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Cultureplot
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| Rank | Kendall Tau | Accuracy % |
|---|
| Nominee: | Donald Trump |
| Nikki Haley | |
| Ron DeSantis | |
| Asa Hutchinson | |
| Vivek Ramaswamy | |
| Chris Christie | |
| Doug Burgum | |
| Tim Scott | |
| Mike Pence | |
| Larry Elder | |
| Will Hurd | |
| First Drop: | Francis Suarez |
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Trump's last standing primary opponent has exited the race, resolving what was probably the most highly anticipated departure. Her announcement serves as the de facto end to the Republican primary and the official end of our drop out predictions contest.
Ron DeSantis, who was once considered the candidate with the best chance of besting Trump in this primary, has formally ended his presidential campaign. 42% of contestants predicted DeSantis would be the last candidate to drop out, leaving just the primary winner left. An additional 10% of contestants predicted DeSantis would actually go on to win the nomination. Ultimately, these predictions weren't that far off, considering he lasted until the final three.
Asa Hutchinson ended his run the morning after receiving less than one percent of the vote in the Iowa caucus. Out of all the candidates, Hutchinson's campaign length was the most underestimated by contestants - most estimated he would be the 4th, 5th, or 6th to drop out.
As votes from the Iowa's caucus were being reported out, Ramaswamy announced his exit. Ramaswamy is the second candidate the the Wisdom of the crowd aggregate answer perfectly placed. He is also the candidate contest participants most disagreed over.
Christie got out of the primary just days before the first votes are cast, citing the lack of a path to the nomination. Christie is the 7th candidate to drop, which the Wisdom of the crowd aggregate answer remarkably accurately predicted. He is the first candidate the aggregate answer predicted with such precision.
Many primary cycles see at least one candidate drop out after discussing the matter over the Thanksgiving dinner table, and this cycle is no exception: Governor Burgum ended his campaign after failing to raise his poll numbers above 1.0%. This comes as welcome news to the 49% of contest participants who needed Burgum to drop next to minimize degradation to their prediction accuracies.
Senator Scott is the 5th out of 12 initial candidates to drop out, bringing us close to the mid-point of this contest. Nearly half of contestants (48%) predicted Scott would leave the campaign trail in the middle of the pack (5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th drop out position).
Pence is arguably the first "surprise drop out" of this contest - in fact, only a single contestant predicted he'd be among the first four candidates to exit the race. On average, contestants predicted Pence would stick around till the final three.
Elder is the third candidate to end their campaign after failing to gain traction. Like Suarez and Hurd, Elder was yet another common "early drop" pick, keeping most contestants predictions relatively accurate thus far.
Hurd departed the race after failing to qualify for either of the first two primary debates. This didn't catch many contestants by surprise: Hurd was the most common choice for first, second, or third drop, with 64% of predictions marking him as one of the first three candidates to drop out. In fact, predictions agreed on Hurd more than every other candidate except DeSantis and Trump, both who are widely expected to run till the end.
Suarez is the first candidate to drop out, which was accurately predicted by 24% of contestants. Many others thought he would drop out second or third; a majority of contestants (56%) placed Suarez in their first three drop out slots.
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Each circle represents a participant's prediction, colored from highest to lowest current leaderboard rank. Predictions are arranged based on similarity to all other predictions; similar predictions fall near each on the chart.
is most similar to:
and most dissimilar to:
1. One entry per player
2. The submission deadline is August 23rd, 2023
3. Any candidates who enter or exit the primary during the submission window of August 10th - 23rd will be ignored in contest scoring; this prevents advantaging last-minute entries
4. The contest will conclude and awards will be distributed no later than the Republican National Convention in July of 2024
The player with the lowest Kendall tau distance wins.
Kendall tau distance compares how similar any two ordered lists are: the number of adjacent swaps needed to make a player's prediction match the real order is their Kendall tau distance. For example, let's say the 2020 Democratic primary had just four candidates: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar. I may have predicted they'd drop out in this order:
| Eventual nominee |
| 1st drop out |
| Sanders |
| Biden |
| Warren |
| Klobuchar |
In that case, my Kendall tau distance would be 1, because just one swap (Sanders & Biden) would be needed to make my prediction match the actual outcome:
| Sanders |
| Biden |
| Warren |
| Klobuchar |
| Biden |
| Sanders1 |
| Warren |
| Klobuchar |
By contrast, had my predictions been a complete reversal of reality, my Kendall tau distance would be 6, due to needing six swaps to correct my list:
| Klobuchar |
| Warren |
| Sanders |
| Biden |
| Warren |
| Klobuchar1 |
| Sanders |
| Biden |
| Warren |
| Sanders |
| Klobuchar2 |
| Biden |
| Warren |
| Sanders |
| Biden |
| Klobuchar3 |
| Sanders |
| Warren4 |
| Biden |
| Klobuchar |
| Sanders |
| Biden |
| Warren5 |
| Klobuchar |
| Biden |
| Sanders6 |
| Warren |
| Klobuchar |
Final scoring will be calculated once the final drop out order is known. Ties will be broken by omitting the first candidate who dropped out and rerunning the scoring algorithm. The player with the lower Kendall tau distance from that will be awarded the better final placement. If their Kendall tau distances continue to match, this process will be repeated iteratively until we reach a decisive outcome.
In other words, ties are broken by determining which player more accurately predicted the drop out positions of the final N - X candidates, where N is the number of candidates and X is the number of early-drop-out candidates needed to omit in order to break the tie. So accurate predictions closer to the end of the drop out order are more important than correctly guessing the earlier drop outs for a tie breaker.
A brokered convention occurs when no single candidate wins a majority of delegates through the standard primary process. In this rare scenario, we could end up with multiple candidates actively campaigning right up to the end.
Usually a brokered convention has multiple rounds of votes and revotes. A candidate might suspend their campaign in between these votes. In this event, their withdrawl from the primary is considered a standard drop out for the purposes of this contest and they are simply added to their place in the drop out order.
However, a candidate may also decide to stick around all the way to the final convention vote. In this case, their campaign is considered over as soon as someone else wins the nomination. If multiple candidates meet this fate, the candidate receiving fewer final delegates is considered the earlier drop out. These rules would apply to protest candidates whom refuse to concede during the primary, even in the absence of a brokered convention.
In the rare event that a candidate leaves then re-enters the primary, the scoring algorithm will only account for their first drop out - unless they go on to win the nomination, in which case the scoring algorithm will consider the candidate as never having dropped out.