Punk Rock Operations Research

The second volume of Analytics is available online. I was fascinated by the article "The 13 Keys to the White House" by Doug Samuelson. This article summarizes quantitative historian Allan Lichtman's (very accurate) method for predicting who will win the presidential election. His method is based on 13 yes-no question (the "keys"). If eight or more of the questions favor the incumbent party, then the incumbent party retains the presidency. Otherwise, the other party wins. Lichtman argues that the long campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is not likely to effect the election in November. The verdict? Barack Obama is likely to win.