{"id":98291,"date":"2024-10-15T16:34:55","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T22:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/?p=98291"},"modified":"2025-04-15T09:03:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T15:03:42","slug":"the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of forecasting: Burkhart shares expertise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Ross
Burkhart has been a political science faculty member since 1997, but it wasn\u2019t until 2017 that he found an interest in the area of election forecasting, inspired by his PhD dissertation mentor, Michael Lewis-Beck.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How does election forecasting work and how will it account for societal changes like the rise of social media? Ross Burkhart<\/a>, professor in the School of Public Service, shared expertise on the current processes and potential changes in election forecasting as our world changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How forecasting works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are many different theories that election forecasters run their predictions through, but for Burkhart\u2019s research, he uses one commonly known as the \u201creward and punishment\u201d theory, centering around the idea that voters are like \u201cgods\u201d who reward performance and punish non-performance. After choosing a theory, forecasters then test the theory with a variety of independent variables, such as the state of the economy or public opinion polling. Through regression analysis, forecasters can find out how these independent variables affect the dependent variable being tested (typically an incumbent candidate or political party).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forecasting the 2024 U.S. election<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To conduct a forecast for this year\u2019s presidential election, Burkhart selected two different moments in time \u2013 one in July just before current President Joe Biden stepped out of the race, and one in early August towards the beginning of Kamala Harris\u2019 campaign for presidency. He used Biden\u2019s favorability ratings from both of these dates \u2013 36% in July and 43% in August \u2013 and found that the total number of electoral votes were 262 and 306, respectively. With a total of 270 electoral votes needed to win, Burkhart\u2019s forecast predicts former President Donald Trump winning as of July and the win of Vice President Kamala Harris as of August. Burkhart shared that there are some complications with these results given the quick turnaround of the Democratic party\u2019s candidates for president. \u201cSome of this modeling hinges upon whose approval are we really focusing on\u2026the Biden presidency or the Harris nomination,\u201d he said. \u201cThe race is relatively close, and then there\u2019s also some room for interpretation here. It suggests that this election is going to be heavily contested.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a few complications that can present barriers to election forecasting. Firstly, the sample size for forecasting is fairly small. Burkhart is only able to use the last 19 presidential elections, and much of the forecasting model relies on prior election results for prediction. Forecasting also largely relies on the idea that voting behavior wouldn\u2019t change much between elections. Another complicating factor is that in order for this type of structural forecasting model to be accurate, it is conducted at a single point in time, usually about 2-3 months before election day, which makes it difficult to account for influencing factors that may happen in between the forecast and the election. There are other models of forecasting where the predictions change as polls change, but Burkhart finds the structural forecasting model to be more accurate over time.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future of forecasting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019ll be interesting to see how election forecasting changes as we go forward, Burkhart concluded. With the rise of social media and digital methods for political campaigning, it\u2019s hard to tell just yet how forecasts will be affected. \u201cWe need to build up the data\u2026for this type of forecasting to work, you need variables that are consistently measured across time,\u201d Burkhart shared. \u201cSocial media presence really did not start until 2008, but it already has been a major catalyst of political movements. I think it\u2019s possible that if we gather more information about public opinion through social media in future election cycles, we might be able to use it in these models. We need to be sure that we\u2019re using variables that can consistently be measured to be reliable.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn more about Ross Burkhart<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Lainey Rehkemper<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How does election forecasting work and how will it account for societal changes like the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2441,"featured_media":98293,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1522],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sps-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe future of forecasting: Burkhart shares expertise - Public Service<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The future of forecasting: Burkhart shares expertise\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How does election forecasting work and how will it account for societal changes like the...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Service\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-15T22:34:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-15T15:03:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/137\/2024\/10\/Untitled-design-17-1080x630.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lainey Rehkemper\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lainey Rehkemper\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lainey Rehkemper\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/#\/schema\/person\/7f854595597cdfc64691fd6ceb5876b3\"},\"headline\":\"The future of forecasting: Burkhart shares expertise\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-15T22:34:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-15T15:03:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/\"},\"wordCount\":647,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/137\/2024\/10\/Untitled-design-17.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"SPS News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.boisestate.edu\/sps\/blog\/2024\/10\/the-future-of-forecasting-burkhart-shares-expertise\/\",\"name\":\"The future of forecasting: Burkhart shares expertise - 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