What did you get wrong? What did you get right? (updated)

We’ve had ten days to decompress from the election. It’s time for a little self-promotion and self-criticism.

What did you predict accurately during the past campaign, and what did you get completely wrong?

The ground rules for this thread are as follows:

1. This is about your own forecasting skills. Do not post a comment solely to mock someone else’s idiocy.

2. You are not allowed to boast about something you got right without owning up to at least one thing you got wrong.

3. For maximum bragging rights, include a link to a comment or diary containing your accurate prediction. Links are not required, though.

I’ll get the ball rolling. Here are some of the more significant things I got wrong during the presidential campaign that just ended.

I thought that since John Edwards had been in the spotlight for years, the Republicans would probably not be able to spring an “October surprise” on us if he were the Democratic nominee. Oops.

In 2006 I thought Hillary’s strong poll numbers among Democrats were

inflated by the fact that she has a lot of name recognition. I think once the campaign begins, her numbers will sink like Lieberman’s did in 2003.

Then when her poll numbers held up in most states throughout 2007, I thought Hillary’s coalition would collapse if she lost a few early primaries. Um, not quite.

I thought Barack Obama would fail to be viable in a lot of Iowa precincts dominated by voters over age 50.

I thought Obama had zero chance of beating John McCain in Florida.

Here are a few things I got right:

I consistently predicted that Hillary would finish no better than third in the Iowa caucuses. For that I was sometimes ridiculed in MyDD comment threads during the summer and fall of 2007.

I knew right away that choosing Sarah Palin was McCain’s gift to Democrats on his own birthday, because it undercut his best argument against Obama: lack of experience.

I immediately sensed that letting the Obama campaign take over the GOTV effort in Iowa might lead to a convincing victory for Obama here without maximizing the gains for our down-ticket candidates. In fact, Iowa Democrats did lose a number of statehouse races we should have won last week.

By the way, if you are from Iowa or have Iowa connections, please consider helping the progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland analyze what went wrong and what went right for Democrats in some of the state House and Senate races.

UPDATE: I wasn’t thinking just in terms of election predictions. I meant more broadly, what were you right and wrong about during the course of the whole campaign? Such as, “I thought Obama was done after Nevada” or “I thought the long primary battle was going to destroy Obama’s chances” or “I thought once Reverend Wright emerged Hillary would win the nomination.”

24 thoughts on “What did you get wrong? What did you get right? (updated)”

  1. Republicans did better at holding moderate suburban districts across the country, from New Jersey to Minnesota to Washington.  I thought an Obama victory in those areas would drag a few more Dems over the finish line.

  2. other than Begich (likely by this point) winning the Senate seat.  I thought there’d be a blowout at AK-Sen and a nice win at AK-AL.  Boy was I wrong.

    I was also wrong about IA-04 and both FL-21 and FL-25.

    I was wrong about MN-06, MN-03, and IL-10, but in retrospect I should have kept MN-03 and IL-10 at lean R according to polls rather than listen to all y’all who rated it at tossup or even lean D.  However, I seriously thought that MN-06 would be a tossup after Bachmann’s Anti-American Committee Advertisement.  I also thought that Minnesota being a campaign focus state and Illinois being Obama’s home state could provide significant coattails–but alas it did not.

    I was also wrongly hopeful about WY-AL, and wrongly optimistic about LA-06 and KS-02. 🙁  However, I was wrongly pessimistic about PA-11.

  3. On the plus side, I correctly predicted the popular vote percentages at 53-46 for Obama.  I didn’t extend to a decimal point, just whole percentages, but I got that much right.  I also take pride in nailing everything right during the campaign, that most Hillary supporters would come on board without too much effort on our part; that McCain’s September momentum was merely a convention and VP pick bounce that would fade before the first debate; that McCain’s pick of Palin was a disaster because it ruined his “experience” message and also moved the spotlight from Obama (where the GOP wanted it) to McCain/Palin (where McCain learned the media attention he so craved came with unwanted scrutiny); that Obama really would expand the map by winning traditionally safe GOP states; and that Obama would win.  I had my moments of handwringing and doubt because being a Democrat through most of my adult life has been like being an Iowa State fan or a Cubs fan, but most of my confidence was vindicated.

