Welcome to the podcast and I check Christophe Horfiger.
Hello, yeah, great to see you and great to hear you.
I'm an election nerd. I've been doing election
forecast for for pretty much exactly 30 years.
And this despite I didn't study statistics, I'm I'm actually
have a major in, in German literature, but I could never
decide between language and math in, in my biography.
So I'm running an institute, the Austrian Foresight Institute
that does a lot of Social Research.
And we, we have our meeting points between language and
math. For instance, designing a
questionnaire, what more wonderful place is there where
you have to think about language?
And then at the end what you get out are numbers that you can
build a strategy on. So I have 20 colleagues where we
analyzing not only elections, but things like labor market
housing. But I have to say I have many
passions in terms of research, but predicting and analyzing
elections is, I think, the most fun.
Yeah. And you just had one.
Why don't we start with the Western election?
The polls were quite correct, I think.
Yes, yeah, there was absolutely no debate about the quality of
polling this time. It was not even a sentence in
the newspapers which indicates that the polls were correct, so
nobody had anything to complain. Yeah, but people were still
shocked with the results, weren't they?
Well, it was, it was a first the Austrian Freedom Party, which we
could consider arriving populist party, which now almost every
country in Europe and and also the Republicans in the USA are
similar. No.
And have they had strong results in the past, But they never made
it like to the 1st place. They had a crisis five years ago
and and compared to the result five years ago, that result was
like also a record plus. And yeah, of course it seems to
be yeah, like a pretty, it could be a changing defining time
where where things change in Austria.
So it was. But as you said, from looking at
the polls, they were ahead for more than a year.
So it was not a surprise, but to some still a shock, that what
the polls had said for months and all and almost years,
eventually happened on September 29th.
And sometimes, maybe people hope the polls are wrong for once.
Because sometimes they are for, and just to give you a detail,
the the difference between the centre right Conservative Party,
the People's Party and the Freedom Party was much smaller
on Election Day than the polls. That's it.
So there was like 4% difference between the polling average and
then the actual very narrow gap that happened on Election Day.
So some people thought, wow, maybe this time this happens
again, that the Conservative Party is actually outperforming
their polls, which they have done many times interestingly.
So in the past it was the Freedom Party that the right
wing populist that has been underestimated.
But in recent years it has been the, the moderate right wing
party that the centre right party that has been
underestimated. And, and until Election Day, you
didn't know if that would happen again.
And if it had happened to the same extent that they witnessed
it in the European election, the the Conservative Party would
have been #1 and not the Freedom Party.
Yeah. And, and, and that's interesting
with the 4% difference because what, what I've seen in several
countries, Sweden maybe mostly is, is a very high voter
volatility in the last couple of days.
People have a hard time actually deciding and, and in Sweden
between Friday and the Election Day on Sunday, actually 4% of
the voter have changed their minds the last couple of
elections. Could it be something like that
in Austria? We have.
We asked people the the question when they have decided and and
we have about 11% of the electorate or 11% of those who
voted actually said in the last couple of days.
So we do our interviews for that survey in in the week to the
election. So we we could infer that a good
10% of voters decide basically in the last week and there is
another 13% who say well, couple 2, two or three weeks.
So this is a number that actually doesn't go up.
We have here some some interesting conflicting trends
and the most striking is that the Freedom Party voters, the
voters for the right wing populist movement, they decide
really, really early. That was different in the past.
In the past they were not so sure it was new, it was breaking
taboos. They also sometimes maybe that
was all had also to do with social desirability in the
polls, but in the past it took many Freedom Party voters a long
time and maybe they they just decided on Election Day or a
couple of days before. Now the Freedom Party and it's a
big asset for them. They have the biggest share of
voters who decide early and also stick with that decision.
That's part of the success. Now where's the more traditional
parties? Just to finish your thought, the
traditional parties have voters that are more insecure and for
expedite the People's Party voters, they also have more
alternatives. They think I'll be voting for
the small Liberal Party, the nails.
So even the traditional parties have voters who decide later, in
addition to the young typical parties like the Green Party or
the Liberals. That that is, that is really
interesting. It feels like it's the similar
thing as in Sweden actually, because when you go for this
right wing alternative party, there are different, different
reasons to go for them than than other parties.
