Academics Predict Success For Gore in Elections

— -- It’s a sunny forecast for Al Gore from the nation’s topelection handicappers, who unanimously say he will win in November.

By Dan MerkleABCNEWS.comAug. 28— The election is more than two months off, but it’s already a victory for Al Gore among the nation’s

top political forecasters.

Academics who study elections unanimously project that Gore, the Democrat, will best Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush come Election Day in November.

Political scientists gather this week in Washington for their annual convention. And at a panel on Thursday morning, those hardy academic wags who attempt to predict election outcomes will participate in a panel on forecasting at which they release their predictions for the 2000 race.

In advance of that session, ABCNEWS has obtained some of their updated predictions, showing that all see Gore as the winner. While most of these predictions were reasonably accurate in 1996, there are plenty of reasons to eye these numbers with skepticism.

Four of the analysts gave final predictions on the presidential elections with both Michael Lewis-Beck of the University of Iowa and Helmut Norpoth of the State University of New York claiming that Gore would win with 55 percent of the vote to Bush’s 45 percent.

Analysts Brad Lockerbie of the University of Georgia and Alan Abramowitz of Emory University asserted that the Democratic candidate would win 53 percent of the vote to Bush’s 47 percent. Thomas Holbrook of the University of Wisconsin predicted the largest win for Gore forecasting a 60 percent win over Bush’s 40 percent. But Holbrook said those numbers were not his final prediction.