    I also correctly predicted all 7 of the Senate pickups we KNOW we’re getting, including Begich over Stevens.  I also predicted Franken over Coleman, and of course we don’t know the outcome there yet.  And I correctly predicted we’d lose Kentucky and Mississippi.  Re Georgia, I predicted defeat in a runoff, and while I was sadly confident of that a few weeks ago, now I’m not so sure although my newfound equivocation admittedly could be skewed by some wishfulness–I want Chambliss knocked out badly.

    My biggest screw-up was on the House side.  I thought we’d get more pickups than we got.  Specifically, I thought Madia would win and Bachmann would lose in those 2 MN seats; that Stender would win NJ-07; that Cazayoux and Boyda would survive; that Seals would beat Kirk in IL-10; and that Darcy Burner would pull it out.  On the flip side I didn’t think we’d get the 2 Virginia seats or that Kratovil would win in MD, and I thought Kanjorski was toast in PA.  And like everyone else I wrongly assumed Don Young was toast.  And I thought between the 2 open Alabama seats (Cramer’s and Everett’s), we’d split ’em instead of winning both as we did.  I did predict all our other pickups.  Ultimately my prediction had us plus-24 minimum, maybe in the high 20s, but not the low 20s where we’ll end up.

    All in all I’m still hoping that Franken and Jim Martin end up winning Senate seats and that Kilroy will pull out OH-15.  I also hope Camouche wins in LA-04, but I have less hope for Charlie Brown in California.  Of course Dollar Bill Jefferson will win his runoff and continue to be our embarrassment, really our Don Young.

  4. My final projections were pretty well spot on in most cases this year.  Here is my record:

    Statewide and Congressional Campaigns: 100%, I correctly called every single one, although to be honest except for Smith/Merkley none were close.

    Ballot Measures: 11/12 correct, I thought Measure 61 would pass but with less votes than Measure 57, and it actually failed outright.  I thought Measure 65 would be a lot closer than it was (it lost by about 2-1).

    State Legislature: Senate 3/3, House 16/18.  I missed 2 house races, both of which were very close.  I projected that Adamson and Eberle would win and neither did.  Forsberg appears headed to a narrow defeat as well, which is unfortunately predicted.

    Overall I think I did rather well this year as I nailed virtually every prediction and the ones I missed I didn’t miss by much.  

  5. I thought Edwards would win Iowa and scoffed like many at the Selzer poll indicating a big Obama win on the back of first-time caucusers. I always expected Hillary to come third.

    I thought Romney would win Iowa and New Hampshire and Florida. I thought Obama would win NH (OK, that doesn’t really count!) I thought Edwards would do better in South Carolina and Huckabee would win there.

    From then on for the primaries I pretty much nailed everything except the Texas primary because it was so obvious by then everything was coming down to demographics.

    I correctly knew Hillary was done after February. That the vast majority of her supporters would come round. That she and Bill would give barnstorming speeches for Barack at the convention and go all out for him in the general.

    I said straight away that Biden would hurt short term and help in the long term but I think he was mainly a wash. I said Palin would help short term and be a pain long term. I thought the campaign should ignore and stick to McCain. I guess that is still up for debate.

    I nailed the two-party vote exactly and correctly said that Nader and Barr would both struggle to hit 1 percent.

    I got the electoral college close with 364 though I got IN and MO the wrong way round.

    I said 30 House gains and three defeats so wasn’t too far out. I thought Berkowitz would win. I thought Kanjorski would win.

    Looks like I got all the Senate races correct but I guess I hedged my bets on MN and since that is still up in the air who knows whether I will be proved right or not.

  6. I nailed the delegate projection for Pennsylvania, was one of the very few people who predicted that Obama would win North Carolina by double-digits, was one of the few people to get the margin for Clinton's win in Indiana right, I was among the closest on Clinton's margin in Kentucky (while I underestimated Obama's margin in Oregon). I nailed Montana (but really fucked up South Dakota… bastards… :P). Oh and I thought that Heather Wilson was going to win the Senate primary in my home state of New Mexico.

    General election: I thought Obama was going to pick Tim Kaine of Virginia as his running mate (which cost me ten bucks), I thought McCain was going to pick Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota (it wasn't a good time to be named Tim I suppose :D). I accurately predicted that Obama would bounce back after the Republican Convention (if you time the bounce, Obama was back to leading in the polls just before the market self-destructed). I accurately called everything except for Missouri and NE-02, and if Begich (extremely likely) and Franken (extremely possible) pull off their wins, I will have nailed every single senate race, including calling that Georgia would go to a run-off!