Because basically you have decided that everyone else is
bad, the world is going in the wrong direction.
It's it's I, I, I usually call them like the emergency brake.
And there's not much positive happening in the world right
now. And so, so that's an appeal for
these kinds of parties are quite big.
And I would guess it's the similar because what would
happen in the last time of the election, because I will also
suspect that it's the same that people know what this party
stands for. But the other parties are trying
to find their their new footing, trying to find their new, new,
new message all the way into the Election Day.
So it's quite hard to say. Yeah, this part, that's all.
We have these kinds of values, but probably the right wing
alternative parties, they are the ones who do not have to
repeat their values because people know about them.
Could that be something and say is the same in Austria?
Well, they have. They are very coherent and
professional in the messaging. And that means that people have
the feeling that they know, as you pointed it out, what they
are standing for. You called it emergency break.
That reminds me at a like infamous political ad, but it's
very good Democrats like I think it was eight years ago where
they actually literally had like an emergency brake in in their
ad, which if I remember was banned from Swedish TV, but was
a hit on YouTube and the message of parties like the Freedom
Party. That's very good Democrats.
But even a movement like Trump, which who dominates the
Republican Party is, let me put it that way, a very skeptical
attitude towards the so-called elites, but also putting the
entire rest of the political system into that elite basket.
So the idea of the Freedom Party and any writing populist party
is let's seem, let's make our voters believe that the rest of
the political system is not really diverse, that there are
even no conflict of interest among the other parties, that
they even conspire with each other against US, against the
true people. So there is a big skepticism of
the Freedom Party voters towards the political system.
They are less the least likely to say that democracy is the
best system. They still say to like a
majority extent, but they also have the most doubts about
democracy as, as as a political system.
And in surveys, the if you ask them what's the likelihood as a
Freedom Party voted that you eventually would also vote for a
different party. And the the the Freedom Party
voted, they gave the least indication that they would
change again to another party. They had some big exchange with
the center right party, the People's Party under the era of
Sebastian Kurz. Sebastian Kurz, the former
chancellor, he attracted a lot of voters from the Freedom
Party, especially, let's say in two steps to 17 in a regular
campaign, to 19 in a campaign where the Freedom Party had a
crisis. But now they all went back and
it seems like they went back to the Freedom Party to stay there
and they either don't vote or vote for the Freedom Party but
don't really consider the other parties of the political system
as a true option anymore. Yeah.
And that really also seems to be a big trend.
And Austria had its political crisis also with Kurds.
So maybe they then got convinced that, OK, they cannot be
trusted. So and also that there is a lot
of conspiracies because they've got their view of a proof
probably with the governmental crisis or what do you think?
It was interesting that the Freedom Party was shaken by a
scandal in 219 and they actually lost a lot of votes then gains
this year compared to 2 elections ago is actually not
the big day. They have roughly 3% more than
seven years ago, but five years ago they stumbled into a crisis.
Video leaked of the former party leader.
He was in Ibiza, he was secretly taped video and Mr. Strafford,
the former leader was just bragging about how we how it's
basically sell the country to it was a fake oligarch, it was an
actress, but he had to resign. It was impossible that he could
stay power. And then that shook the party.
And what happened afterwards is that then the so Sebastian Kurz
got a lot of votes from the Freedom Party, but then he
himself that like into trouble for corruption scandals and
eventually had to resign. So he formed the government with
the Green Party into 19 end of 19.
And the government survived all those five years, the entire
period. But Sebastian Kurz could not
stay in his position because there were corruption charges
and and he's also on trial and the whole thing has also not
been worked through the finish line at the court.
So there's still a lot to go. So, but the Freedom Party said,
well, you know, we changed our personnel and we closed the
chapter and now the corruption problem is a problem that
different parties have, especially the info pay the
center right party. So they completely, they were
completely able to leave all the corruption charges behind them.
It's history nobody seems to remember.
And, and their voters said, OK, that's we dealt with it.
It's it's over. So it's actually surprising how
quickly a party can, like a phoenix from the ashes, leave
corruption scandals behind it, which of course has to do with
times that are really challenging times where we went
through a pandemic, through inflation, war in Ukraine, and
where other parties also are shaken by scandals.
