# Can LLMs Help Predict Elections? (Counter)Evidence from the World's Largest Democracy

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.07828 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.07828/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 May 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [ElectionSim: Massive Population Election Simulation Powered by Large Language Model Driven Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20746/) (2024)
- [LLM Generated Distribution-Based Prediction of US Electoral Results, Part I](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.03486/) (2024)
- [A Survey of Large Language Models in Discipline-specific Research: Challenges, Methods and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.08425/) (2025)
- [Characterizing the ability of LLMs to recapitulate Americans' distributional responses to public opinion polling questions across political issues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.20229/) (2026)
- [FlockVote: LLM-Empowered Agent-Based Modeling for Simulating U.S. Presidential Elections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.05982/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The study of how social media affects the formation of public opinion and its influence on political results has been a popular field of inquiry. However, current approaches frequently offer a limited comprehension of the complex political phenomena, yielding inconsistent outcomes. In this work, we introduce a new method: harnessing the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) to examine social media data and forecast election outcomes. Our research diverges from traditional methodologies in two crucial respects. First, we utilize the sophisticated capabilities of foundational LLMs, which can comprehend the complex linguistic subtleties and contextual details present in social media data. Second, we focus on data from X (Twitter) in India to predict state assembly election outcomes. Our method entails sentiment analysis of election-related tweets through LLMs to forecast the actual election results, and we demonstrate the superiority of our LLM-based method against more traditional exit and opinion polls. Overall, our research offers valuable insights into the unique dynamics of Indian politics and the remarkable impact of social media in molding public attitudes within this context.