Our margins of error apply to forecasting accuracy for the actual election, and reflect not only sampling errors, but also errors resulting from respondents changing their minds, reporting untruthfully, or choosing not to vote. 370 Note that our base forecasts predict 350 Electoral Votes for Clinton and 188 for Dole, with the Clinton advantage increasing to 370 to 168 if one includes a Southern Democrat advantage. By this method we forecast 337.12 electoral votes for Clinton and 200.88 electoral votes for Dole. The totals change to 376.27 for Clinton and 161.88 for Dole when the Southern Democrat advantage is added. Our analysis predicts a Clinton victory by any method, but still leaves the possibility that the race could be close.
History suggests that early leads, especially Democratic ones, tend to diminish.
This maintains consistency with practice in the early years of the sample emplyed in our historical analysis of elections.