The Great Swing State Project Predictions Contest: Results Are In!

Back in mid-October, most of you will recall that James and I launched a community predictions contest. We selected twelve races from all across the country – half of them top-tier, the other half more obscure – and asked SSPers to predict the outcomes. Well, we’ve finally compiled the results!

As we said at the outset, winners are determined by who made the closest predictions in the aggregate, across all dozen races. So, for example, if you predicted Corker by five in TN-Sen, you got two “points” added to your total score (he won by three). However, if you had picked Ford by five, you would have gotten eight points added to your score. (In other words, the race was Dem -5, but you said Dem +3, which is a difference of 8.)

If the math bores or confuses you, don’t worry. Just trust me and James. (After all, we majored in history and poli sci.) We tallied up the score in each race for each entrant – the folks with the lowest scores did the best. Without further ado, the winners (scores in parens):

Winner: Democraticavenger (50)
First Runner-Up: Tyler (53)
Second Runner-Up: Dcal (57)
Third Runner-Up: Craig (58)

Congratulations to you all! At some point, my sorry ass will send you some SSP schwag, but I can promise you that it will not come in time for the winter holidays. (Besides, I’ve already missed Diwali by over a month.) Please e-mail me if you are a winner and would like to (eventually) claim your prize.

If you’d like to see how your predictions stacked up against the rest of the community’s (we had 52 total entries), you can check out this PDF. (Legend: R = actual result; D = difference between guess and result; P = “points,” ie, the absolute value of the difference.)

Thanks to everyone for participating! We had a lot of fun, and we hope you did, too.