This is republished from analyst Sumanth Raman's post.
Have analyzed the various Exit polls done for Tamil Nadu
1.The broad consensus for the AIADMK vote share across polls is between 37 and 39% except for News Nation which gives them 35%.
2.The DMK-Congress vote share varies between 32.1% of C-Voter and 44% of Today's Chanakya.The Puthia Thalaimurai Opinion poll of a few days ago had an almost identical 32% vote share for the DMK combine. Two polls give the combine 39% vote share (Axis-India Today and News Nation).
3. In 2014 the DMK polled around 25% with the Congress getting a little under 5%. So together they had 30%(assuming for arguments sake that the Cong did not lose because of Vasan;s exit ). So what is the swing in their favor? If we assume a 39% vote share for this combine it would mean a massive 10% swing in their favor.
4. I am sure there is a swing in favor of the DMK but I am extremely unsure if it is of the magnitude of 10%. So do we go with the C-Voter projection of a 3-4% swing in DMK's favour pushing them up to 32.1% or do we go with some of the other polls who give them a 10% or more swing in their favor? That is the key question. Tamil Nadu has seen many 10% swings in the past and so one needs to be cautious in ruling this out.
5. Some of the exit polls are giving 18 or even 27 seats for others which I cant see happening. In fact I cannot see the others get into double figures.
My take and this is purely on inputs I have received and gut feel as an analyst is that we could see a swing in the region of 6%-7% in favor of the DMK combine which could push them up to around 36%-37%. This would leave them marginally short of the AIADMK vote share or even neck and neck but this may not necessarily mean fewer seats.
Please remember that if you win by very big margins in some areas then you may actually end up with fewer seats though you get more votes. If the AIADMK wins big in the Kongu region then they could end up with a marginally higher vote share and fewer seats.
The result on the 19th is far from being a foregone conclusion. This could be tight but I still think that the AIADMK may have a small edge in terms of vote share. Whether they can translate them into seats we have to wait and see.