Citizen forecasting and Partisan Networks in the 2018 US Elections

• In Event: That's Just, like, Your Opinion

Abstract

The 2018 US midterm election was a high interest, high stakes, and high uncertainty election, and one that was, in many ways, difficult to forecast. Given this complexity, we we expect that people's social networks played a critical role in shaping their expectations about the outcome of the election. Using a unique series of questions from the CCES, we examine how social network size and partisan characteristics shaped the ability of citizens to forecast the election, and whether their expectations affected their trust in the election outcome. This project has important implications for the evaluation of citizen forecasting as tool of forecasters, for understanding how networks inform citizen expectations, and how networks interact with forecasts to shape trust in the political system.

Authors

• Debra Lynn Leiter, University of Missouri-Kansas City

• Mary Stegmaier, University of Missouri

• Jack Lyons Reilly, New College of Florida