I think that's an international trend that parties can stumble,
can have a crisis, but can also quickly re emerge, surprisingly
and astoundingly quickly re emerge and gain strength because
there's so much dynamic with a multiple crisis externally and
within the party system. Yeah, it's fascinating.
And what is the appeal they almost got?
It was 28.8% of the votes I think, or something like that.
28.9 maybe. But what is the appeal?
What I understand it's the immigration and probably crime
as well, but what's your take on this?
Well, I usually try to look at the party success or what I had
a success of political candidate, not in terms of
issues, but in terms of the general message and the central
narrative. And the central narrative of the
Freedom Party, which is similar to to their sister parties
globally, is that the so-called elites lost empathy for you, the
voter. So that's that central narrative
that those who actually would have to take care of you to
protect you have forgotten this because either they're corrupt
or they're conspiring, or they just lost their ambitions or
like betrayed their values. So this central narrative then
is going to be illustrated with the issues.
And of course, immigration is something that serves here, but
it's not only that. What we observed is something
really a break in the psychology of voters, like a disruptive
development that I have not witnessed in 30 years.
And that happened in 22, in 22, Russia invaded Ukraine and then
we had actually with some already developing before, but
then we had a sudden crisis in energy prices and huge
inflation. And Austria was hit by inflation
even more than the European average.
And we have a standard questions where we ask people when it
comes to that issue. Is your primary emotion
optimism, confidence the German what is to facet so that the
positive emotion, is it soldier in German which is very or are
you angry? So we give them three options,
optimism, very or anger. And never, ever have we observed
that any of the issues had an level of more than 20% of anger
in the population. So even when we asked him how do
you feel about integration, immigration, asylum, we had of
course, people that were worried, we had people that were
confident, but the anger never topped 20% in 22.
In 2022, we observed this fascinating and also shocking
change that when we ask people about inflation or energy
prices, suddenly 50% in the poll said their emotion when they
look at that are confronted with that is anger.
We never had this. So all the time in the past, the
entire past, we stayed below 20% with anger as a reaction to
developments. And now with the energy crisis
and inflation, it went up to 40 and sometimes 50%.
That also helped the Freedom Party and it's also helping
other parties a lot because people felt also betrayed here.
They thought, OK, we we have an energy system that that kind of
should be affordable. Then they had to pay energy
bills that that were almost unaffordable.
And the next year, they learned that some of the energy, energy
utilities, part of them in public, owned by the public like
state bodies, had record profits.
And anger is always the emotion that helps right wing properties
movements, be it in Sweden, be it in the Netherlands, in
Austria or in the United States. That's really interesting.
And it is a mystery that the volatility of the pricing system
happening in Europe, it hit the the consumer 100%.
And as you said, the energy companies made record profits.
So that it really is a flawed market.
And in that perspective, because for the consumer it's a
monopoly. But at the same time, it was not
treated as, as a, as a real disaster that was influenced by
by war in Ukraine. It was treated as traditional
economic terms, ignoring that we had a war in Ukraine, which is I
think maybe most voters also realize that this is this is not
looking out for the voters best interests, who's working for who
here. I wish I'd had that scale that
you did, because it was a really interesting one, looking at hope
and worry and anger, because yeah, I'll take that to me
actually and see if I can apply it somewhere.
That's a great idea. So we, we could compare like the
like Swedish respondents and, and Austrian respondents.
And it it seems that by finding about about those basic
emotions, we we can explain a part of the dynamic and the
politics try for decades, try to say, OK, let's be rational and
explain things. But like, especially with the
energy crisis, and you've just mentioned it before, nobody
could explain what happened in a way that people thought, OK, I
do understand in an emotional way, like in a way that I think,
OK, this just had to be this way.
Yeah. It left them upset.
And another and another thing just to add it is.
What made people upset in Austria and maybe less in Sweden
here was the the pandemic and the reaction to it.
So that that added another component of anger for a part of
the electorate. But it's, it's not that big of a
part. But my assessment here is that
the Freedom Party probably would not be #1 without the pandemic
and some of the policy measures and how they were explained.
In Austria, we had a very especially unlucky measure,
which was at some point late in the pandemic was a mandatory
COVID vaccine, which I, when I heard about that, people were
talking about it. I, I tried actually to, I called
up people in the administration and, and said, don't you do
that, You will, because we did studies also.
