iPredict looking forward
I was fascinated by the efforts of some people to game iPredict, presumably to make certain seats look marginal. A person or persons must have put thousands of dollars into Hamilton East to try and make it look like Labour would win the seat. I put several hundred in to counter it (as I knew of no reason it would be marginal) and know quite a few others who did. Someone must have wasted a few thousand dollars in trying to make the seat appear marginal.
iPredict got the electorates pretty right – 70 out of 71 is quite good – only Christchurch Central was wrong (and in a big way).
In terms of the party vote, they did less well. Their final newsletter was out by the following margins for the party vote:
- National 4.1% too low
- Labour 0.7% too high
- Greens 4.9% too high
- NZ First 2.1% too low
- Conservatives 0.2% too low
- Internet Mana 0.9% too high
- Maori 0.5% too low
- ACT 0.6% too high
- United 0.3% too high
The National, Greens and NZ First results were significantly out. The others not so bad.
Anyway what is iPredict predicting for leaders at the moment:
- 62% chance John Key departs by end of 2017
- 75% chance David Cunliffe departs in 2014 and 95% chance by end of 2015
- 52% chance National wins 2017 election
- 55% chance Grant Robertson is next Labour leader
- 40% chance Steven Joyce is next National leader, and 32% chance Paula Bennett
- 73% chance Jonathan Coleman becomes Health Minister
Time will tell how accurate these ones are!