Virginia Governor's race 2013:Post-mortem

Last night, the votes were tallied in the Virginia governor's race. The final result was

McAuliffe (Democratic) 48.0%
Cuccinelli (Republican) 45.5%
Sarvis (Libertarian) 6.6%

If you add these numbers together, you get 100.1%, which both means rounding error and effectively there were no votes for other candidates.

My system gave McAuliffe a 99.4% Confidence of Victory(CoV). That usually points to an easy win, but this was not easy, contested well into the night. What went wrong?

Well, my system does not promise to give the margin of victory, just who will win, so this one goes into the books as a win. The most recent polls that gave us the 99.4% was from Christopher Newport University, which had these numbers for the three candidates.

McAuliffe (Democratic) 45%
Cuccinelli (Republican) 38%
Sarvis (Libertarian) 10%

Notice that these numbers add up to 93%, so scaling up to make the three add up to 100.1% and keep their relative sizes, we get

McAuliffe (Democratic) 48.4%
Cuccinelli (Republican) 40.9%
Sarvis (Libertarian) 10.8%

The prediction for McAuliffe is very close, but Cuccinelli is quite low and Sarvis is very high. This is where almost all the error lies in the median poll. There was an outlier poll in the lastweek by Emerson College that had the lead at only 2% (very close to the truth), but their numbers for the three candidates are actually not very close.

McAuliffe (Democratic) 42%
Cuccinelli (Republican) 40%
Sarvis (Libertarian) 13%

This adds up to 95%, so scaling things up we get

McAuliffe (Democratic) 44.2%
Cuccinelli (Republican) 42.1%
Sarvis (Libertarian) 13.7%

This one isn't close to any of the true totals, only to the true margin of victory.

Quite simply, all the polls had the same problem. People lied about voting for the Libertarian.


As Republicans stake out a weird space (we want a government small enough to fit into your bedrooms and glove compartments) some people on the right have taken to calling themselves "Libertarians".

My problem with this is simple enough. I was registered Libertarian in 1976.

And then I met some of them.

I heard so many arguments that one nightmarish evening. Then, they were considered fringe and unacceptable but now, the same ideas are repeated across the Internet and in some circles considered mainstream. Here are a few.

a) Social Security can't survive.

b) The Post Office is an intolerable obstruction to liberty.

c) Government should have nothing to do with education.

d) Taxation is theft.

e) You should be able to smoke pot.

Well, I agree with one of those positions.

I want to keep my system as simple and clean as possible, but I have find a way to factor in what a significant but hopeless third party candidate really means. A Libertarian vote does not have an equal chance to go Democratic or Republican or stay home if the option to vote Libertarian is removed.

Since all my system promises is to call the winner sometime during the last week, last night counts as a win. As the old baseball saying goes, every hit looks like a line drive in the box score. But the next time a Libertarian appears be drawing a large number for a third party, my system has to come up with a method for adjusting the Confidence of Victory.

It is said you only learn from your mistakes. I got the winner this time, but it was still a mistake. We will see how much I learn from it.

VA Governor's race:Election Eve update

Several elections are being held tomorrow. The polls say there is no suspense whatsoever in the governor's race in New Jersey or the mayor's race in New York, where repsectively Chris Christie and Bill De Blasio are expected to win by double digits. In Virginia, the governor's race between Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli looks closer, but if my system hold true, there is extremely little chance of an upset. (I have notbeen checking the data for the down ticket races. Daily Kos says only the Attorney General race looks close.)

For a time in early September, Cuccinelli appeared to be gaining on McAuliffe, but that trend turned around and Cuccinelli's team has been starved for good news since. The last three updates on October 20, October 27 and November 3 have all put the Confidence of Victory number for McAuliffe at a formidable 99.4%. (In a strange coincidence, these three numbers came from three separate polls from three different companies, the well-known Quinnipiac and Rasmussen and the lesser known Newport College Polling Group.

My system does not predict the margin of victory, but except for one outlier predicting a close 2% margin, the rest of the polls in the past week make it look like the margin will be 6% to 7%.

I will report back on Wednesday about the results.
 