This is also part of my institute, the Forsett
Institute. We investigated how many people
are ready to get a COVID shot like a vaccine.
And in Austria we were already at the plateau, at the ceiling.
We managed that. More than 80% of the population
got at least one COVID vaccine. And when we did a study about
that end of it was 21 when we when we had the vaccine, we said
that's the absolute limit. You cannot top that even with
the mandatory vaccine. That and that just the only
thing that did is created some like need perception.
I need to self defend myself for those who really didn't want to
get vaccinated. And I'm personally absolutely
pro vaccine. I got I don't know how many
COVID vaccines I got in my life. And I think it's a wonderful
thing, but I actually do really emotionally understand people
who felt absolutely cornered when they were told they need to
have a mandatory vaccine. It was like the first political
decision, in my view, ever taken in Austria after World War 2.
I remember also that Austria were most skeptical to getting
vaccinated than most other Europeans or many other
Europeans, because I remember that.
But also in Sweden, almost everyone got the vaccination
because we, we always do what we're told to good or bad.
But but the same time there was, it was not mandatory.
So and having this big skepsis, which which I'd love to hear if
you have some theories about, but then making it mandatory.
I, I agree with you. That is political disaster.
You really overreaching your power by doing that.
I can I can imagine the reaction.
And, and the irony is that and, and that like, there was like
absolutely no movement in the vaccination rate.
It also coincided with variants that were less harmful.
And, and, and the data shows us what happened.
We asked 15 topics in our service about the Austrian
election last September, and the the pandemic was the topic
people talked about the least Accept the Freedom Party voters.
For the Freedom Party voters, it was among the topics they
actually really discussed. And then I did a fun correlation
model. I looked we have 2000 towns in
Austria, towns in villages. So I compared the vaccination
rate for COVID with the gains of the Freedom Party.
And there's a huge correlation between low vaccination rate and
the gains of the Freedom Party. So I thought this must be some
cool variants. And I have to find other
variables that this disappears. And I could maybe explain it by
urbanity or education or age or income or whatever it is.
And it was impossible. So I have like now let's say 12
variables in my model trying to explain on the municipal level,
on the city level, the gains of the Freedom Party and still the
vaccination rate. So a low vaccination rate is the
strongest predictor of the Freedom Party gains.
So of course it's not a causation that if you're
thinking causation, you would say, oh, those are vaccinated,
they have a chip inside by Bill Gates and that's why they vote
for the other parties. That would be direct causation.
So we cannot. So you can we rule out that that
hypothesis, But of course there's an indirect position,
which is that people who were skeptical about the vaccine then
felt really cornered and said what the only party who's like
could be on the side is the Freedom Party.
And also maybe those were the communities that have like anti
system attitude. And so there's a long shadow.
And with all this evidence, I am actually concluding that without
the pandemic and the reaction of the government to it, they may
have a different situation. Who's number one now?
It may have been those decisive 3% or 2 1/2 percent that would
give the Freedom Party in the first place.
Yeah, that's really interesting and also just proves that people
actually remember, which I think political consultants need to to
remember as well, that people actually live in this world
every day, not just during the election weeks where you try to
tell them how to think or, or act.
So, so, but at the same time, it's really interesting.
We would that they actually could leave the scandal in that
way, but maybe they got saved because other scandals.
Last time we met, we, we talked about hedgehogs and foxes and
super forecasters. So, so why, why not touch on
that issue a little bit before we, we have to end?
Because I think it's I, I really like the ideas and I think good
researchers need to be foxes because the, the, I think it's
Philip Tetlock, isn't it? Who, who's who's written a book
about this? And, and it's based on the idea
that hedgehog knows one big thing and foxes knows a lot of
small things. And for us, being in almost
every topic during a year, it's good to be a fox.
Especially in times like 2024 where new things happen all the
time and and society is really mobile and and dynamic.
Yeah, and I think you're you're, you even met Tetlock, didn't
you? No, I haven't met him
personally. I've I'm in in touch with.
