Vol. 21 · No. 1 · Issue 66 · Spring 2003

Helmut Norpoth and Thomas Gschwend

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Abstract

Picking winners in electoral contests is a popular sport in Germany, as in many places elsewhere. During the 2002 campaign for the Bundestag, pre-election polls tracked the horse race of party support almost daily. Election junkies were invited to enter online sweep-stakes. They could also bet real money, albeit in limited quantity, on the parties' fortunes on WAHL$TREET, a mock stock market run by Die Zeit and other media. As usual, election night witnessed the race of the networks to project the winner the second the polls where voters had cast their ballots closed. But in 2002, there was also one newcomer in the business of electoral prophecy: a statistical forecast based on insights from electoral research.