Using polls to forecast popular vote share for US Presidential Elections 2016 and 2020: An optimal forecast combination based on ensemble empirical model

Easaw, Joshy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3476-4300, Fang, Yongmei and Heravi, Saeed ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0198-764X 2023. Using polls to forecast popular vote share for US Presidential Elections 2016 and 2020: An optimal forecast combination based on ensemble empirical model. Journal of the Operational Research Society 74 (3) , pp. 905-911. 10.1080/01605682.2022.2101951

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Abstract

This study introduces the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) technique to forecasting popular vote shares in general elections. The technique is useful when using polling data. Our main interest in this study is shorter- and longer-term forecasting and, thus, we consider from the shortest forecast horizon of 1-day to three months ahead. The EEMD technique is used to decompose the election data for the two most recent US presidential elections; 2016 and 2020. Three models, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Neural Network (NN) and ARIMA models are then used to predict the decomposition components. Subsequently, the final hybrid model is constructed by comparing the prediction performance of the decomposition components. The predicting performance of the combination model is compared with the benchmark individual models: SVM, NN, and ARIMA. Finally, this is also compared to the single prediction market IOWA Electronic Markets. The results indicate that the prediction performance of combined EEMD model is better than that of the individual models.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis
ISSN:	0160-5682
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	15 July 2022
Date of Acceptance:	6 July 2022
Last Modified:	16 Nov 2023 23:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/151323

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