2014-2020) and identifies those that have met more than once.

If the results of past contests were perfectly predictive of later ones, we would see this in the golden examples above--Bears 32 and 747 have been run against each other five times and we would expect the same bear to win each time. If the past has no bearing, we would expect about 50% of the rematches to give a different result. This latter scenario is closer to the truth:

  Bear 32    5 matches with Bear 747    2 wins, 3 losses

  Bear 32    2 matches with Bear 856    2 wins

Bear 151    3 matches with Bear 480    1 win, 2 losses

Bear 151    2 matches with Bear 856    2 wins

Bear 402    2 matches with Bear 854    2 wins

Bear 409    2 matches with Bear 410    2 losses

Bear 409    3 matches with Bear 480    2 wins, 1 loss

Bear 410    3 matches with Bear 480    3 losses

Bear 435    2 matches with Bear 747    1 win, 1 loss

Bear 435    2 matches with Bear 854    1 win, 1 loss

Around half of the repeat matches have consistent results, and only one example (410 v 480) exists where three or more consistent results were recorded. Therefore while form seems useful in picking a winner it is not as reliable in resolving individual match ups.

Current state of play

At time of writing the brackets for 2021 are as follows.

Previous winners still in the running are Bear 480 ('Otis') and Bear 747. In a matter of hours one of these will be outpolled and the other will be the smart money for Fat Bear Champion 2021. This pair have only matched up once before, where they vied in the final for 2017 Champion, which Otis ultimately won. As just discussed, however, this isn't much of an indicator that Otis will win again.

Otis has the most wins of any bear (2014, 2016 and 2017), but 747 won in 2020, where Otis lost in the second round after a Round 1 bye. It is entirely possible that Otis's days at the top of the Fat Bear tree are behind him, having lost his first round every year since his last win--a streak he broke on September 30. This win was comprehensive (71,227 votes to 14,026), and there are no shortage of Otis fans on the web.

This makes the Otis-747 match up a tough one to call, but early results have Otis ahead at a rate of around 3:2.

Currently today's other race has 812 ahead of 503 by a ratio of 4:3. That will leave the semi-finals with Bear 151 ('Walker'), Cub of Bear 132, 480 ('Otis') and 812.

Semi Finals

Bear 151 ('Walker') has contested every Fat Bear Week since 2016, but with little success. He has never been a bye and only made it past round two once (2020). Walker is up against the newcomer 'Cub of Bear 132', who is too young to have either name or number yet.

Cub came in as a bye and may be a crowd pleaser with its youthful looks and baby fat, but only narrowly defeated Bear 128 ('Grazer') 40,968 votes to 32,251 (= 56.0%). Grazer was not a particularly strong contender based on previous Fat Bear Weeks or on a similarly close first round victory over 2019 winner Bear 435 ('Holly').

By comparison Walker made the semifinals last year and has had two decisive wins this year with 64,451 votes to 11,820 (= 84.5%) in Round 1 against Bear 634 ('Popeye') and 60,621 to 11,038 (= 84.6%) in Round 2 against three-time bye Bear 32 ('Chunk').

If this represents a strong support for Walker rather than a tough pool for Cub, it's hard to see how Walker doesn't make the finals.

Prediction: Walker beats Cub of Bear 132

Bear 812 is the expected winner of today's first poll. This bear suffered a first round loss in 2018 and second round loss to eventual champion Bear 747 in 2020. This year it pulled a decent win over Bear 131 (68,092 to 17,706 = 79.4%).

However, the expected winner of today's second poll is three-time Fat Bear Champion Otis who preformed even better in Round 1 against Bear 402 (71,227 to 14,026 = 83.7%). The form, performance and fame make this an easy win for Otis.

In the event Bear 747 beats Otis today, this is does not meaningfully improve 812's chances.

Prediction: Otis beats Bear 812

On their current polling numbers (83-85%) Walker and Otis may look well matched, but again Otis's history as a three times winner really sets him apart.

Prediction: Otis beats Walker, Wins Fat Bear Champion

This would make 2021 only the second time a non-bye bear has won, and like the first time it would be to a previous bye-holding winner. The second most likely outcome to my mind is an upset win by 747 today that puts him in Otis's place on the Fat Bear throne.