VA Governor's race:Last October update

There are three notable elections held next Tuesday. Barring absolute craziness, Bill DeBlasio will be mayor of New York City and Chris Christie will still be governor of New Jersey. That's a win for a liberal Democrat and a moderate Republican, at least by 2013 standards. The other election thatis closeris for governor of Virginia, pitting an establishment Democrat Terry McAuliffe against a Tea Party conservative Ken Cuccinelli. This race is closer, but still not really that close.

Even Republican pollsters who say it's close still have McAuliffe in the lead. There were no identified partisan pollsters among the five polling companies that put out data in the past few days. Rasmussen was reliably skewed to the right in 2012, but founder Scott Rasmussen has resigned and their polls in 2013 are closer to the median now.

Here are the five companies, the date the poll closed, the lead they have for McAuliffe and the confidence of victory number, rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent.

Washington Post 10/27 12 point lead 100.0% CoV
Roanoke 10/27 15 point lead 100.0% CoV
Hampton 10/27 6 point lead 97.3% CoV
Rasmussen 10/28 7 point lead 99.4% CoV
Quinnipiac 10/28 4 point lead 93.1% CoV

In this set of data, Rasmussen is the median, which is the number I go with. 99.4% sounds like a lock, and given that I have only collected data on less than 200 races, I don't have an instance of some candidate losing when the polls were so much in their favor. My system does not give more weigh to one company and less to another, but it should be noted that Quinnipiac alone picked a winner in the New York City comptroller race, so they are on a roll, at least in a small way. If the race is as close as they say, I will at least have to consider making a special case of mentioning their position every time they take a final poll, but that can wait until Wednesday morning to be decided.

If there are more polls, I'll make another update before Tuesday's election.
 

Final report: New Jersey special election for Senate

The special election to fill the seat of the late Frank Lautenberg will be held this Wednesday, October 16. Why it isn't being held on the same date as the governor's race this November or even being held on a Tuesday as most American election are, only Chris Christie knows.

In any case, I have said almost nothing about this race because no poll has shown it being very close. Cory Booker has a commanding lead over Steve Lonegan in every poll so far. The only dispute is how big the lead is.

Oct 13: Rutgers: sample size 513 Booker ahead 58%-36%(22 points)
Oct 12: Monmouth: sample size 1393 Booker ahead 52%-42% (10 points)
Oct 8: Richard Stockton College: sample size 729 Booker ahead 50%-39%(11 points)
Oct 7: Quinnipiac: sample size 899 Booker ahead 53%-41% (12 points)
Oct 5: Farliegh Dickinson: sample size 702 Booker ahead 45%-29% (16 points)

The story for polling nerds here is the huge discrepancy between the last two polls. My Confidence of Victory system does not try to pick the margin of victory, just the victor. Because the width of the margin is so high in all cases, the polls all agree Lonegan has next to no chance. Here are the odds using Confidence of Victory, stating them as x to 1 favorite, rounded to three significant digits.

Oct 13: Rutgers: Booker is a 16,000,000 to 1 favorite
Oct 12: Monmouth: Booker is a 18,500 to 1 favorite
Oct 8: Richard Stockton College: Booker is a 1,320 to 1 favorite
Oct 7: Quinnipiac: Booker is a 10,900 to 1 favorite
Oct 5: Farliegh Dickinson: Booker is a 4,170,000 to 1 favorite

Can I explain these differences? This may seem strange, but my explanation is these differences really don't matter. Once you get past being more than a 1,000 to 1 favorite, it's over. I have not yet had 1,000 samples, but so far the biggest favorite to lose since 2008 was about 11 to 5, or 2.2 to 1. This was Spitzer vs. Springer in New York City comptroller, a race only one Quinnipiac called for Springer.

There were some very big upsets in the Republican presidential primaries after Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich both failed to be the Not Romney and Rick Santorum went from also-ran to contender, but two person races are pretty easy to call, especially when the numbers are this big.

I'm sure there will be bigger upsets in two candidate races eventually and there may be some I didn't log because it was in a race I skipped over, like the House races or state ballot propositions. But unless voter turnout is crazy low and skewed as hell, Cory Booker will be a Senator very soon.

