Inside the eerily accurate presidential election simulation that has predicted the 2024 winner

If a video game designed to predict the presidential election is correct, then Donald Trump will take the White House. I played Stardock's'The Political Machine,' which forecasted Trump's shock win in 2016, to see what America could expect once the polls close Tuesday night. The simulation is a turn-based, map-trotting game -- not unlike'Risk' or any other tabletop game of political strategy -- except the board itself reacts to you and your opponent's moves based on historic turnout data, debate focus groups and more. The game's makers claim it'relies heavily on demographic issue patterns' like job, race, sex and income level to determine'what issues [voters] care about,' data the team has updated regularly ever since they created the first edition back in 2004. Initially, I found the game confusing, complicated and frankly dorky, but in time I was enthusiastically buying up local ads, setting up campaign offices and hiring'smear merchants' to spread devious rumors about my opponent: Donald J. Trump.