What's the worst election prediction you ever made?

[President Johnson]

I think I had Hillary +9 in Michigan in 2016.

I think I had her winning Michigan 56-40% in late summer 2016. Somehow I expected 2016 to be a victory larger than 2012 and slightly smaller than 2008. So that's probably it.

[Mr. Smith]

Vitter +4 for LA-GOV 2015.

[MT Treasurer]

Doug Jones having a chance against the right Republican in the right environment. (2017-2019/much of 2020)

Mark Kirk having a chance against the right Democrat in the right environment. (2015/early 2016)

Also overestimated the impact of retail politics in IA-SEN 2020 and ND-SEN 2018, although I was admittedly memeing a little there.

[Alben Barkley]

I thought Amy McGrath would win Elliot County. But my reasoning was that Rand Paul's opponent won it in 2016 and it voted for every statewide Democrat in 2019 - even the ones who got less than 40%.

Reasonable enough prediction. I figured it would most likely be a Trump/McGrath county (perhaps even the only one) myself. Though I certainly didn't write off the possibility that it being an election year and McGrath frankly being an awful candidate (especially compared to Gray in 2016 and Grimes in 2014, who were both actually pretty decent candidates) might allow Mitch to win it for the first time ever. Still didn't quite believe it until I saw it though. End of an era, to say the least.

[Mexican Wolf]

Thinking that Hillary's 2016 EC vote total would be only slightly less than Obama's in 2012 (somewhere between 315 to 323 or so) and that she would win PA, MI, and WI.

[Mr. Illini]

Probably Trump winning Colorado in 2016. He over performed expectations but still lost it lol

[Sestak]

Texas or Florida 2020, probably.

[It’s so Joever]

VA-Gubernatorial 2021.

[Calthrina950]

I thought Amy McGrath would win Elliot County. But my reasoning was that Rand Paul's opponent won it in 2016 and it voted for every statewide Democrat in 2019 - even the ones who got less than 40%.

I had this same reasoning about Elliott County. Given what happened there last year, I'm confident that Paul will carry it by a major landslide margin next year, and I think it's highly likely that Beshear loses it in 2023, even if he somehow manages to win reelection.

[Continential]

Dems winning New Hampshire in 2020.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Berks County, PA, being a tossup in the 2020 presidential race. Predicting a much narrower margin for Trump is forgivable given that no one saw Reading's massive swing to the right coming, but expecting a county with that demographic and economic profile, where Lou Barletta got 47%, to be ripe for Biden's picking was a major misstep.

[KaiserDave]

I have a pretty good record but a smattering of 2018 Dems (thinking Donnelly would win, Missouri would be extremely close, Tennessee in single digits), and Bevinevitable. That last one is my worst.

[TML]

I thought 2016 would have resulted in a Hillary Clinton presidency and a Democratic-controlled Senate.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

Probably my 2016-Prez map. Had McMullin winning Utah and figured about a six point Clinton win (I basically went two points above the polls, whereas reality went two below).

Maine 2020 Senate Race being a pure tossup/narrow Gideon win.

That’s better than most people’s predictions though lol.

[AtorBoltox]

That Larry Hogan would lose in 2018

[MarkD]

That's a toss-up between predicting that the Democratic nominee of 2020 would win 47 states and Trump would only win 3, and my prediction that I wouldn't vote for Joe Biden under any circumstances.

I'll vote Pete Buttigieg for the primary. I'll vote for him in November if he's the nominee. If not, I'll vote for an Evan McMullin-like 3rd party candidate.

I will never vote for the man who chaired the committee that excoriated Judge Robert Bork 32 years ago.

Biden flip-flopped on the question of whether he would vote to confirm Judge Bork for the Supreme Court. Late in 1986, when it was obvious that Biden was going to become the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Say the administration sends up Bork and after our investigation he looks like another Scalia, I'd have to vote for him and if the groups tear me apart, that's the medicine I'll have to take, I'm not Teddy Kennedy." But a week after President Reagan nominated Bork, a coalition of liberal interest groups met with Biden and he at once flipped, saying that he would oppose Bork's confirmation and would lead the effort to vote it down.

[Utah Neolib]

I thought Bullock would win and Cooney would win in 2020.  I look back at it and wonder how I was so wrong.

[Former President tack50]

Not an election prediction per se, but 13 year old me thought that if Rajoy took Spain out of the recession he would cruise to a 210+ seat landslide in 2015 and rule for longer than Franco ever did

Even as late as 2016 I thought Rajoy was there to stay until at least the mid 2020s and would get reelected at least once more, if not twice or thrice.

Needless to say I was very wrong on all counts

[Cokeland Saxton]

Donnelly winning in Indiana in 2018

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I don't make predictions based on how I feel about how the Election will turnout, I make predictions in case DS win wave insurance candidates win or not just like RS make R Nut map, I make D Nut maps Lol they are still predicting OZ is gonna heat Fetterman, Biden can be at 25 percent and Fetterman would still win and Johnson has never lead in a single poll, Cook have both WI and PA as Tossups and NC

I will do so again in 22, we can't let this Tea Party back in power they want to give Medal of Freedom to Rittenhouse, Greene needs to be censored or expelled for that if he was Blk or Muslim, no one would care if he went to jail


CRIST, DEMING'S, Beto are 6 pts behind, that's close enough for me to put them in the D column, it's a blk and Brown and Female election not an Evangelical Election

We won 80M votes DS  Beto, Ryan, Beshear have boyish looks, and in 2019 DS weren't plus 8 on Generic ballot in order for Beshear to win

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Sara Gideon by 5

[Schiff for Senate]

I know this sounds like I'm trying to make it seem like I'm some great predictor. But full disclosure, I only really started predicting races like this in 2021. You can include the 2020 election too where I casually made some predictions. I know my wrongest prediction yet has been thinking that VA GOV was going to go blue by 5.8 points (and it was 7.2 points until I lowered it in November because, I remember saying, I was being very cautious).

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

There isn't worse Predictions IA called wave insurance just like Rs make Red wave maps, D's can make D wave maps, you shouldn't be ashamed of making a Nut map if Rs do it, they still think with Shapiro on the ballot they're gonna retain PA that's as farfetched as Trump being Prez again, lol thats Denial

[politicallefty]

2016 as a whole. My primary supposition was that sanity would prevail when people had the ballot in front of them. I never could have conceived of that many people voting for Donald Trump for President of the United States. In a similar vein, I'm still stunned that Trump managed to find over 11m more votes between 2016 and 2020.

These turnout projection models as to who wins and who doesn't probably should've been dead years ago. I remember projections before 2004 that said anything close to 120m voters meant Bush's defeat. Turnout was over 122m and we all know the result. I saw an article last year that said that Trump needed 11m more votes to ensure victory. He actually exceeded that.