Before the election, I boldly ventured where I had not gone before – into the world of election prognostication. Below are two charts showing how well my predictions fared.
| State | Prediction | Actual |
| Maryland | Cardin | Cardin |
| Missouri | McCaskill | McCaskill |
| Montana | Tester | Tester |
| New Jersey | Menendez | Menendez |
| Ohio | Brown | Brown |
| Pennsylvania | Casey | Casey |
| Rhode Island | Whitehouse | Whitehouse |
| Tennessee | Corker | Corker |
| Virginia | Webb | Webb |
So, I called the Senate correctly. The Democrats picked up 6 seats. I had said that I thought Lieberman might defect after the elections – slim chance, but still makes for an interesting situation.
| District | Prediction | Actual |
| Arizona 8th | Giffords | Giffords |
| Colorado 4th | Musgrave | Musgrave |
| Colorado 7th | Perlmutter | Perlmutter |
| Connecticut 2nd | Courtney | not called yet |
| Connecticut 4th | Farrell | Shays |
| Connecticut 5th | Murphy | Murphy |
| Florida 13th | Jennings | Buchanan |
| Florida 16th | Mahoney | Mahoney |
| Florida 22nd | Klein | Klein |
| Georgia 8th | Marshall | Marshall |
| Iowa 1st | Braley | Braley |
| Illinois 6th | Duckworth | Roskam |
| Illinois 8th | Bean | Bean |
| Indiana 2nd | Donnelly | Donnelly |
| Indiana 8th | Ellsworth | Ellsworth |
| Indiana 9th | Hill | Hill |
| Kentucky 3rd | Yarmuth | Yarmuth |
| Kentucky 4th | Davis | Davis |
| Minnesota 1st | Gutknecht | Walz |
| Minnesota 6th | Bachmann | Bachmann |
| North Carolina 11th | Shuler | Shuler |
| New Mexico 1st | Madrid | not called yet |
| New York 24th | Arcuri | Arcuri |
| New York 26th | Reynolds | Reynolds |
| Ohio 1st | Cranley | Chabot |
| Ohio 15th | Kilroy | not called yet |
| Ohio 18th | Space | Space |
| Pennsylvania 6th | Murphy | Gerlach |
| Pennsylvania 7th | Sestak | Sestak |
| Pennsylvania 8th | Murphy | Murphy |
| Pennsylvania 10th | Carney | Carney |
| Texas 22nd | Lampson | Lampson |
| Virginia 2nd | Drake | Drake |
| Washington 8th | Reichert | not called yet |
| Wisconsin 8th | Kagen | Kagen |
I missed 5 calls. Results of 4 races are still to be called. My prediction for the House was that the Democrats would pick up 26 seats and take control. So far, they have picked up 28 seats and 10 races are still to be called. It was clearly a historic night for the Democrats.
Actually, you may want to change Florida 13 as he only won by 360 votes, and there is a recount and they found more votes.
James, there apparently are a lot of other issues in Katherine Harris’s old district (big surprise there :)). I think it may flip, and I will update this when it does.
But I went by what elections had been called.
Oh, and the two surprises for me were the gracious concessions of Harold Ford and Rick Santorum. I am not a big fan of Ford but he did himself a lot of good with his speech. He’ll be back.
You’re good with that crystal ball, so if you ever (heaven forbid!) lose your job, you can be in business!;)
Ingrid
Very impressive, Mash. Any chance you can help me with Super Bowl predictions? :d
In the NM 1st, it looks like Wilson will end up winning the final recounts…which is a bit disappointing, but less so given the landslide we’ve seen elsewhere. Also, Madrid was about the worst candidates the NMDP could have put out there…her dealings in the recent NM State Treasurer’s bribery/kickbacks scandal left quite a bad smell of old-style machine politics. I’m still a democrat and have no plans to change, but the corruption and shady backroom dealings of the leading Democratic movers and shakers in this state (and TOP of that list is “Fat Bill” Richardson) are really getting old (as they should be as they haven’t changed since NM achieved statehood). Bill has done a lot of good things for NM, don’t get me wrong…but he has also taken a lot of publicly elected positions and turned them into patronage appointments…he’s also shut down most public access to, and control over, the state Democratic party. In a theoretical presidential race between Richardson and a generic, moderate Republican, I’d probably vote for the GOP guy, I’m sorry to say; after all, no one wants to see the whole country run like New Mexico, BELIEVE ME.