Can Wikipedia Predict the Elections
You can almost picture it The voter picks up the voter guide  or maybe even an absentee ballot  sits down at his or her computer and gets ready to decide the crucial Senate race. First stop Wikipedia. Yes, the community-edited online encyclopedia is hardly the most thorough or fair source of information on political candidates, but it's not a bad start. Hey, we've done it, and we're professionals., So what does it tell us about the crucial Senate fights? A look at traffic statistics on Wikipedia over the last 30 days using this website, which seems authoritative enough seems to give a little more hope to Democrats than you might expect. Now, keep a few things in mind. Nate Silver, the nerd king of big data prediction modeling, gives the Republican Party a 74.4 chance of taking the Senate. Lesser-known third-party candidates typically don't have Wikipedia pages, while incumbents often have had them for longer than previously unknown challengers. And the types of voters who look up candidates on Wikipedia may not be representative of voters overall. All that said, here's which candidates in key Senate races were looked up most on Wikipedia over the last month. Arkansas, Tom Cotton R 14,899 , Mark Pryor D 12,327, New Hampshire, Scott Brown R 34,563, Jeanne Shaheen D 18,400, Iowa, Joni Ernst R 39,895 , Bruce Braley D 15,186, Colorado, Cory Gardner R 20,932, Mark Udall D 26,274, North Carolina, Thom Tillis R 20,176, Kay Hagan D 31,058, Alaska, Dan Sullivan R 7,446, Mark Begich D 12,084, Louisiana, Bill Cassidy R 9,942, Mary Landrieu D 23,952, Kansas, Pat Roberts R 14,960, Greg Orman I 33,965, Georgia, David Perdue R 17,147, Michelle Nunn D 30,896, Kentucky, Mitch McConnell R 40,072, Alison Lundergan Grimes D 41,546, So there you have it. Overall, the searches show Democrats being searched more in six of 10 key races, Republicans in three and an independent in one. Science, people. Place your bets now.