Kinetic exchange opinion dynamics for the battleground-states in the 2024 US presidential elections

TL;DR

This paper models opinion dynamics in US battleground states using a kinetic exchange approach, revealing that increased opinion noise can unexpectedly favor Democratic wins in the 2024 election.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic exchange opinion model tailored for battleground states, incorporating fixed opinions of non-battleground voters and analyzing the impact of opinion noise.

Findings

Higher opinion noise correlates with increased Democratic victory chances.

The model provides analytical insights and simulations based on real election data.

Opinion dynamics in battleground states significantly influence overall election outcomes.

Abstract

The strongly polarizing political discourse in the U. S. implies that a small minority of the population, determining the outcome of the presidential elections in a few so called battleground-states, also determines the outcome of the overall election. Given the almost equal distributions of the electoral college members in the so-called blue and red states, the members elected from these battleground states would determine the election results. We build a kinetic exchange opinion model that takes into account the dynamical nature of the opinions of the individuals in the battleground states and the already determined core voters of the non-battleground states. In a fully connected graph, we consider the interaction among the population in the battleground states while the agents in the non-battleground states are assumed to have fixed opinions. We provide the analytical results and numerical simulations using realistic parameters from the opinion poll of the previous election's data. Counter-intuitively, a more noisy environment predicts a higher chance of the Democrats' win.