  7. Presidentially, I missed Missouri, while I was hopeful for Montana and NE-02, but I was not altogether expecting. So I guess I missed NE-02. Oh, and I don’t think many of us predicted the margin in Nevada. That was an incredible blow out, and gives a lot of hope for the future in that state.

    Senate: I was pretty much dead on as it stands RIGHT now, although, I thought that Alaska would be a lot more of a blowout, and it remains to be seen if Frankin will win, I did not believe that he would, although, I had hoped that he would prove me wrong.

    House: I expected many more gains, and was disapointed on the few that we missed. Minnesota was a big dissapointment, as was Seal’s loss. I was also very upset about Debbie Cook’s margin. Although she did an amazing job, and did better than anyone else, I had only been working the Long Beach portion of the district, and there she was extremely popular, and she may have won Long Beach, so I was a victim of limited sights.  

  8. using formulas that I made out of inspiration from the formulas on Election Projection (and though it’s a conservative site, the owner Scott kindly welcomes liberals too, and I commented there in ’05 and ’06).

    As you’ll see on my site ( http://californianintexas.blog… ), it looks like my predictions came pretty darn close to the actual results. On the presidency, I only missed Indiana and NE-02. I got all the governor races right, and I will have gotten all the Senate races right if Georgia and Minnesota stay GOP (though I’m all for Martin and Franken and would rather see a D win in a race I predicted an R win in than vice versa), and I was a bit off in my House predictions, missing AK-AL, CA-04 (possibly), IL-10, KS-02, LA-06, MD-01, MN-03, MN-06, NJ-07, OH-15 (possibly), PA-11, VA-02, VA-05 (possibly), and WA-08.

    Here is what I did for predicting the presidential margins in each state:

    Presidency

    (1) I used up to 10 national polls that were no more than 2 weeks old, and adjusted the average of them by factoring in the margin of each state from 2004.

    (2) I used up to 7 state polls that also were no more than 2 weeks old (though if the most recent polling available was more than 2 weeks old they would stay).

    (3) When combining the national and state polls, I counted the national polling average as one poll and each state poll would count as one. (Example: if there were 3 state polls available, each of those polls counts for 25% and the weight of the state polls counted for 75%, and the adjusted national polling result counted for 25% of the weight of the presidential prediction.)

    Governor and Senate

    For the governor and Senate races, I based my predictions only on the polling. I wish I could have used more than just polling, but unfortunately Survey USA stopped doing approval polls for the Senators and Governors, and the polling was the only available data I could use to make objective predictions.

    Competitive House races

    (1) I averaged the predictions of Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato, Stu Rothenberg, and Congressional Quarterly and counted that average as one poll. If there were no polls for the particular House race, then this average would be the prediction. (Toss-Up = 0, Tilt D/R = 2.5, Lean D/R = 5, Likely D/R = 10, Solid D/R = 20)

    (2) If there were polls on the House races, I would make the weight of the polling and pundit factors dependent on how many polls were out. If there was one poll, then that poll and the pundit average would each count 50% to the prediction. In the case of partisan polls, I altered the margin by 3 points (for example, if the poll was a Democratic poll and the Democrat was up by 10, then I would reduce that margin to 7; if the poll was a Republican poll, I’d increase the margin to 13).

    Here is an example using North Carolina, because in addition to the presidential race, it also had a governor race, a Senate race, and a competitive House race.

    http://californianintexas.blog

  9. I initially supported Richardson, and then shifted to Hillary after he dropped out. While I watched the primary and caucus results come in, I noticed Hillary did better among older/working-class/Hispanic/Catholic voters, while Obama did better among younger/upper-income/black/college-student voters, and I was thinking Hillary would be stronger against McCain than Obama because I thought her strengths would have been more likely to defect to McCain than Obama’s. When Obama finally secured enough delegates for the nomination, I was thinking we’d be toast against McCain.

    When McCain chose Palin, I was initially scared that some female Hillary voters would defect to McCain because of her, and tip some critical states in McCain’s favor, but after the Wall Street collapse and the debates, my confidence in Obama winning would rise, and from then on I expected he would win and the D’s would gain in Congress, and those expectations came true!

Comments are closed.