Algorithm Predicts Hillary Clinton will defeat Donald Trump to become the 45th President of the United States

by Eric Schulman and Daniel Debowy

July 28, 2016

Now that both major U.S. political parties have announced their nominees for president and vice president and the nominees have accepted these nominations, the Annals of Improbable Research U.S. Presidential Election Algorithm (Debowy and Schulman 2003) can be used to predict the results of the upcoming November election.

   photo of D. Trump: Todd Heisler/The New York Times
   photo of H. Clinton: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The algorithm predicts that the Democratic ticket of Hillary D. R. Clinton and Timothy M. Kaine will defeat the Republican ticket of Donald J. Trump and Michael R. Pence on November 8, 2016.

The algorithm was developed based on the experience of the major party candidates for president and vice president in each of the 54 U.S. presidential elections between 1789 and 2000 and it correctly predicted the outcome of the 2004, 2008, and 2012 U.S. presidential elections.

Background: About the election-prediction algorithm

According to the algorithm, being a United States senator does not contribute to one’s electability for president or vice president but being governor contributes one vice presidential electability point per year served, so the Clinton/Kaine ticket has a total electability of 4 because Timothy M. Kaine was governor of Virginia for four years. A presidential candidate loses 110 electability points if they have been divorced and a vice presidential candidate receives one electability point per year served in the U.S. House of Representatives, so the Trump/Pence ticket has a total electability of -94 because Donald J. Trump has been divorced (twice, but the electability penalty is only applied once) and Michael R. Pence was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 12 years and has been governor of Indiana for three years and part of a fourth. Although being the president or chancellor of a college or university would add 110 electability points, being the owner of an unaccredited for-profit real estate training company adds nothing, even if that company has “University” in its name.

The Annals of Improbable Research U.S. Presidential Election Algorithm has a 100% rate of successful predictions but the majority of major party primary voters do not appear to have accepted the validity of this algorithm. Schulman and Debowy (2015) found two Democratic candidates with a higher presidential electability than Hillary D. R. Clinton’s electability of 0 (Martin J. O’Malley with 88 and Lincoln D. Chafee with 154) and 14 Republican candidates with a higher presidential electability than Donald J. Trump’s -110 (James S. Gilmore III with -66; John R. Kasich with -26; Rafael E. Cruz, Randal H. Paul, and Marco A. Rubio with 0; Richard J. Santorum with 4; Lindsey O. Graham with 8; Michael D. Huckabee with 11; Scott K. Walker with 66; Christopher J. Christie with 77; John E. Bush with 88; Piyush Jindal with 91; George E. Pataki with 132; and James R. Perry with 165).