November 06, 2008 07:09 PM UTC

Predictions: How'd We Do?

• 7 Comments
• by: Dan Willis

I thought it would be about time to have a thread to review out predictions and how we fared.

My comments are below the fold. I should not give up my day job to become a fortune teller.

I seem to be losing my touch this year. This is by far my worst performance as a predictor.

CD4: I predicted Musgrave and am absolutely thrilled I was wrong. I made my predictions maybe too early. If I had made them closer to election day I would have likely predicted a Markey win, but I was not a believer yet in early Oct.

SD26: At the moment it looks like Dem Linda Newell has made a liar out of me. But there are still provisionsals and apparently 10K Arapco ballots to be counted so this one may not be over. I truly dislike Lauri Clapp so I am really hoping Linda remains the choice in this district.

HD17: What can I say, Dems are not supposed to do well in El Paso County. Dennis Apuan went against conventional wisdom.

HD30: It was not until a couple of days ago that I was told of Dave Rose’s unpopularity with many people in his area due to his job with the local schools. I based my prediction on the seats being Dem-leaning, but Kevin Priola (R) won it.

HD36: I knew I was going out on a limb predicting Mollie would win, but I was hoping she had built up steam since last time, not lost it.

HD37: Apparently this race is called for Swalm, but Diana Holland may have a new chance with the discovery that 10,000 Arapco ballots still had to be counted. I predicted for Holland and will hold off conceding this one until those 10k + the provisionals are counted.

HD55: It seems this one is over even though margin is very slim. I guess there must not be enough provisionals in Mesa County to change the outcome. I am sorry to see Bernie go. He was a very pragmatic legislator. I fear his successor will be less so.

Amend. 46: This failing at the moment but there are enough ballots still be counting to not make that a lock. I predicted it would win, but I will be happy to be wrong on this.

Amend. 49: I think people had a hard time remembering the numbers and wasn’t sure which was the really anti-labor one, 47 or 49, so they voted them both down to be safe.

Amend. 51: I thought people would be more willing to help these folks even in a bad economy. I was wrong.

Amend. 59: I think the campaign focused on the wrong part of the amendment here. They focused on funding schools. Funding anything in a difficult economy is not popular, so they should have focused on the de-Brucing aspect. Most people understand (or at least remember from Ref C) that the Constitution has an economic quagmire that needs to be fixed.

Ref. L: The failure of this one takes me by total surprise. I viewed this as a simple, non-controversial, house keeping measure to bring an age limit in line with most of the rest of society. Still not sure why it lost.