VA governor's race:First October update

There are races in New Jersey for senator and governor this year, but I haven't reported on them because they haven't looked interesting. Democrat Cory Booker will likely become a senator with a double digit win and Republican Chris Christie appears to be cruising to re-election by a wide margin as well.

The governor's race in Virginia is a little closer, but according to my Confidence of Victory system, only a little. Here's the latest data.

 

Since late August, polling companies have been taking a major interest in the race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cucinnelli. Every week or so, two or more polls are released, so the data I present here are weekly medians of the Confidence of Victory numbers.

Advantage McAuliffe, if you haven't been paying attention.

Most news outlets that show polling data consider the percentage lead the most important information, but my system is based on the percentage lead of voters who have a preference. This I turn into a Confidence of Victory (CoV) number using very basic statistical methods. In mid August, McAuliffe's CoV numbers were over 98%, but they fell in mid-September to about 85%. Since then, they have climbed back to 96.8%. I haven't collected enough data to say that there really is much difference when someone gets a CoV over 90%. No one with that strong a lead at the end lost in the data I gather since 2004.

Notice the prepositional phrase "at the end". We aren't at the end yet, because the election is a month away. But as it stands currently, Cuccinelli needs something like the miracle Bill De Blasio got when Anthony Weiner went from front-runner to pariah/dick joke. Unless there are pictures of Terry McAuliffe's junk floating undetected around the Internet, Cuccinelli faces very long odds indeed.

More updates when there is more data.

VA governor's race:Late September update

In Virginia, a state Barack Obama won by 4% in 2012 and 6% in 2008, the statewide races feature Tea Party favorites running on the Republican ticket. In the governor's race, both the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and the Republican Ken Cuccinelli have large negative ratings, but the basic math of the electorate says one thing clearly.

The Republicans are the minority party in the land. They've lost two presidential elections in a row, they don't hold the Senate and got less votes across the country in last congressional election, holding onto the majority in large part due to gerrymandering.
  

For all that, the needle is moving slightly for Cuccinelli if we give all polls the same weighting. Here are the Confidence of Victory numbers for recent polls, given by company name and date of poll. All give McAuliffe the advantage.

Washington Post 9/22 89.1%
Marist 9/19 90.3%
Harper[R] 9/16 94.2%
Roanoke 9/15 63.5%
Quinnipiac 9/15 84.9%

The good news for Cuccinelli: McAuliffe isn't cruising above 95% anymore and Quinnipiac, still crowing over calling the NYC comptroller race all by themselves with their new likely voter model, says the race is getting close, but still isn't really close.

The bad news for Cuccinelli: You see those two big dives downward in the graph, the one in May and the second in July?  The first was a Washington Post poll and the second was a Roanoke poll. The only polls that have had Cuccinelli ahead now have him behind.

The other bad news for Cuccinelli: My system may say 85% Confidence of Victory, but the track record so far says almost no underdog wins unless the Confidence of Victory splits about 60%-40%. The biggest upset against my system since 2008 was Stringer beating Spitzer for NYC Comptroller when Spitzer had 68.9% Confidence of Victory, the election when only Quinnipiac got the numbers right. (They have crowed loudly about that, but they had De Blasio cruising over 40% of decided voters and he only just beat that margin.)

The election is still about seven weeks off, which means my system is not built to make a prediction, but the small gains Cuccinelli has made are not what he needs. Romney was in a similar situation and saw some small gains after Obama's poor showing in the first primary, but those faded quickly enough. Cuccinelli needs something bigger than we've seen so far to close the gap, and appealing to the Republican "base", such as it is, is a step in the wrong direction right now.

More updates when I get more data.

Results from the Democratic mayoral race in New York City.

Almost all the ballots have been counted in the New York City municipal elections held yesterday. My last post here was on Sunday, but there was a late poll from Public Policy Polling that changed my numbers. After working on how I was going to consider the "median result" from a set of four polls in a three person race where there was a 40% threshold, my last prediction on Monday evening was posted to Twitter.

Final call on NYC Dem Mayor's race, different from @SamWangPhD 
55% De Blasio 1st ballot 
30% De Blasio/Thompson 
15% De Blasio/Quinn

Professor Wang's last prediction was a 90% probability of De Blasio on the first ballot.

