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Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) started out the election season with much buzz. But at this point, pollsters seem less interested in him, so there isn’t a lot of really current polling that pits him against a Democrat. There are only 83 state polls matching up Walker to Hillary Clinton (Jeb Bush has 212 such polls). Consequently, Walker at a bit of a disadvantage, since most of the polls were taken when Clinton was polling more strongly against all opponents.
No biggie…this is a shakedown for these analyses, so I’ll post it with the caveat that there just isn’t enough recent polling for this match-up. Perhaps pollsters will soon find reason to be more interested in the Governor.
After 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 99,503 times and Walker wins 497 times (including the 103 ties). Clinton received (on average) 317 to Walker’s 221 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 99.5% probability of winning and Walker would have a 0.5% probability of winning.
Clinton tends to win in the classic swing states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan as well as Nevada and New Mexico. But the most remarkable thing about these results is how poorly Walker does in his home state of Wisconsin. Here’s the polling picture:
Walker is down by double digits, suggesting the people of Wisconsin are not really interested in seeing him in the White House (and maybe not as their Governor). This is quite damning for Walker, who is campaigning on the fact that he is a thrice-elected Republican in a blue state.
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Clinton (data here):
- 317 electoral votes with a 6.64% probability
- 328 electoral votes with a 5.12% probability
- 323 electoral votes with a 4.69% probability
- 332 electoral votes with a 3.82% probability
- 334 electoral votes with a 3.38% probability
- 326 electoral votes with a 2.88% probability
- 310 electoral votes with a 2.72% probability
- 307 electoral votes with a 2.65% probability
- 343 electoral votes with a 2.50% probability
- 304 electoral votes with a 2.35% probability
After 100,000 simulations:
- Clinton wins 99.5%, Walker wins 0.5%.
- Average (SE) EC votes for Clinton: 317.3 (16.7)
- Average (SE) EC votes for Walker: 220.7 (16.7)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Clinton: 317 (282, 348)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Walker: 221 (190, 256)
Each column of this table shows the electoral vote total aggregated by different criteria for the probability of winning a state (Safe=100%, Strong=90%+, Leans=60%+, Weak=50%+):
| Threshold | Safe | + Strong | + Leans | + Weak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Clinton | 159 | |||
| Strong Clinton | 81 | 240 | ||
| Leans Clinton | 77 | 77 | 317 | |
| Weak Clinton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 317 |
| Weak Walker | 11 | 11 | 11 | 221 |
| Leans Walker | 38 | 38 | 210 | |
| Strong Walker | 22 | 172 | ||
| Safe Walker | 150 |
The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 02 Sep 2014 to 02 Sep 2015, and including polls from the preceding month (FAQ).
An animated sequence of maps and electoral vote distributions can be seen here
This table summarizes the results for the past month by state. Click on the poll count to see the individual polls included for the state.
| 1 | 0 | EC | # | Total | % | % | Clinton | Walker | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 8 | Votes | polls | Votes | Clinton | Walker | % wins | % wins | |
| AL | 9 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| AK | 3 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| AZ | 11 | 1* | 522 | 49.4 | 50.6 | 42.3 | 57.7 | ||
| AR | 6 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| CA | 55 | 2* | 1554 | 57.9 | 42.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| CO | 9 | 1* | 1047 | 44.7 | 55.3 | 0.8 | 99.2 | ||
| CT | 7 | 1* | 1063 | 61.6 | 38.4 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| DE | 3 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| DC | 3 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| FL | 29 | 1* | 987 | 55.8 | 44.2 | 99.5 | 0.5 | ||
| GA | 16 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| HI | 4 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| ID | 4 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| IL | 20 | 1* | 829 | 56.2 | 43.8 | 99.4 | 0.6 | ||
| IN | 11 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| IA | 6 | 1 | 1305 | 49.4 | 50.6 | 39.1 | 60.9 | ||
| KS | 6 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| KY | 8 | 1* | 964 | 47.1 | 52.9 | 10.4 | 89.6 | ||
| LA | 8 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| ME | 2 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| ME1 | 1 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| ME2 | 1 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| MD | 10 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| MA | 11 | 1* | 766 | 60.4 | 39.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MI | 16 | 1* | 943 | 52.3 | 47.7 | 83.8 | 16.2 | ||
| MN | 10 | 1* | 893 | 52.3 | 47.7 | 83.4 | 16.6 | ||
| MS | 6 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| MO | 10 | 1 | 748 | 42.5 | 57.5 | 0.2 | 99.8 | ||
| MT | 3 | 1* | 890 | 43.0 | 57.0 | 0.2 | 99.8 | ||
| NE | 2 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| NE1 | 1 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| NE2 | 1 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| NE3 | 1 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| NV | 6 | 1* | 603 | 53.9 | 46.1 | 91.5 | 8.5 | ||
| NH | 4 | 1 | 723 | 54.6 | 45.4 | 95.8 | 4.2 | ||
| NJ | 14 | 1* | 1228 | 62.8 | 37.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NM | 5 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| NY | 29 | 1* | 1093 | 65.1 | 34.9 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NC | 15 | 1 | 813 | 48.2 | 51.8 | 23.9 | 76.1 | ||
| ND | 3 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| OH | 18 | 2* | 1747 | 51.6 | 48.4 | 83.4 | 16.6 | ||
| OK | 7 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| OR | 7 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| PA | 20 | 1* | 844 | 52.8 | 47.2 | 87.6 | 12.4 | ||
| RI | 4 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| SC | 9 | 2* | 1570 | 48.9 | 51.1 | 27.7 | 72.3 | ||
| SD | 3 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| TN | 11 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| TX | 38 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| UT | 6 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| VT | 3 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| VA | 13 | 1 | 486 | 52.5 | 47.5 | 78.2 | 21.8 | ||
| WA | 12 | 2* | 1653 | 54.8 | 45.2 | 99.7 | 0.3 | ||
| WV | 5 | 0* | (0) | (100) | |||||
| WI | 10 | 1 | 754 | 55.3 | 44.7 | 98.2 | 1.8 | ||
| WY | 3 | 0 | (0) | (100) |
* An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.
