US Presidential Election 2012 Prediction using Census Corrected Twitter Model

TL;DR

This paper uses a census-corrected Twitter model to analyze online sentiment and predict the outcome of the 2012 US Presidential Election, highlighting the influence of social media on electoral predictions.

Contribution

It applies and extends a Twitter-based forecasting model with census correction to predict election results, demonstrating social media's role in electoral analysis.

Findings

Twitter sentiment correlates with election outcomes

Census correction improves prediction accuracy

Model successfully forecasted the 2012 US presidential election

Abstract

US Presidential Election 2012 has been a very tight race between the two key candidates. There were intense battle between the two key candidates. The election reflects the sentiment of the electorate towards the achievements of the incumbent President Obama. The campaign lasted several months and the effects can be felt in the internet and twitter. The presidential debates injected new vigor in the challenger's campaign and successfully captured the electorate of several states posing a threat to the incumbent's position. Much of the sentiment in the election has been captured in the online discussions. In this paper, we will be using the original model described in Choy et. al. (2011) using twitter data to forecast the next US president.