Welcome to Vorcast, my answer to the gap in Germany’s media landscape when it comes to data journalism.
In this first post, I’ll introduce the blog, why I created it, and what you’ll find here. A lot of the points I bring up will end up being their own individual posts in the future — but I’ll keep things brief for now.
In Germany, reporting on polling can mostly be divided into two categories: individual outlier polls that are overemphasized or polls are ignored in favor of more subjective analysis. I find this very frustrating for several reasons:
- Polling institutes in Germany do a pretty good job and have had a decent track record in the past. They deserve to be taken a bit more seriously as a bellwether for popular opinion.
- There is no better way currently available to truly grasp how voters feel about parties.
- Too often, short-term analysis trumps longer-term thinking about what truly matters to voters
Now that I have aired my grievances, what do I intend to do about them? I started this blog. You will find regular posts here covering polling, politics, and data with a focus on Germany for the most part. My aim is to write at least one post a month — but since this isn’t my day job, this might turn out to be overambitious. There is also a page where I explain the Vorcast Model that tries to predict the results of the next German election. Oh yes, there is a prediction model.
These kinds of models have become standard for the US presidential elections but I believe there are real benefits of creating one for Germany as well. Of course, the German electoral system is very different from first-past-the-post systems like in the US or UK where a small number of votes can make a huge difference. Generally, German elections are not decided by a small number of votes (though this is starting to change). Nonetheless, it is important to know which way the wind blows politically in Germany:
- Germany is an important country, arguably the most important one in Europe.
- Its political landscape has undergone tremendous changes in the past 30 years and has become a lot more fractured.
- The margins for what is a possible governing coalition in Germany are becoming smaller and smaller, meaning that even small differences in electoral performances matter a lot more than they used to.
The Vorcast Model predicts the election performance of each of Germany’s major parties. Check out the model page where I explain the model in depth. There you will also find the Vorcast Polling Average, which is a weighted average of all major polls. The model page will be updated on a weekly basis to incorporate the latest polls and other data.
To round things up, there is also a small section about me as well as my privacy policies. This is a new venture for me and I am very excited (and anxious) to see how it will go. I really welcome feedback of any kind. You can reach me via Twitter or through vorcast709@gmail.com.
