Welcome

Welcome to Hats in the Ring, a blog I'll be using to track and share trends in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Primary season.  I've developed a fairly simple rating formula for measuring the relative strength of all major candidates for president and have begun applying it to the Democratic field. If the Republican party sees serious challengers to the current incumbent I'll be tracking that too, but this type of analysis adds little value if the result is not in doubt. The 2020 Democratic field, with more than a dozen credible contenders expected, is an enticing case for this sort of data aggregation and modeling to look for trends (the 2012 and 2016 Republican races would have been fascinating as well, with several lead changes before the outcome was settled).

Next up I'll present the model I'm using to compile information, from the polls to the pundits, to distill a rating for each candidate that I'll be updating through the primary season next spring. It's very much a work in progress so I'll likely be discussing revisions to the model from time to time. I plan to update the ratings more or less weekly, possibly more often as we get into the heat of battle in late 2019 / early 2020. Thanks for following along!