Watergate scandal

• BROOKVILLE, N.Y., Jan. 31, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Long Island University today announced it will mark the 75th anniversary of its George Polk Awards in journalism by honoring 16 individuals whose careers reflect the awards' commitment to outstanding investigative reporting as the first-ever Polk Laureates.
• The event, to be held at Cipriani 42nd Street will be hosted by CNN anchor and CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper.
• The Polk Awards were established in 1949 by Long Island University to commemorate George Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war.
• "Long Island University has long recognized the importance of investigative journalism through the George Polk Awards and our George Polk School of Communications which is helping prepare an international class of the journalists of tomorrow," noted Dr. Kimberly Cline, President of Long Island University.

• Bowman's tenure of service to the Credit Union began in 1966 when he became a volunteer member of the Credit Committee.
• For fifty-three years, Bertie's dedication and support to the Credit Union stood unrivaled, a record of service unmatched within the organization.
• In 2020, Bertie received industry-wide recognition when he was inducted into the African American Credit Union Coalition's Hall of Fame, further solidifying his allegiance to the Credit Union's mission.
• Bowman leaves behind a profound imprint on the United States Senate Federal Credit Union.

• Ostensibly a show about aliens, The X-Files swiftly became part of the cultural lexicon and remains there to this day.
• After all, it was the X-Files fandom that invented the term “shipping” (rooting for characters to get together romantically).
• It also coincided with Bill Clinton becoming president – marking the end of more than a decade of Republican leadership.
• These themes reflected growing concerns about government agencies using technology to both spy on and influence the public.

The X-Files’ enduring appeal

• As one fan explained: “The cultural context of conspiracy theories has changed since the beginning of X-Files.
• They, tells Mulder that “no one can tell the difference anymore between what’s real and what’s fake”.
• In the second season episode Ascension, Mulder pulls a phone book off a shelf in his search for Scully – now we’d use Google.
• Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays.

• Despite the avalanche of legal indictments, Donald Trump remains favourite to win the Republican nomination for the 2024 US presidential election.
• If he does win the Republican nomination the question is: can he win the presidential election in November next year?

Forecasting presidential elections

• There is a lively community of political scientists using a variety of different methods to forecast elections, with many focusing on the US.
• Most forecasting models use polling data, but since we are 15 months away from the presidential election, current polling should be treated with caution.
• It should be noted that US pollsters have had a mixed record in forecasting elections.

Electoral college

• The election is determined by who wins the electoral college, not the popular vote.
• In the 2016 election Clinton won a larger vote share than Donald Trump but lost the contest in the electoral college.
• The electoral college was created by the US founding fathers, with delegates chosen to reflect voting support for the candidates in each state.

A forecasting model

• The analysis uses a century of elections from 1920 to 2020, and a relatively simple model has a good track record in predicting elections over this period.
• It uses two variables to predict the Republican share of the delegates in the Electoral College, using a technique called multiple regression.
• The first and most important predictor in the model is the state of the economy, with an incumbent being rewarded for a good record on economic growth and punished for a poor one.
• The model takes into account unusual events occurring over the period that can distort the results if they are ignored.
• Needless to say this is uncertain since the model is not a perfect fit to the data and so subject to errors.