The current vote count has Bill De Blasio at 40.3% and his closest rival Bill Thompson at 26.2%. Because his margin over the 40% threshold is so slim, we will have to wait for absentee ballots and an automatic recount for a result this close. The reported estimate is next Monday for a conclusive result.

Here on the blog, I made no mention of the comptroller's race, but I did mention it on Twitter in a two part tweet.

NYC mayoral primary today. @SamWangPhD and I agree that De Blasio first ballot win is most likely as is Spitzer for Comptroller. [1/2]

If Spitzer loses the Comptroller race, full credit should go @QuinnipiacPoll, the only organization to favor his rival Stringer. [2/2]

There were several polls of this race as you can see at this link to the Real Clear Politics polling page. There was nothing that made this look like a close race until late August, with Eliot Spitzer's hopes for a political comeback looking very strong while Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer seemed unable to make any headway. But then Quinnipiac had a poll that said the race was tied, then another Quinnipiac poll had a small of 2% for Stringer on September 1, then a commanding 7% lead a week later.

The actual result was Stringer by 4%, 52% to 48%.

The reason my system - and Professor Wang's - favored Spitzer was that no other pollster agreed with Quinnipiac, not even once. After the first Quinnipiac poll that showed a close race, Siena, Marist and PPP all released polls, all of them favoring Spitzer.

So my system failed to predict this race. Often, when I get a race wrong, I try to find ways to adjust things to improve, but if I was given a similar situation tomorrow, I wouldn't change a thing. Here are my reasons.

1. I never weigh in more than a single poll from any polling company and always the most recent.

2. Because Quinnipiac only gets one result counted, they had one poll out of three in the final mix, along with PPP and Siena.

3. In a three poll situation, I take the median result, not the average of the three. Quinnipiac was the outlier, but outliers aren't often the closest to correct. Obviously, it will happen sometimes, but it is rare enough that I do not want to second guess myself in a situation like this. Polls miss the mark, sometimes by making bad assumptions, sometimes just by the fact that randomness is involved. For example, of the three polls Quinnipiac had the largest sample size, but that does not always (or even often) mean the most accurate. Looking at the mayoral polling and factoring out the undecided, Quinnipiac had De Blasio at 46% of the people who had a preference, while PPP had him at 42% and Siena had him at 39%. In this case, it's the low outlier that was closest.

So this means at least one more report on the mayor's race. It is widely agreed that the Republican primary winner Joe Llota will be very hard pressed to win in the general election. De Blasio got 260,000 votes in the Democratic primary, Llota finished first with over 50% in the Republican primary with about 30,000, which would have given him sixth place in the Democratic race.

And while I did not use their poll, I want to congratulate Quinnipiac for being alone with the correct result in the comptroller's race. It is a field filled with randomness, but they had Stringer with a chance or the lead three separate times in barely two weeks when no one else did. That's a record they can point to with pride.

New York City Mayoral Race: Democratic PrimaryThe Weekend before the election.

On Tuesday, New York City voters will go to the polls to decide the Democratic and Republican candidates to be the next mayor. The conventional wisdom is the Democratic nominee holds a huge advantage over whichever candidate the Republicans put forward, so the Democratic primary is being given the lion's share of interest.

Since mid-August, just after Anthony Weiner's habit of sending portraits of his penis to strangers became common knowledge, the front runner has been Bill De Blasio. It is widely agreed that the ads featuring his 15 year old son Dante, he of the remarkable adolescent baritone and even cooler Afro, have made quite the impact.

This Sunday, a new poll from Marist has been  published which agrees with the general trend if not the exact numbers.

Candidate recent % (previous %)

Marist - 9/6 recent, 8/14 previous
De Blasio 36% (24%)
Thompson 20% (16%)
Quinn 20% (24%)
Other 16% (21%)
None of the Above 8% (15%)

Quinnipiac - 9/1 recent, 8/12 previous
De Blasio 43% (30%)
Thompson 20% (22%)
Quinn 18% (24%)
Other 12% (17%)
None of the Above 7% (7%)

Siena - 8/28 recent, 8/7 previous
De Blasio 32% (14%)
Thompson 18% (16%)
Quinn 17% (25%)
Other 16% (19%)
None of the Above 17% (26%)

The agreement is across the board. De Blasio had a great September, Quinn took a beating and Thompson improved enough to probably be the favorite for second place if that matters. De Blasio is seen as the progressive candidate and the candidate for the boroughs other than Manhattan. Even the fact that De Blasio is a Red Sox fan may not be enough to stop him.

