Update 1.6.21: It is official, Rev. Raphael Warnock (Democrat), has won one the first of two runoff elections in Georgia.
A new President and Vice-President will be entering the White House in the next few weeks, both are Democrats. The Democratic party is also the majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans are the current majority of the Senate, but that may change due to two elections taking place in Georgia. Even though both races are close, data scientists are predicting that the Democrats will win both seats.
If the polls for the Presidential race was predicated accurately by data scientist, then their latest analysis of the Georgia runoffs may be accurate. While President Trump refuses to acknowledge the accuracy of American elections and has refused to give a concession speech because he is trying to overturn the election, it is safe to assert that whatever the final count will be in both races in Georgia will generate a negative response from President Trump and the Republican candidates in Georgia.
Most Americans understand that President Trump is trying to obstruct the democratic process in order to receive another four-year term. He may use the potential losses in the United States Senate as more “evidence” of rigged elections throughout the country, including his loss to President Elect Joe Biden last November.
Most Americans, of both political parties, are tired of the baseless claims for recounting votes as a means to delay or prevent the next administration from taking place. People want facts and scientific data that will provide them with accurate information. According to Thomas Miller, a data scientist at Northwestern University, the runoffs in Georgia and the recent Presidential election were “sophisticated, data-rich, bias-free”.
Miller believes that many analytics firms are underestimating the performance of the Democratic Party in the two runoffs. While some national media polls are suggesting Republican candidates may win in a landslide because they do not want the Democratic Party to have control over Congress and the White House. Miller’s analytics are predicting a much tighter race than some of the national media poll data. His analysis is based on metrics rather than misleading information that leads to “fake news”.
Miller acknowledges that both races are competitive, but Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are most likely to win the two seats. He pinpoints that Ossoff will win by a narrow margin, and Warnock by as much as a 2% margin.
Miller’s analytics suggests that there is more than a 50% chance that the Democrats will win both elections. This would put Democrats as the majority in the White House and Congress, which would give the Biden administration more opportunity to pass legislation on securing the country’s national and international law and policies. Miller’s data science is comprised of three types of forecasts.
The first is the distribution of a “Preference Survey” on 1,200 Georgia residents, asking them who they are planning to vote for. His second forecast is his Prediction Market data. He examines the prices posted on a political betting website for American gamblers-PredictIt. Miller analyzes the data and projects which candidate is more likely to obtain the most votes.
You can see his complete forecast here: data-science-quarterly.com. In his third forecast, Miller canvasses the same 1200 citizens from the first poll, but instead of asking who they intend to vote for, he asks who do you expect to win the elections. Based on these tiers of data, Miller has projected that the Democrats will pick up both United States Senate seats.