OK, we’re going to tell you who seems to be winning the presidential election, according to a dynamic experiment unfolding over at Slate.com. But you have to promise you’ll still go to the polls, OK? Even if you think your candidate has it in the bag or can’t win.
Promise? OK.
This year, for the first time in history, Slate and Votecastr are doing something that news media organizations have been very, very wary of doing: Giving projected election results before polls are closed, for fear that knowing what’s happening in advance will suppress turnout. But you’re grownups, and we trust you to make your own decisions, so we’re going to tell you know what Slate and Votecastr are saying:
Hillary Clinton will be our next president.
At the time of 4 PT/7 ET, according to Slate, Clinton has narrow — narrow! — leads in the key contested states of Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
And now for very important caveats. First, voting is still underway. Projections can be very wrong. There was a point on Election Day in 2004 when leaked projections indicated that John Kerry had a seemingly “insurmountable lead.”
Here’s how the Slate-Votecastr project works, according to Slate:
By combining proprietary, large-sample polls taken prior to Election Day with targeted, real-time tracking of voter turnout on Tuesday, VoteCastr will make rolling projections of how many ballots have been cast for each candidate in each of the states we’re tracking: Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Votecastr includes both Democrats and Republicans on its team. They are attempting to make projections in real time. No one has ever done this successfully before, ever.
You still have to go vote.