Phrase used to describe any
contest, but especially an
election, when no competitor has a clear
advantage. Usually, this is only when the
statistical or other properties of the
model being used to predict the outcome render that model insufficiently
precise to permit high
confidence in the
prediction's
accuracy.
For example, a Florida presidential exit poll with a 95% confidence interval of two percentage points is not sufficiently precise to predict a winner if the margin of victory in that poll is only half a percentage point, since the two ends of the confidence interval predict two different outcomes.