Qriously measures sentiment on smartphones

Here at Qriously, we believe in the wisdom of crowds.  Following this logic our hypothesis has been that properly posed questions using our Pulse platform can lead to predictive outcomes.  We had a chance to test this with two US Mayoral elections and two US Gubernatorial elections.  The Qriously Pulse platform gauges location-based consumer sentiment in real time and accurately predicted the outcomes of these political races.

Smartphones and Politics

We asked people in Phoenix who would be the next Mayor of Phoenix, W.Gullett or G.Stanton.  The prevailing Pulse sentiment was far in favor of Greg Stanton at 77%.

In Philly, we asked if M.Nutter or K.Brown would become the next Mayor. Incumbent Michael Nutter was heavily favored in our Pulse results.

Pulse showed former Lt. Governor Phil Bryant was considerably favored over Johnny DuPree for the Mississippi Governors race.

In Ketucky, Pulse predicted Steve Beshear with a large majority over Dave Williams and Gatewood Galbraith.

Hindsight being 20/20 we should have started our test sooner: We launched our questions to the respective regions within a week of the elections and allowed them to run through the morning of Election Day.  In the interest of full disclosure we only received 31 responses for the SF Mayoral election. That sample size is far too small to be considered predictive and the results were too narrow to distinguish.

In the lower section of the infographic you’ll find predictions we made for elections coming up in the near future, including those for Spain, Slovenia, Croatia and New Zealand.

Actual Election Results
Philly – Nutter:75%, Brown;22%
Phoenix – Stanton:56, Gullett:43%
Kentucky – Beshear:56%, Williams:35%, Galbraith:9%
Mississippi – Bryant:61%, DuPree:39%

Update:
The Spanish prediction was correct, M. Rajoy, the Leader of the Opposition, won. Qriously predicted he would take 55.3% of the votes. He actually took 53%. The official Spanish polls predicted 46.6%.

Update (10th December 2011):
Qriously is now 8 for 9.

Correct:
Kentucky (Gubernatorial)
Mississippi (Gubernatorial)
Phoenix (Mayoral)
Philadelphia (Mayoral)
Spain (Legislative)
New Zealand (General)
Croatia (Parliamentary)
Russia (Legislative)

Incorrect:
Slovenia (Parliamentary). Granted, at the time of the prediction we had too few answers to make one – perhaps a little cocky.