Predictions for March 13:Primaries in Mississippi and Alabama

There are four contests today, primaries in Alabama and Mississippi and caucuses in Hawaii and American Samoa.  Polling companies only showed interest in the primaries and once again, my model for prediction goes head to head with Nate Silver's, this time in the two Southern states.  Here are the numbers, with my predicted percentage first and Silver's in parentheses second.

Mississippi
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Romney 34.5% (33.7%)
Gingrich 32.0% (33.2%)
Santorum 26.5% (25.9%)
Paul 7.0% (7.3%)
None of the Above 0.0% (-0.1%)

Alabama
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Gingrich 31.5% (32.2%)
Romney 31.0% (31.3%)
Santorum 28.5% (27.9%)
Paul 8.0% (7.3%)
None of the Above 1.0% (1.3%)

 

We agree on the basics, predicting victory for R-Money is Mississippi and Cheerful Old Newt in Alabama, Sick Rantorum in third in both races and Dr. Ron Paul a distant fourth in both.  As the numbers shake out, I'm bullish on Mitt and Rick in Ole Miss with the advantage that None of the Above can't be negative - it's like have a tiebreaker in pocket, while in Alabama, my model is bullish on Santorum and Paul.  Both of us are predicting close battles for first place based on the polling data, and it would not be truly startling if Gingrich or R-Money swept the South tonight.

 

I'll be back tomorrow with the results.  Currently, Silver and I are tied at 5-5 in the ten contests where we both made predictions. If we take the average of our ten predictions so far, Nate is ahead 89.6% to 89.3%.