This year, I am giving away some of my money to whomever can best predict the outcome of the election! Here you can find the full rule sets for each contest and the entries.

October 1 Contest

Enter via Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScY9UyBgKA8yBNHwTKEtqr515rOsMEnPE-GMPeqchSWdNnn0g/viewform?usp=sf_link

Entries: Not available yet

Rules:

This a contest to find who can best predict the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, run by @jipkin on twitter. The winner will receive $350 (paid by me, with contributions from @andnlnd and @Profes1234 to the prize pool), the first runner-up will receive $100 and the third-place contestant will receive $50. To be eligible for the prize money, you must complete the first question on the survey where you provide your twitter @ handle (I will use this to contact you to get you payment). ALL PREDICTIONS YOU MAKE HERE WILL BE MADE PUBLIC, so if you do not want others to know your predictions but would like to participate anyway, you can skip the first question (though you will not be eligible for prize money).

You will be asked to predicted the Democratic margin of victory (or defeat) in a number of presidential and senate contests this cycle.

For margin of victory or defeat, please follow the instructions to enter a number within the given range (for instance, -100 to 100 for a state) where negative numbers will indicate the difference between the Democratic candidate’s percent vote share and the winner’s percent vote share and positive numbers indicate the difference between the Democratic candidate’s percent vote share and the runner-up’s percent vote share. For example, if you think Biden is likely to lose Texas by 3.6 points, enter -3.6. You can choose whatever precision you like, but all answers will be rounded to two decimal places.

Scoring will be done according to the rules here (for this contest, only margins are being considered so ignore the bits on win probabilities): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16SE9sMrD5FEt26Mzq2qHV00hb0PxBF-XQm5W9d0cNzQ/edit?usp=sharing

You can view previous contest rules and entries from this page: https://predictingpolitics.com/2020-election-prediction-contests/

Predictions will be made available after the close of entries after 11:59pm on September 1.

This is the second of four rounds of prediction contests (August 1, September 1, October 1, and November 1 end dates). Each will have at least the same $250 prize available to the winner. I will be entering each contest as well, but will not be eligible for prizes so in the event that I win, the runner-up will receive the prize.

One prize-eligible entry per twitter handle. Prize only available to entrants that own twitter accounts created prior to July 1, 2020 (to avoid people spamming accounts and entries). If I receive multiple entries for the same handle because people are somehow trying to troll by making someone else look like they’re making bad predictions, I’ll sort it out before publishing any predictions from that account name. So don’t, please.

Winners will be determined based on the official FEC publication of 2020 election results (not expected until Jan-Mar 2021) at this site: https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/election-and-voting-information/. PRIZES WILL NOT BE AWARDED UNTIL THIS DOCUMENT IS PUBLISHED – YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE YOUR PRIZE UNTIL EARLY 2021 IF YOU WIN.

No purchase necessary. In the event of the death or withdrawal of any candidate named in the questions below prior to the election, the contest will resolve based on the best performing Democrat in the race (i.e. if Biden dies and is replaced by Harris on the ballot, the contest will resolve based on Harris’ margin).

September 1 Contest

Entries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11CmCZUS68cq2CkRBhWnV1RP2cU7rG2sI_QxRmpFPeqU/edit?usp=sharing

Rules:

This a contest to find who can best predict the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, run by @jipkin on twitter. The winner will receive $350 from me (initially $125, upped to $350 after a generous infusions by @andnlnd and @OldBullTV), the first runner-up will receive $100 and the third-place contestant will receive $50. To be eligible for the prize money, you must complete the first question on the survey where you provide your twitter @ handle (I will use this to contact you to get you payment). ALL PREDICTIONS YOU MAKE HERE WILL BE MADE PUBLIC, so if you do not want others to know your predictions but would like to participate anyway, you can skip the first question (though you will not be eligible for prize money).

You will be asked to predicted the Democratic margin of victory (or defeat) in a number of presidential and senate contests this cycle.

For margin of victory or defeat, please follow the instructions to enter a number within the given range (for instance, -100 to 100 for a state) where negative numbers will indicate the difference between the Democratic candidate’s percent vote share and the winner’s percent vote share and positive numbers indicate the difference between the Democratic candidate’s percent vote share and the runner-up’s percent vote share. For example, if you think Biden is likely to lose Texas by 3.6 points, enter -3.6. You can choose whatever precision you like, but all answers will be rounded to two decimal places.

Scoring will be done according to the rules here (for this contest, only margins are being considered so ignore the bits on win probabilities): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16SE9sMrD5FEt26Mzq2qHV00hb0PxBF-XQm5W9d0cNzQ/edit?usp=sharing

Predictions will be made available after the close of entries after 11:59pm on September 1.

