The election is over and Rumormill’s Electline hit a solid bulls eye in the national competition among prognosticators. Of the 520 races called (50 states plus the District of Columbia for President, 34 Senate seats, and all 435 House contests), there are two Louisiana House districts which face runoffs. Of the remaining 518 votes, Electline nailed 510 (98.5%).
Unlike Campaigns and Elections magazine and other across-the-board predictors, Electline doesn’t use the “too close to call” cop out. I call every race, and i still beat every other analyst.
The errors in Electline’s efforts were the usual assortment of borderline calls and the usual couple shockers. Analysis below of errors.
NATIONAL: I called 50 0f the 51 states (plus DC) right. Only Wisconsin,with a less than 12,000 vote margin for Kerry out of 3 million, spoiled the parade. Since third party candidates pulled over 26,000 in the Dairy State, it was a coin flip in any case.
SENATE: 32 of 34 right. I’ve learned I’ve got to stop giving good chances to self funding non-incumbents. Between 2002 and this year, they have now lost 9 in a row. One was my error in picking Pete Coors (R) in Colorado over well-qualified Attorney General Salazar (D), I thought Coors’ millions in a leaning R state would spell the difference. As it turned out, he might as well have been hapless fashion designer Jack Orchulli (R) in Connecticut.
The other Senate mistake was figuring Tom Daschle (D) had enough roots to survive in South Dakota against a Bush tide and a highly qualified ex-Rep. Daschle lost by 3500 out of 390,000, becoming the first Senate leader in 52 years to lose.
HOUSE: 428 of 433 right so far. I believe the GOP will sweep both Louisiana races going to run-off (districts 3 and 7). However, Mary Landrieu’s overtime Senate win in 2002 indicates the electorate may swing against the national tide a month later.
Otherwise, I’ll take the 99% correct rate in the House. My handful of errors were Colorado 3, Georgia 12, Texas 17, Indiana 9, and Illinois 8.
I underestimated the Salazar brothers in Colorado (they accounted for a quarter of my mistakes). I won’t make the mistake again. I thought freshman Max Burns (R) in Georgia, despite holding a liberal seat, would ride a Bush landslide to another term. He fell 8,000 short out of 214,000. This seat will stay Dem for a decade, anyway. Chet Edwards in Texas 17 bucked a rearranged district and took advantage of a disruptive R primary and spent his early money lead well to hang on by 9,000 out of 245,000. He can’t rest, though. This will remain a GOP target.
Then there were the two shockers: Phil Crane (R) going down in Illinois and Baron Hill (D) falling in Indiana. Although Crane was the senior member of the GOP House, he had long gained a reputation as one who was not paying attention to his duties. His lack of important committee posts and his occasional trips to alcohol rehab had made his eventual demise predictable (just not by me). Kerry’s sweep in Illinois sealed his fate. Baron Hill sat atop a swing district. He barely pulled it out in 1998, and was shaky since. Bush’s Indiana sweep took him down by 1300 out of 283,000 in the closest election in the nation.
Although Rumormill is known as an alternative news site (I love the motto (“usually true”), everything we talk about is politically charged. For the next two years, I will be commenting on political trends and predictions. I hope this will lead to an invigorated discussion of how power os actually allocated in America.