Of the three polls, Quinnipiac has been the one that has found the most support for De Blasio and Siena has lagged, but that may be due to Siena being first to polls in each case. That leaves Marist, last to poll and the median poll for De Blasio support both mid-August and early September.

If we accept Marist as the most reliable because of being the median, there are three outcomes that look possible on Tuesday.

De Blasio gets more than 40% on the first ballot: 34%
A De Blasio-Thompson run-off: 36%
A De Blasio-Quinn run-off: 30%

If I were putting a wager on this three way outcome, I'd put my buck on De Blasio-Thompson in a run-off, though any of these three results can hardly be called an upset. The only thing that would make me doubt my sanity or the validity of my methods is De Blasio finishing third. There hasn't been a poll in more than three weeks that shows that result to be even close to plausible.

I'll be back on Tuesday evening to report the actual vote.

The New York City Mayor's race:One week from election day

There were a flurry of polls in the New York mayoral race in mid August and then nothing until last week. Now, we have four new polls, but two of them are from the same company, Quinnipiac, so I only count three, using the most recent Quinnipiac, one from amNew York-News 12 and a third from Siena, the polling company hired by The New York Times.
 

Both Quinnipiac and Siena polled mid-month and late month, so I will give their numbers in the form

Candidate recent% (previous %)

Quinnipiac - 9/1 recent, 8/12 previous
De Blasio 43% (30%)
Thompson 20% (22%)
Quinn 18% (24%)
Other 12% (17%)
None of the Above 7% (7%)

Siena - 8/28 recent, 8/7 previous
De Blasio 32% (14%)
Thompson 18% (16%)
Quinn 17% (25%)
Other 16% (19%)
None of the Above 17% (26%)

Both of these polls agree that August was a very good month for De Blasio and a bad month for almost everyone else. We also have a poll from amNew York-News12, who only polled once in August.

amNew York-News12 - 8/27 recent, no previous
De Blasio 29%
Thompson 24%
Quinn 17%
Other 17%
None of the Above 13%

The "median" poll can be a little difficult to judge in a multi-candidate contest. If we consider the race De Blasio vs. Thompson, the Siena poll is the median with a 14% lead.  In this case, De Blasio has about a 27% chance to cross the 40% threshold and win outright, and the Siena poll says the race for second is relatively close, but still gives Thompson a 65% Confidence of Victory over Quinn.

Here are the Confidence of Victory numbers from all three polls.

Quinnipiac
De Blasio outright win: 99.9%
De Blasio-Thompson run-off: 0.08% 
De Blasio-Quinn run-off: 0.02%

Siena
De Blasio outright win: 27.2%
De Blasio-Thompson run-off: 47.3% 
De Blasio-Quinn run-off: 25.5%

amNew York-News 12
De Blasio outright win: 0.1%
De Blasio-Thompson run-off: 99.9% 
De Blasio-Quinn run-off: 0%

There should be at least one more poll from Marist by the end of the week, but unless Siena is right, Quinn is pretty much out of the race.

 

The not much election news to report.

My Internet crashed on the day of the reporting of the Massachusetts special Senate election. My prediction said Ed Markey looked like a prohibitive favorite and he won. The median poll said he was leading by seven to ten points, he won by ten.

The other two elections in the news are the governor's race in Virginia and the special Senate election in New Jersey. There hasn't been any news since the middle of July in Virginia, where McAuliffe is still leading in the median polls.

There is news from New Jersey, but it is of zero interest to those who want an exciting race. Newark mayor Cory Booker has a huge lead in the Democratic primary and former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan looks to be a shoo-in in the Republican primary. In the general election, Booker has a massive lead as well, though there is a long time between now and the October 16 special election, strangely scheduled for a Wednesday.

