It’s been a month since we last updated our Presidential forecast, and with only 136 days to go to the elections we thought it’s about time to take another look at the state of the race.
The big takeaways:
- Our latest update to the elections forecast is largely driven by the CEI model as it has started pricing in some of the effects of the pandemic on the economy.
- In short, both Nana Addo and John Mahama saw slight dips to their chances of winning an outright majority while the chance of a runoff ticked up from 1.8% to 3.8%.
- Prior to the update Nana Addo’s chances hovered around 68.3% while Mahama sat at 29.9%. Oddly enough the economic impacts to the forecast appears to have very little impact on Nana Addo’s chances of winning a first round majority – dropping from 68.3% to 67.8%.
- John Mahama saw a bigger drop, going from 29.9% to 28.4%. While this may seem counterintuitive, keep in mind that an increase in the chance of a runoff is ultimately better for John Mahama and worse for Nana Addo.
- As to why most of the CEI effect went to the chance of a runoff rather than outrightly boosting John Mahama’s chance of a win, the most likely explanation is that the race will first tighten (get more competitive) before it flips to an NDC win.
- We are gearing up to launch our first public opinion poll on the race in August. Stay tuned and keep an eye out for the results of that poll in our next update.
- In the meantime, here’s the link to the updated Presidential Forecast.
