Professor Tomooki Yuasa, an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Management, at Tokyo Metropolitan University, is visiting Mathematics for three weeks, starting on 13 March, to work on a project with Dorje Brody. The premise of their project is as follows. Suppose that there is an election coming up next year, and that there are three or more candidates. Given today’s poll statistics, how can we work out the actual probability of a given candidate winning the future election? Can we derive a mathematical formula for this? If so, what does it tell the candidates as to their optimal strategies in order to maximize the likelihood of winning the future election? Are there advantages in the positioning of the candidate’s political party within the political spectrum? The aim of the project is to work out answers to all these questions, during Professor Yuasa’s visit to Surrey. The photo below shows the team at work at the blackboard.