Massachusetts Senate Race: Markey(D) vs. Gomez(R)Final election day update

The special election to fill John Kerry's Senate seat in Massachusetts is today and Democrat Ed Markey has lead in the polls from day one. There have been a couple polls that showed a close race, but even in those Markey has been ahead, once by as little as a single percentage point. The four polls in the final week have had him ahead by 3%, 7% and twice at 10%. The Confidence of Victory of the median poll has never slipped under 95% for Markey.

There is always a first time, but in over 100 races where I have used the Confidence of Victory method, the favorite wins an overwhelming amount of the time and a favorite at over 90% is yet to lose. Voter turnout is always important and the method does not predict the margin of victory, just the victor.  I'll be back tomorrow to give the results.

Massachusetts Senate Race: Markey(D) vs. Gomez(R) 17 June Update

New polls have been released since last Monday regarding the special Senate election to fill John Kerry's open seat in Massachusetts. On June 9, two polls were released giving Democrat Ed Markey a 7 point lead over Republican Gabriel Gomez. Two more recent polls show double digit leads, one by the Republican polling company Harper (49%-37% on 6/11) and the most recent by Boston Globe (54%-43% on 6/14).

We are eight days away from the polls closing and nearly no movement in Confidence of Victory numbers, now sitting at 97.5% for Markey. A week out it's hard to move the needle, especially given the increased popularity of voting by mail. Polling companies would like it if news organizations would add the phrase "if the election were held when the poll was taken" to any report on a poll, but with absentee ballots the election is effectively taking place now. I expect more polls this week and at least one more report on the race.

Massachusetts Senate Race:Markey(D) vs. Gomez(R)10 June Update

We are now about two weeks out from the special election to fill John Kerry's Senate seat in Massachusetts. Polling data had been scarce, but it's starting to pick up. Now that Suffolk has published their data from a poll that ended yesterday, we have five polls from 2 June to 9 June. Here is the list from newest to oldest. (The next newest poll not included is from 15 May and was conducted by Public Policy Polling [PPP], who also completed a poll on June 4. This poll would be excluded from the list either for being too old or for being done by a company already represented.)

9 June: Suffolk 48%-41% Markey n=500
Confidence of Victory 95.2%
5 June: McLaughlin[R] 45%-44% Markey n=400
Confidence of Victory 58.4%
4 June: YouGov 51%-40% Markey n=500
Confidence of Victory 99.5%
4 June: PPP[D] 47%-39% Markey n=560
Confidence of Victory 98.0%
2 June: New England College 52%-40% Markey n=500
Confidence of Victory 100.0%

The [R] and [D] behind McLaughlin and PPP respectively indicate that they are partisan companies and I include that out of a sense of fairness. I do not skew the data, I let all the pollsters have their say and take the median, which this week happens to be PPP at 98% CoV. McLaughlin is currently the lone outlier saying the race is close and even that poll does not give Gomez the lead.

Again, I consider these statements as snapshots of the situation instead of forecasts, but in general I would say Markey looks to be in the lead comfortably and Gomez has some small momentum which has to improve markedly for him to have a chance.

More updates as more polls come in.

Virginia governor's race:McAuliffe(D) vs. Cuccinelli(R)Update #2

Polling is still scarce on the governor's race in Virginia, which is as it should be since the election is in November. A new poll came out this week from Public Policy Polling showing a very similar pattern to the poll from mid-month from Quinnipiac.

In brief, the last two polls show a lead for the Democrat McAuliffe over the Republican Cuccinelli, right now at 42% to 37% compared to 43% to 38% earlier in the month. Both candidates have large negatives and about 20% of the public is not tuned in yet.

The first poll in May showed a lead for Cuccinelli. While the Confidence of Victory now shows a 92.8% chance for McAuliffe, that would only be true if the election were being held today, which obviously it isn't. More than that, if the election were right around the corner, I would not want to base my results on a single poll with 21% either undecided or voting for some other option. Unlike Nate Silver, I never talk about these early results as showing anything about what will happen in November. These are just early snapshots.

Massachusetts Senate Race:Markey(D) vs. Gomez(R)Update #2

A new poll has been taken for the Massachusetts senate race and Democrat Ed Markey continues to lead. This poll was taken on May 15 and the most recent poll before this one was completed on the 7th, so using my seven day rule, this is the only poll being considered.

