The Race Is Closer Than You Have Heard

Coming back to the headlines

This exercise starts with a feeling of unease. The local body results came in, and the framing was immediate: decisive shift, semi-final, writing on the wall for 2026. The story has pull. If the data really points that way, the goal is to see it clearly. If it does not, the goal is to know that too.

So the data is followed, even when it keeps refusing to give a simple answer.

How the goal shifts

At the beginning, the goal is straightforward: estimate the upcoming Assembly vote shares. Along the way, that goal keeps slipping. Each time the number seems in reach, something is off. Election types do not translate cleanly. Recent results overreact. Turnout nudges things quietly but consistently. Trends matter but never dramatically. And even after all that, uncertainty refuses to disappear.

What the forecast actually provides

By the end, this analysis does something very specific. It does not say who will form the government or how many seats anyone will win. What it does say is this: given what can reasonably be measured, and given what cannot, here is the range of outcomes that are plausibly consistent with the data.

The headlines are wrong

When the original headlines are placed next to that range, the gap is stark. The data shows a competitive race. No alliance is guaranteed to lose. The outcome remains genuinely contested.

The headlines claimed certainty where the data shows competition. That is not a minor difference. It is the difference between a story and a forecast.

What this exercise changes

This starts as a reaction to a story. It ends with something quieter: a clearer sense of what the data supports, a better way to think about uncertainty.