So there's the good judgement project and, and this is like a
free platform where everyone can join to forecast events and some
of those who are very good at the forecast, they eventually
become super forecasters. So this is a very small group
because the the fascinating work of Phil Tetlock is and and I
think everyone should read his work because he made progress
with something that otherwise we would still like it drive in the
dark a little bit. He was upset about expert
political judgement. We all know the pundits who are
in TVA lot and they are so self confident and say, I am telling
you this is going to be like that and this is going to be
like that. And those who are.
And so there's a correlation between self-confidence and the
frequency one is being invited to ATV studio or maybe to a
podcast. But what Ted talk found out that
their predictions were like accurate in in a rate of like
55%, you know, this is like 5% better than the dart throwing
monkey, so to speak. And that's, I mean, that's,
that's like the the crass image that says, well, don't trust
people who are very self confident in TV that they know
the future. And he wanted to systematically
evaluate that and and he found out that a system where people,
diverse people constantly updating their forecasts and
looking at the other forecasts are pretty good if you then
average out there forecasts. And he put together a group and
that was the beginning of the good judgement project in
predicting global events. And they outperformed the
military people who had access to classified information.
His group didn't have access to this classified information, but
their forecasts were better. So Ted look found out that with
the right system, you can just put regular people together and
make pretty amazing forecasts. And I'm, I'm doing this as a
hobby and, and I got a lot of predictions out now for the US
election. We'll see.
I was pretty good in the midterms.
I was, I was like in the top percent forecasters in the
midterms. But this time I'm not so sure
because I had a low probability that Donald Trump would win on
November 5. And now we'll see how.
I still don't know if he's going to win, but I may have been
wrong about this because he may actually win and then my
prediction would be bad. And but I I like the idea of
that lock that what you mentioned is that that we never
should just be in love with our model.
That's the the hedgehog. The hedgehog likes to have this
one thing and then he he goes back to his pile of leaves and
he's so happy with this one thing and he just doesn't want
to sneak out under his pile of leaves.
He's just happy with the one thing some people in academia
do, that they come up with one model and they fall in love with
it and do it until the end of their days.
But I think we, we as social scientists and as especially as
forecasters, we need to be radically open.
And that's what he calls foxes. And just to get any information
and, and have several models like actually the meteorologists
do, and they have become really good at predicting the weather
much better than than in the 90s or even 20 years ago.
And not everyone has like the character for that because you
got to, you know, psychologically, you got to be
an open person. If you're not an open person,
like being a fox and always getting new information makes
you crazy. So, yeah, but it's, it's a
really relevant insight and it's it's it's very good to carry
that into any form of prediction.
But also, yeah, I guess when you are making a questionnaire and a
new study that you would have a similar attitude.
Yeah. And that's the thing because
although I'm trying hard to not do predictions at all, I'm
trying to stick in the, in the present because I think that is
my little niche. But you still need to have this
open mind. You still need to because as, as
you said before, it's, it's turning into numbers, but those
numbers are then turned into two stories and words and
explanations. So, so the numbers are just only
our, our fundamentals that we, we lean on to, to describe what
is actually happening. And I, I think that is often
forgotten with, with, with the research industry that, but then
you really need to be open minded to understand, OK, Look,
energy prices, for instance, as, as we mentioned before, or, or,
or the aversion for vaccination, understanding how vital that
could be to, to some people and how dangerous it could be to
force such a decision on, on people who do not want to, and,
and, and how that is then being strengthening to see.
OK, the government do not trust me.
They, they do only care about my money.
I should not, they don't want me to vote.
They just want me to comply. And yeah, I really love the
books from Tetlock and, and also Nate Silver's book is also
really interesting from a, from a prediction perspective.
But but same time, most of the things we do are the foundations
for the predictions, which going back to the US, yeah, it's hard
now because my prediction, although I don't do any, is that
the polls are very unreliable and and because it doesn't make
sense anymore. Look at the movement in the
campaigns. Look at how much money Harris
is, is, is getting. Look at the support she's
getting from from from popular people like Bruce Springsteen
and Eminem and yeah, everyone. And you do not see it in the
polls. That is weird.
Usually you see that in the polls to a larger extent.
And, and when people listen to this, they, they may or may
already know the result, but when now that we're recording
it, we don't know it yet. So it's really suspenseful.
