Forecasting Spanish elections

Abstract

The behavior of the individual Spanish voter has come to be rather well-understood, thanks to a growing body of literature. However, no models have appeared to explain or forecast national election outcomes. This gap in the research contrasts sharply with the extensive election forecasting work done in other leading Western democracies. Here, we fill this gap. The model, developed from core political economy theory, is parsimonious but statistically robust. Further, it promises a considerable level of prediction accuracy for legislative and European election outcomes, six months before the contest actually occurs. After presenting the model and carrying out extensive regression diagnostics, we offer an ex ante forecast of the November 2011 legislative election, then discuss the model and the forecast in light of what the actual election result turned out to be. © 2012 International Institute of Forecasters.