Thursday, December 02, 2010

Election 2010 Predictions Review

One month after Election Day, it appears to be fairly safe to examine all the predictions I made before the voting and see how it did. There is still one Gubernatorial election where a recount is taking place and one House race that is not formally decided, but it seems to me like there will not be any dramatic reversals at this point in those contests. Since the Democrats lead in both, I would hope to of course be wrong, and would be happy to revise these totals in the future, even if it means I lost.

A note on the unconventional and still uncertified Alaska U.S. Senate race which appears to have been won by Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski ; while I really struggled internally right before the election to figure out if she would win or if GOP nominee Joe Miller would, one of them has clearly won, and thus I am going to list this one as a correct prediction, since Murkowski will continue to serve as a Republican. None of the professional political prediction makers are doing anything different.

In the elections for Governor and U.S. Senate, all of my incorrect predictions were in favor of Republicans. In the U.S. House contests, like 2008, I once again made errors in both partisan directions. I am more than happy to have been wrong on the mistakes I made in predicting Democrat wins, and that the net GOP House pickup of 63 was higher than my prediction of 52. I knew that it would be.

Below are the list of my incorrectly predicted winners and the tally of my predictions-

Governor

1. CT- Tom Foley (R)
2. IL- Bill Brady (R)
3. OR- Chris Dudley (R)

2010 Gubernatorial totals: 34-3 (92%)

2006: 35-1 (97%)
2008: 10-1 (91%)
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U.S. Senate

1. CO- Ken Buck (R)
2. NV- Sharron Angle (R)
3. WV- John Raese (R)

2010 U.S. Senate totals: 34-3 (92%)

2006 U.S. Senate predictions: 31-2 (94%)

2008 U.S. Senate predictions: 34-1 (97 %)
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U.S. House

Incorrect Republican predictions:

1. CA- David Harmer
2. CT- Sam Caligiuri
3. HI- Charles Djou
4. NC- Harold Johnson
5. OR- Scott Bruun

Incorrect Democrat predictions:

1. FL- Ron Klein
2. ID- Walt Minnick
3. IL- Melissa Bean
4. MI- Mark Schauer
5. MN- James Oberstar
6. MS- Gene Taylor
7. MO- Ike Skelton
8. NY- Michael McMahon
9. NY- Scott Murphy
10. NY- Michael Arcuri
11. NY- Dan Maffei
12. NC- Bob Etheridge
13. OH- Charlie Wilson
14. TN- Lincoln Davis
15. TX- Solomon Ortiz
16. VA- Rich Boucher

2010 U.S. House totals: 414-21 (95%)

2006 U.S. House predictions: 416-19 (96%)
2008 U.S. House predictions: 418-17 (96%)
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Overall totals: 482-27 (95%)

2006 Overall: 482-22 (96%)
2008 Overall: 462-19 (96%)