What things were you wrong about in congressional politics?

[Tekken_Guy]

What things were you wrong about in congressional politics?

[progressive85]

The backlash theory that the out party of the Presidency always has a huge landslide in the House and Senate... that was true in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014... by 2018 Democratic Senate losses in ND, IN, MO, and FL could be explained by the solidification of those states into only red states, but in 2022, the House results were weird.  I expected way more D losses.

[MarkD]

A simpler question would be what have I gotten RIGHT in congressional politics! I seem to make wrong predictions a majority of the time.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

I think a lot of us (myself included) underrate the advantage of incumbency, especially on the Senate level.

[Progressive Pessimist]

In 2022 I underestimated the Dobbs effect nationwide, but simultaneously also overrated how well Democrats were going to do in New York.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

In 2020 I underestimated Republicans
In 2022 I underestimated Democrats
Stay tuned for 2024 ya'll! /s

[MT Treasurer]

In 2020 I underestimated Republicans
In 2022 I underestimated Democrats
Stay tuned for 2024 ya'll! /s

You can atone for both of those sins by embracing the truth and becoming a disciple of riverwalk3:

2008-style Trumpslide; 2018-style blue wave down ballot.

[President Johnson]

In 2014, I actually expected the Democrats to narrowly hold the Senate.

In 2016, at least before October, I had the firm belief not only Trump would lose in a landslide, but that he would drag down many Republicans in congress as well. I never thought Ron Johnson had a chance to hang on.

In 2018, I expected Bill Nelson to win but was unsure whether Democrats would really win back the House.

In 2020, I greatly underestimated Republicans. I thought Democrats would expand their House majority and not come close to losing it. Also expected Tillis and Collins to go down.

In 2022, I underestimated the effects of Dobbs and thought it would be more of a 2018 in reverse.


It actually sucks that most of the time I expected a better outcome than we got.

[Xing]

When races depart quite a bit from the “baseline” fundamentals of previous races, and knowing when a candidate massively overperforming fundamentals in polling is due to a polling error or if something is really going on.