Wishful Thinking
When predicting the outcome of the next election, you might want to be a little skeptical of your own intuition. A 2008 and 2016 poll of voters believe showed that the majority of people believe that their favored candidate is going to win. This excessive optimism can be attributed to the cognitive bias known as wishful thinking.
Voter Predictions of Who Will Be Elected by Their Party
| Presidential Candidate | Democrat Respondents | Republican Respondents |
| John McCain (R) | 12% | 62% |
| Barack Obama (D) | 87% | 38% |
| Presidential Candidate | Democrat Respondents | Republican Respondents |
| Donald Trump (R) | 9% | 66% |
| Hillary Clinton (D) | 91% | 33% |
If this wishful thinking bias did not exist, one would expect the respondents predictions to be much closer to the current polling data which as split very evenly.