Psychology
Cognitive Biases in Expert Forecasting of Election Outcomes
Quick fact
Studies show that expert political forecasters are often only slightly more accurate than random guessing, yet they express high confidence in their predictions; for instance, in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, most experts gave Hillary Clinton a 70-99% chance of winning, and they were wrong.
Why this is interesting
You might assume that top political forecasters, armed with data and models, would predict elections accurately. Yet they are often spectacularly wrong—how can that be?