Welcome to Voting Trend. My name is Dave Trotter and I’m an election data specialist who has been working in the field of politics for over 30 years. I have worked in both the practical field of politics, starting in 1992 on a small Florida State Senate campaigns for an unknown candidate named Buddy Dyer (who would later become Mayor of Orlando). Since then I have worked on campaigns in Florida, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, Alabama, as well as Canada. 

I have also worked in the academic field, receiving my Masters Degree from McGill University (one of the best Political Science graduate programs in the world), focusing on voting behavior and election forecasting models. I have written a number of academic papers focusing on US, Canada, and East German voting behavior, as well as the chapter on the Econometric Approaches to 2017 Forecasting in the latest Sage Handbook of Electoral Behavior (2017).

Over the last number of years, the predictive models (known as nowcast models) presented here at Voting Trend, have been more accurate than Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, RealClear Politics, and other election predictors.