Analysis of social media predicts Donald Trump will win US presidential election
Analysis of social media that correctly predicted Donald Trump’s win in 2016 is again forecasting the US President will surprise his critics.
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A data scientist who correctly predicted Donald Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 is standing by his forecast that the US President will win again.
Professor Bela Stantic is the founder and director of Griffith University’s Big Data and Smart Analytics Lab, where he analyses social media data and sentiment to predict voters’ behaviour.
He previously told news.com.au in September that his preliminary analysis showed a Trump win in 2020.
Speaking with news.com.au again today, he believes Mr Trump is still on track to repeat his success but he does not have the same level of confidence in this result as in 2016.
“Things are much more complicated,” Prof Stantic said.
“This time support for one or the other candidate has been changing in the last month or so.”
Prof Stantic looks at Twitter data to make his predictions and said support had shifted over time for both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, possibly influenced by the coronavirus, the presidential debates and other issues.
This was different to 2016 when there was a “steady pattern”.
Prof Stantic says this shifting support and the surge of early voting makes it very difficult to predict the outcome.
“Without knowing how many people voted early and when, it’s almost impossible to have a correct model,” he said.
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However, he believes the US President is still on track to win again.
“It appears it will come down to Florida and Pennsylvania and I think overall he will have an edge in these states,” he said.
However, he noted that there were at least 100 electoral votes that were very close and it was impossible to have a very high confidence in the outcome.
Prof Stantic’s prediction flies in the face of traditional polls, most of which predict a victory for Democrat challenger Joe Biden. The betting odds are also favouring Mr Biden.
However, Prof Stantic successfully picked the winner in 49 of the 50 American states in the 2016 election when Mr Trump beat rival Hillary Clinton in a shock result.
His lab also nailed the result of both the 2016 Brexit referendum and Australia’s own federal election last year.
Originally published as Analysis of social media predicts Donald Trump will win US presidential election