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Don’t know which candidate is stronger? We have a metric for that

Voters fill out ballots in Virginia on election day in 2018. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
Voters fill out ballots in Virginia on election day in 2018. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
By Nathan Ouellette and Nathan L. Gonzales
Posted December 5, 2019 at 3:05pm

Sometimes it’s difficult to discern the strength of a particular candidate running for election, especially when political pundits bandy data and metrics back and forth. 

Luckily, we have a metric for that. 

Using some inspiration from Baseball sabermetrics, Inside Elections editor and elections analyst for CQ Roll Call Nathan L. Gonzales explains the nuts and bolts behind Votes Above Replacement (VAR) as a way of measuring candidate strength in an election. 

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