This is the second of four rounds of prediction contests (August 1, September 1, October 1, and November 1 end dates). Each will have at least the same $250 prize available to the winner. I will be entering each contest as well, but will not be eligible for prizes so in the event that I win, the runner-up will receive the prize.

One prize-eligible entry per twitter handle. Prize only available to entrants that own twitter accounts created prior to July 1, 2020 (to avoid people spamming accounts and entries). If I receive multiple entries for the same handle because people are somehow trying to troll by making someone else look like they’re making bad predictions, I’ll sort it out before publishing any predictions from that account name. So don’t, please.

Winners will be determined based on the official FEC publication of 2020 election results (not expected until Jan-Mar 2021) at this site: https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/election-and-voting-information/. PRIZES WILL NOT BE AWARDED UNTIL THIS DOCUMENT IS PUBLISHED – YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE YOUR PRIZE UNTIL EARLY 2021 IF YOU WIN.

No purchase necessary. In the event of the death or withdrawal of any candidate named in the questions below prior to the election, the contest will resolve based on the best performing Democrat in the race (i.e. if Biden dies and is replaced by Harris on the ballot, the contest will resolve based on Harris’ margin).

August 1 Contest

Entries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZAulyIPQGZuHyk5l_9CXiBWynAQL8IuCv06I4kXmsHI/edit?usp=sharing

Rules:

This a contest to find who can best predict the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, run by @jipkin on twitter. The winner will receive $125 from me. To be eligible for the prize money, you must complete the final question on the survey where you provide your twitter @ handle (I will use this to contact you to get you payment). ALL PREDICTIONS YOU MAKE HERE WILL BE MADE PUBLIC, so if you do not want others to know your predictions but would like to participate anyway, you can skip the final question (though you will not be eligible for prize money).

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of @andnlnd, the prize pool is now $250 per contest (paid by me). andnlnd remains unable to see the submissions until they’re all made public for everyone else and is thus still prize-eligible should he choose to enter.

There are two kinds of predictions you will be asked to make here: % probability that the Democratic nominee wins a contest, and the margin of victory or defeat for the Democratic nominee in that contest. For % probability questions, please enter a number between 1 and 99, where 1% indicates an extremely low chance of winning and 99% indicates an extremely high chance of winning.

If you find committing to a numeric win probability challenging, you can convert from typical verbal probabilities roughly as follows:
–Toss-up: 50% (40-60%)
–Leans: 67.5% (60-75%)
–Likely: 85% (75-95%)
–Safe/Solid: 97.5% (95%-100%)

For margin of victory or defeat, please follow the instructions to enter a number within the given range (for instance, -100 to 100 for a state) where negative numbers will indicate the difference between the Democratic candidate’s percent vote share and the winner’s percent vote share and positive numbers indicate the difference between the Democratic candidate’s percent vote share and the runner-up’s percent vote share.

For example, if you think Joe Biden is 40% to win Texas, enter 40 into the answer field for that question. Because you think he is more likely to lose than win, your expected margin of victory or defeat could be something like -1.5 (indicating you think he will lose by 1.5 percentage points), so enter -1.5 into the answer field for that question.

You can choose whatever precision you like, but all answers will be rounded to two decimal places.

Scoring will be done according to the rules here (briefly: roughly 80% of your score will be determined by how close your predicted margins of victory are to the real margin [absolute difference], and the remaining 20% of your score will be determined by how well you picked who is most likely to win; highest score wins): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16SE9sMrD5FEt26Mzq2qHV00hb0PxBF-XQm5W9d0cNzQ/edit?usp=sharing

Predictions will be available here, after submissions for this round are closed (11:59:59 Eastern, August 1):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oIsOd1nKlNZmDKpkbDlJVXC_oz2hfmATB0ccvuCnjnQ/edit?usp=sharing

This is the first of four rounds of prediction contests (August 1, September 1, October 1, and November 1 end dates). Each will have at least the same $125 prize available to the winner. I will be entering each contest as well, but will not be eligible for prizes so in the event that I win, the runner-up will receive the prize.

One prize-eligible entry per twitter handle. Prize only available to entrants that own twitter accounts created prior to July 1, 2020 (to avoid people spamming accounts and entries). If I receive multiple entries for the same handle because people are somehow trying to troll by making someone else look like they’re making bad predictions, I’ll sort it out before publishing any predictions from that account name. So don’t, please.

Winners will be determined based on the official FEC publication of 2020 election results (not expected until Jan-Mar 2021) at this site: https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/election-and-voting-information/. PRIZES WILL NOT BE AWARDED UNTIL THIS DOCUMENT IS PUBLISHED – YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE YOUR PRIZE UNTIL EARLY 2021 IF YOU WIN.

No purchase necessary.