PB 2014 competition predictions now out

(Firstly, apologies for the delay in getting these predictions released – I’ve been absolutely flat out at work with year-end, so thanks for your patience.)

80 pundits took part in PB’s annual crystal ball-gazing exercise, looking at everything from UK leaders at Christmas, the Scottish independence referendum and the Euro-elections, to key international elections, and predictions for the opinion polls from ICM.

Full details of the player-by-player predictions are available here.

 
UK leaders:

• Unanimous predictions for Cameron and Clegg as PM and DPM at Xmas 2014
• Ed Balls got an 84% prediction for Shadow Chancellor at Xmas – Alastair Darling was next with 6%

 
Scotland referendum:

• Just 20% of players think that Scotland will vote Yes to independence
• The average predicted Yes percentage was 41.7

 
Euro-Elections

• Labour is narrowly predicted as the winner, with an average vote % of 28.0
• UKIP are just behind, with an average of 27.2
• The Conservatives’ average prediction is 22.7% with 9.4% for the Lib Dems
• 49 players had Labour winning outright or tying for first, 30 had UKIP, 9 Con

In the opinion poll predictions, the average highs and lows for the four main parties were (Lab/Con/LD/UKIP) 41/37/15/19 and 33/29/9/9, with the average for the largest Labour lead being 10 points, and the average smallest Labour lead being a one point deficit.

 
International elections:

• Brazil (October) – Incumbent president Dilma Rousseff is the overwhelming predicted winner with 89%, with no other prediction getting into double figures.
• India (April/May) – a slightly more mixed picture here, with the BJP’s Narendra Modi securing 61% of predictions, way ahead of Rahul Gandhi, who will lead the election campaign for the Congress Party, on 21%.
• US Senate (November) – the Democrats have a comfortable lead in predictions, with 63% of players predicting them to hold onto the upper house in this autumn’s elections.

 
Many thanks and good luck to everyone who took part, and can I wish all punters, posters, and lurkers on PB all the very best for the rest of 2014 – if anyone would like to take part in the Election Game, the site is available here and the next game will be for the Wythenshawe by-election.

 

Double Carpet (@electiongame)