EX-POST ANALYSIS OF THE GERMAN STATE ELECTIONS IN HAMBURG:

SOME GOOD INDICATIONS AND SOME HOMEWORK TO DO, TOO.
(WHEN FREE TIME WILL BE AVAILABLE)

The German state elections in Hamburg are a thing of the past and it is now time to compare the real votes with the last official polls and with our political forecasts released on the 20/02/2011 (in the morning), which we remind considered two different methods:

1) Forecasts using GTI data and historical electoral results for the German national elections in 2009;

2) Forecasts using GTI data and past historical electoral results from 2008 onwards (including the past State election in 2008, European election in 2009 and German national elections in 2009);

In order to compare the different polls and our forecasts, we use the standard forecasting evaluation statistics:

1. the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE)
2. the Mean Absolute Error (MAE)
3. the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE)

both for single parties and classical coalitions:

EX-POST ANALYSIS OF THE GERMAN STATE ELECTIONS IN HAMBURG:

2011-02-28T06:56:00+01:00

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amburgo|germania|gigi|google trends|

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FORECASTING THE GERMAN STATE ELECTIONS IN HAMBURG USING GOOGLE TRENDS/INSIGHTS (Data up to 18/02/2011)

Bürgerschaftswahl in Hamburg 2011

Following the very positive forecasting experience with the presidential election in Portugal on the 23/01/2011, we decided to make a step further and try, for the first time, to forecast the outcome of a political election for the single parties.

Our first experiment in this regard is represented by the German state elections in Hamburg to be held on the 20/02/2011. Even though the internet penetration in Germany is high (79.1% of the population as of June 2010), nevertheless this election still represents a "tough environment" for three reasons:

- The number of voters involved is quite low: less than 1 million voters, compared to 4.5 million for the Portuguese presidential elections (and over 9.5 million potential voters).

- Modelling and forecasting single parties is more difficult than single individuals.

- In case of German elections, online searches start to give significant indications only in the last weeks before the election date, while older data are much more noisy, if not completely non-existent.

FORECASTING THE GERMAN STATE ELECTIONS IN HAMBURG USING GOOGLE TRENDS/INSIGHTS (Data up to 18/02/2011)

2011-02-20T07:57:00+01:00

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amburgo|germania|google trends|

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La battaglia di Amburgo

Città-stato del nord, tradizionale roccaforte socialdemocratica, è il primo di una lunga serie di appuntamenti elettorali che interesseranno la Germania. E’ un voto anticipato dopo la rottura traumatica dell’alleanza di governo Cdu-Verdi del sindaco-governatore Ole Von Beust. Con ogni probabilità questo land tornerà nelle mani della Spd dopo 7 anni a guida democristiana; solo da vedere se la Spd potrà governare da sola formando un governo monocolore oppure se dovrà stringere un’alleanza con i 

Verdi.

Ma vediamo nel dettaglio cosa ci dicono i sondaggi.

La battaglia di Amburgo

2011-02-19T08:56:00+01:00

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amburgo|germania|gianluca|

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