Well, there's actually 2 explanations for the the
stability of the polls in the in the United States. 1 is that
actually it's a very polarized electorate, but not much is
happening. The other explanation would be
the the phenomenon of hurting that the posters do not really
dare to publish deviant results. I mean, there were a few
differences stressed out. There were also differences in
polls. They had a method of logical
debate. Are we using recall weight,
actually trying to adapt the sample to the to the election
result of 220? I think now everybody in the US
is using the weight is like trying to balance out college
graduates with the rest of the population that that was that
their big shock in 216 where where they found out, oops, we
have too many college graduates in in our samples and no wonder
we we underestimated Trump. So there is some methodological
debate here. What I find we will know more
after the election, but it seems that a few groups are actually
moving in quite some fascinating terms.
But for instance, I find interesting maybe also be
shocking is that Democrats do really well with young women,
but chancy men seem to have like a tendency to to like Trump or
maybe try like Trump even more than than Harris.
And which also something we will know more about in in the future
weeks, which is also something that would like contradict like
a stable image is that the African American population and
the Latino population is not secured for the Democrats
anymore. And if that really happens and
in the end it's still 5050 or like a very similar result and
only on the surface it's the same result.
But like below the surface, maybe Democrats have lost a huge
chunk of the Latino vote, a huge chunk of at least of the younger
African American or the male African American vote.
But maybe they have gained in the suburbs and, and people with
diplomas. So that is actually a
fascinating thing, which is coherent with research 2 authors
in the US call it the the diploma divide that actually
the, the Democrats have been the party of the working class.
But now they, they, they've become more and more the party
of the, the educated elite. And Trump is getting the working
class and you see the Uberis Democrats, some Democrats, not
all of them thought, well, our society is getting more diverse
over the years. We got the Latinos in our
pocket. The African Americans are going
to vote for us like forever in the more diverse society is
going to like guarantee us majorities in the future.
That was the attitude and it wasn't, but it was not a good
prediction, as we can see today. No, exactly.
Trump turned everything upside down because even the
Republicans thought they would never win an election again
after Obama. But yeah, and but, but I also, I
think the biggest challenge now is, is this is a turn out race.
And, and as you mentioned, young, young women who usually
don't vote to that extent, especially if you have a low
income and an election is on on a Tuesday, it's, it's not really
easy to to to actually skip, skip work to, to stand in queue
for hours. So, So the early voting and
which has neutralized that issue to to some extent.
Yeah, it will be a really exciting race.
And that maybe for us nerds, it will be even more exciting the
days after understanding how the polls actually worked in, in
relations to the real world. So.
Yeah. And just the United States show
that we have to be really humble with predictions.
There's so many predictions that actually did not work out.
In terms of the USI, you know, we both know each other from,
from the European Association of Political Consultants.
So I used to be in, I went to this, I've been going to these
conferences that I really love for more than 20 years.
And and also the IIPC, the International Association, our
sister organization. And I was usually talking about
our right wing populism, like we had your Qaeda in the 90s.
And the Americans listened politely, but it was like, as if
I was telling them about like a disease that they have never
encountered. And so, OK, are you OK these
Austrians with their populism disease?
And everyone listened politely, but no one in of the US
consultants ever thought that something similar could happen
in the United States. Actually, I also did not expect
it and I still remember 216 when all the predictions said that
Hillary Clinton would win and Nate Silver was still the
closest by saying Trump has a 29% chance and he was better
than the rest. But still no one really thought
that Trump would win. Before that, no one ever thought
he could secure the nomination of the Republican Party.
There was another wrong prediction.
He got the nomination. Then the next prediction that
was wrong is that he could never become president.
Then the next prediction would be that he would like become a
normal president once he was in office.
But he he, he, he spat out like. A couple of 100 lies every day,
even in the office, and then he staged an insurrection.
I think no one would have predicted like January 6th,
2021. Then this year there were so
many things that were hard to predict.
So the US makes us really humble in being too sure about what the
future is going to bring. Yeah, yeah, that, that is
actually really true. And that is also why why I'm not
trying to do predictions. I usually say that when you get
lost, the problem isn't that you don't know where you're going,
is that you're actually wrong on where you are at the moment.
So I, I, I like to stay in the moment as much as possible, a
little bit safer, but it's still very, very interesting.
And maybe that is the time we have as well.
And your words were were perfect ending for that, I think.
Thank you so much for joining me.
It was a pleasure, thank you too.