Prediction: McCain Wins

A. Sinan Ünür
October 20, 2008

Genuine prediction is an art rather than a science. Especially when the event whose outcome one is trying to predict is a one-shot affair.

No matter what analogies we can bring to bear on the analysis, it must be kept in mind that this will be the first time ever that John McCain and Barack Obama has run against each other. The outcome of the race will be determined on election day. Never again will there be another contest which replicates this one. This is what makes predicting the outcome of a presidential election very different than predicting the winner of a football game. There is no historical data on how these candidates have performed against each other in actual elections.

Back in early September, I made a prediction regarding the outcome of this election. While I thought my reasoning made sense, I also thought I would have to wait until after the debates to publicly commit to my prediction.

So, let’s make it interesting.

I am convinced that the election will be very close in terms of the national vote share.

I am equally convinced that a lot of states that are these days classified as “toss-ups” or “leaning Obama” are actually not.

Originally, I had predicted 15 states going to Senator Obama for a total of 199 electoral college votes. I have since revised my prediction and added one more state to Senator Obama’s column for a total of 16 states and 216 electoral votes. And, no, I am not going to make my individual state picks public except to mention that I believe Pennsylvania is going to go to Senator McCain and California, New Jersey and New York will all go to Senator Obama but the races will be closer than what polls indicate.

California is especially interesting to me given the fact that they successfully recalled Governer Davis and elected Schwarzenegger and that there are some interesting ballot measures this year.

O.K., I admit, the predictions are based on nothing other than gut feeling with a sprinkle of wishful thinking, but then I loved Rocky IV. I still remember singing Living in America on a cold winter night in Ankara when the world thought the Commies were winning.

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