Most recent poll: 15 May 2013
Polls taken within a week of the most recent: 1
Lead: 7% lead for Markey(D)
Confidence of Victory of the median poll: 98.2%

I do prefer having a larger set of data on which to base a post, but I will remind readers that I consider these updates to be snapshots of an evolving situation rather than predictions of what will take place on election day. While this is "just one poll", the resulting Confidence of Victory numbers are much the same as we saw last week. I intend to have an update at least once a week until the election on June 25 if there are enough new polls to warrant such regular reports. I'm not sure how many polling companies will be working this race in May, but I fully expect multiple polls a week in June.

Viriginia Governor's Race:McAuliffe(D) vs. Cuccinelli(R)

Virginia's gubernatorial election doesn't take place until November, but we are getting early polling results. I do not consider these numbers a prediction of what will happen, but more like a snapshot of the current situation.

Most recent poll: 13 May 2013
Polls taken within a week of the most recent: 1
Lead: 5% lead for McAuliffe(D), 43% to 38%
Confidence of Victory: 97.7%

I don't consider polls taken this far in advance to be completely meaningless, but the phrase Confidence of Victory rings hollow right now, and I say that as the inventor of the phrase. It's all about the proviso "if the election were held when the poll was taken", and obviously, the election is not being held this week or even this month. More than that, a poll at the beginning of May gave Cuccinelli a commanding lead that would have given him a 99.7% Confidence of Victory.

Still, this is an important race and I will continue to cover it throughout the year.

Massachusetts Senate race:Markey(D) vs. Gomez(R)

There are only a few elections this year, but I mean to cover the Senate and governor's races using the Confidence of Victory method, which takes polling data - percentages and size of sample - and turns it into probabilities of victory for both sides, or all three sides if a race has three truly competitive candidates, a rare occurrence in American politics.

In Massachusetts, there is a special election for the Senate seat vacated by John Kerry. It will be held on June 25.

Most recent poll: 7 May 2013
Polls taken within a week of the most recent: 4
Largest lead: 17% lead for Markey(D)
Smallest lead: 4% lead for Markey(D)
Confidence of Victory of the median poll: 97.4%

Markey has much greater name recognition than Gomez and Massachusetts is a generally blue state. The big lead is from the latest poll, but my system is interested in the median, not the most recent.

I do not think of this number as a prediction, but instead as a snapshot of the current position.  I'll report back at least once a week on this race, more often if it looks like its getting closer and there is enough polling data to track changes at a faster pace.

Results from South Carolina 01 House race.

The polls are closed in South Carolina and Mark Sanford is projected to be the winner by about a 10% margin. The last poll only put him up by 1%, but my system isn't designed to predict the margin of the win, only the direction.

Nate Silver on Twitter was not very confident because of the minimal amount of polling, but he did make Sanford a favorite at about 64% chance to win, which is pretty much what my system thought as well.

There is another special election to replace John Kerry in the Senate on June 25.  I'll keep track of the polls there and make periodic reports of the snapshots of the race, as well as a prediction on the morning of the 25th before the polls open.

Confidence of Victory prediction for the South Carolina-01 special House seat.

Unlike the races last November, the special race for the South Carolina 1st District seat is not being polled to within an inch of its life. The only company keeping track is Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic polling company that does automated polls often called robo-polls. After some early polls that had Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert-Busch ahead, the latest poll released today has a 1% lead for former governor Mark Sanford at 47% to 46%, with another 4% favoring the Green candidate Eugene Platt and the rest undecided. The sample was taken this weekend for 1,239 likely voters.

The system I use, which I call Confidence of Victory, takes the two leading vote getters in a situation like this and calculates the probability that a lead in this poll will translate into a victory in the election. With this lead and this size of a sample, Sanford has a 64% Confidence of Victory and Colbert-Busch's probability is at 36%. My system assumes a 0% chance for the Green candidate so far behind.

I would like more polling data from more companies, but if only one company reports data, it would be hard to top PPP. In their polls of the electoral college and Senate races from the last week of the general election, they went a perfect 33-0 in predicting winners. We will see tomorrow night how my prediction from this one polls fares and I will report back.