The Spanish political map faces the next May 28 the first big jolt of the year. The municipal and regional elections will put into play 12 autonomous governments and 8,135 mayors, and its outcome will serve as a thermometer for the degree of mobilization of the electorate of each party with a view to the autumn generals. Left versus right will be the great duel, but in this background competition several much more complex territorial battles will overlap.
Before these elections, THE NEWSPAPER and favorite recover the new format that they launched in the 2021 Community of Madrid elections and that they successfully repeated in the 2022 Castilla y León elections and in the 2022 Andalusia elections to know day by day not only the evolution of expectations of seats and councillors, but also the most probable post-electoral scenarios.
Specifically, starting this Tuesday, April 25, and until the eve of the elections, EL PERIÓDICO and Predilect will announce the results of nine prediction markets every 24 hours: Barcelona, Madrid, Madrid’s community, tarragona, Lleida, Girona, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, badalona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet. The data will be updated every day first thing in the morning.
Predilect, in six keys
Predilect is an electoral tool similar to a stock market that is based on the transactions of a group of specialists in political, social and economic sciences. These participants make their predictions based on the events that happen every day during the pre-campaign and the electoral campaign, as well as all the information related to the elections: surveys, previous elections, news, debates… These prediction markets will allow us to know the daily evolution of two variables: the estimate of councilors and seats to each party and the most likely government formula after the elections.
Next, we summarize in six keys the operation of this electoral tool.
Favorite a research project of the University of Zurichdirected by the political scientist Alberto Lopez, whose objective is to study the effect of expectations and campaign actions on electoral results. The mechanism closely resembles that of a stock marketbut instead of trading financial products, Predilect participants trade actions on political events futures. It is a method of electoral estimation similar to surveys, aggregations or predictive models validated by emerging scientific evidence.
From the signals emitted by the prediction market, some electoral variables can be estimated, such as the voting expectations and the most likely government formula. Those will be, precisely, the two forecasts that the participants in the prediction markets for municipal and regional elections will make daily. His job is to translate the information at his disposal into probabilities: surveys, previous elections, news, events…
Who are the participants?
Unlike surveys, in our predictions market we have recruited participants interested in politics, most of them professors and students of social, political and economic sciences from Spanish universities. we have 400 participants, of which at least 250 are already active during the pre-campaign. As the objective is eminently scientific, participants cannot borrow or invest their own money. Instead, they are given 10 euros, amount that can go up or down depending on the good performance of the participant and that serves as an incentive to motivate success and block possible biases. The average activity during the campaign usually reaches 150 daily transactions average.
How is the future government predicted?
To predict the government resulting from the elections, each of the most probable scenarios is a contract in the market. The participants buy and sell, for example, a contract called “government of PP and Vox”. As soon as the market gets going, the variant price of this contract reflects the probability of that formula occurring. Participants can buy actions if they think that the probability of this scenario taking place is greater than that suggested by their price, and Sell shares if they think the probability of such a scenario is lower. Thus, the price of each contract reflects the probability that each resulting type of government will be constituted.
How is the electoral result predicted?
To forecast the number of seats that each political formation will obtain, we have a submarket for each of the parties. In each of these markets, participants have to assign probabilities to the possible electoral results of each force. These probabilities are aggregated and interpolated on a daily basis offering precise estimates of seats.
An electoral prediction market allows to know the evolution of live results, showing the direct effect of the different events that occur during the campaign on the expectations of a party’s vote. In the same way, it is possible to observe how it evolves every day, with the evolution of events, the most likely government formula. And it has another advantage over surveys: this tool is not subject to the legal prohibition to publish opinion polls during the five days prior to the elections.
Detailed analysis and ‘newsletters’
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Each daily update of the prediction market will reflect the effects of the events of the previous day and will be accompanied by a summary of the main conclusions of the data for each day. As it is not a survey and is not subject to the legal veto Due to the publication of opinion studies during the last week of the campaign, the predictions may be updated until May 28, with data collected up to the reflection journey.
The coverage of EL PERIÓDICO and Predilect will be completed with three articles, which will be published on the days May 11, 19 and 26, in which the evolution up to that moment of electoral and post-electoral expectations will be analyzed in detail. These articles, as well as the evolution of the prediction markets, will be included in the ‘newsletter’ Política.cat and in the rest of the ‘newsletters’ of EL PERIÓDICO.