Forecasting: This question will close when the polling places close on February 24th 2024 at 7:00 pm EST.
This question will be resolved based on the percentage difference between first and second place at the 2024 South Carolina Republican presidential primary. I'll use at least two different sources. I'll most likely use AP News, WSJ and NYT. This question will resolve whenever it becomes impossible for new results to change the outcome of this question. For example, if 98% of the votes are reported and the winning margin is 17.5%, it will resolve because the last 2% can't change the outcome of this question. I won't resolve early, even if it's unlikely.
In the unlikely case that the winning margin lands exactly on x5.00% or x0.00%, this question will be resolved 50:50.
You can view current polls here.
If you have any questions or if any scenarios are unclear, please ask beforehand. Otherwise, I will use my best judgment to resolve this question. I won't bet on this market.
In case you want to live bet on results, you're able to do so:
1,000
3.00@traders Finally, more than 99.85% or 755,800 of the 756,922 ballots are counted and reported, according to the official state website, corroborated by the WSJ and NYT. This implies that the outcome of this primary is close to 20.27% and within 20.00-25.00%, as uncounted ballots are insufficient to alter the result of this market. Therefore, the question resolves to 20.00-25.00%.
https://www.enr-scvotes.org/SC/119816/web.317647/#/detail/100
https://www.wsj.com/election/2024/primary/state/south-carolina
Update: This question appears to be taking longer to resolve than I had anticipated. Based on the currently available information, I am not able to resolve this market according to the description. If you have better information than I listed down below, I would love to hear from you.
Current Results: I primarily rely on the WSJ for updates as they have proven to be reliable and accurate, providing results to two decimal places, and they continue to update their information days after the primaries conclude. I have cross-checked information from about 10 different news sources.
As of now, Trump has a winning margin of 20.27%, with over 99% of the votes reported. However, the last percentage point could potentially bring it under 20%. Therefore, I am awaiting the publication of the Voter Turnout by the State Secretary of South Carolina (an example for NH is linked here) to perform the necessary calculations. This will help me either resolve the market or wait for additional information. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to access some information, including the sos.sc.gov website, due to geoblocking and the unavailability of a VPN. If you can check (regularly) or provide me with information, it would help speed up the resolution process.
Other markets: According to Polymarket, which I expect to be accurate given this is a real money market and assuming that some users have done the calculations, there is a chance between 96.8% and 98.9% of this market resolving in the 20%-30% range.
I'm sorry that the resolution takes that long. If you've any questions, please fell free to ask.
@MarkHamill just blame the polls ;). I kind of expected Haley to outperform the polls, but not by that much
@Lion There were a couple of polls in the final week that nailed it. But 538 was still giving significant weight to older ones where Haley did worse, so I didn't really believe them.
It seems like she actually made significant inroads on Trump's supporters in the final week. Why do you think that would be?
@TimothyJohnson5c16 sorry, I don't want to type the answer to this on my smartphone, I'll try to answer that tomorrow
@TimothyJohnson5c16 Okay, let's get started. There are a few factors at play here. Generally, I believe that, in most cases, like the SC primary, not one thing changes the outcome of elections. It's more or less a combination. [Of course, there are exceptions like wars, etc., but I don't want to go into that with this comment.]
Primaries are super hard to forecast compared to normal elections. (That's why I'm interested in them and create these questions.) Only a fraction of citizens who are eligible to vote actually do so. That makes it extremely hard to predict who these people are, why they are voting, and how they are voting. If polls have a sample of 500 or 1000 people, but only 15% show up to the polling place and elect someone in the Republican primary, this significantly skews the results and leads to inaccuracies. So, I agree with your point that some polls were close. However, these are inaccurate datasets, and some of them had only 500 or 700 respondents. These actually didn't match the results. These should have occurred over and under the actual results if they were accurate. While I agree with your opinion on 538 considering old polls, the new ones weren't much better, just because one or two came close to the result.
The major point is to have people actually vote in primaries (in general elections as well, but that's another topic). This might sound easy, and everyone likes democracy, but, in total, the primary had only a voter turnout of about 25%, which includes the Democrat's primary.
Let's delve into the voters and why they vote. Neither a convinced Trump nor a Haley fan changes their opinion or doesn't take part in the primary. These people are 'stubborn' and vote that way anyway. For the outcome of elections compared to polls, these are pretty unimportant. So, I disagree with your point that Haley made significant inroads among Trump's supporters.
This might be a bit of a hot take, but not all people are firmly aligned with one team or interested in politics like Manifold users who spend hours a week discussing this stuff, researching, or reading the news and forming their opinions weeks ahead of time. And these people are mostly responsible for the unpredictable results.
In conclusion, important are the undecided voters and those who aren't sure if they're going to vote since these are unpredictable through polls.
There is the simple matter of local patriotism, an important point. Several studies show that being from the same location brings candidates a lot of sympathy. This might differ from state to state, but it's quite significant for people who spontaneously decide their vote. (If you would like, we can delve into that a little more; I'll leave it here for now, because this comment already is pretty long.)
Of course, there are other points, like news about the Alabama Supreme Court ruling (which I won't go into detail about, because I don't want to participate in the discussion), which affects elections significantly. However, that's also a reason why I thought Haley would outperform.
@traders Please note that the question will close in one hour and your Mana will be tied up for a few hours or days. Please place your final bets or sell as long as you are able to do so.
If you wish to engage in live betting on results, you can do so in the market provided below.
The market for the Michigan primary (NOT CAUCUS - situation explained in the description) is also online.
Thanks everyone for placing their bets. ❤
Interesting, this doesn't seem to be in line with polymarket. https://polymarket.com/event/trump-margin-of-victory-in-south-carolina-primary
@Lion It's not that far off. This market is more granular with 5% increments vs polymarket's 10% increments. The biggest difference I'm seeing is the drop off at 35% which I think is properly valued based on recent polling and what is being perceived as a slight polling bias in Trump's favor.
@becauseyoudo The big difference I'm seeing is between 20-30%. Manifold 48% vs Polymarket 41%. Considering that both groups have access to the same polls I think that's a huge difference.