Using state polls to forecast U.S. Presidential election outcomes

This paper uses pre-election polls to forecast U.S. Presidential election outcomes in the states and the Electoral College. The approach is notable in three ways. First, we employ state-level polls to predict voting outcomes in the states; second, we associate probabilities with alternative election outcomes, and third, we identify states most likely to be pivotal in the Electoral College. Using information available on the day before the election, we estimated that the probability of a Republican victory in the Electoral College in the 2004 election was 47.27%.