Real election results that would have seemed absurd as predictions

[Nichlemn]

List some election results that would have seemed absurd had you gone back in time and predicted them, and the time that would have maximised its absurdity.

Obama 08

I don't actually think "a black President will be elected in 2008" would ever have been all that absurd a prediction. A black President had been plausible for decades (Powell could have won in 1996) and if you go back far enough to the pre-Civil Rights era, it would be so far in the future it wouldn't seem any more absurd than a lot of things that ended up happening. The real absurd prediction I think would be predicting his 2008 victory in 2000, right after he lost the primary to Rush.

1964

Mississippi voting 87% for the Republican while Vermont voted 66% Democratic would have seemed absurd at pretty much any time, probably right up until Election Day. The most absurd? Maybe 1936, when Vermont was one of two states carried by Landon, while FDR won 97% in Mississippi.

West Virginia, 2012

"A losing Republican will win West Virginia 62-36 in 2012" likewise seemed implausible even up until Election Day, but I think in 1988, when it was one of the few states carried by Dukakis, it would have had the maximum impact.

Blanche Lincoln 2010

Not a Presidential prediction, but I think that predicting that she would lose by 21 points in 2010 despite not having any personal scandals would have seemed absurd for a long time, right until late 2009.


edit: 1000th post!

[Nichlemn]

"An openly gay woman will be elected to the senate in Wisconsin."

Or by name. "Tammy Baldwin will defeat Tommy Thompson for a Wisconsin Senate seat, trailing the Presidential ticket by only about a point" (circa 2000).