The 2012 Election is Finally Over! So Who Won the Forecasting Contest?

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Ron Barber won the AZ-2 House race today, and with that I believe the 2012 election is over. Final results:

  • President: Obama 332, Romney 206
  • House: 201 D, 234 R
  • Senate: 55 D/I, 45 R

So how did Sam Wang, our resident expert do? Answer: pretty well. A month before the election, he called the presidential race dead on and missed the Senate race by only one seat. His House prediction was off by 16 seats, but in fairness, he was in the middle of incorporating redistricting/incumbency effects when I asked him for his forecast on October 6, and he warned me that this might change things. His later forecast was considerably more accurate.

Still, the rules were best forecast a month ahead of the election. So who won? Here are all the commenters who got the presidential split correct:

Jeff Gauvin

  • President: Obama 332, Romney 206
  • House: 215 D, 220 R
  • Senate: 52 D/I, 48 R

Ziggy

  • President: Obama 332, Romney 206
  • House: 215 D, 220 R
  • Senate: 54 D/I, 46 R

Jason Broccardo

  • President: Obama 332, Romney 206
  • House: 215 D, 220 R
  • Senate: 56 D/I, 44 R

jharp

  • President: Obama 332, Romney 206
  • House: 215 D, 220 R
  • Senate: 55 D/I, 45 R

Oddly, all four predicted an identical House split, so the winner is jharp, who got the Senate split dead on. However, there’s an honorable mention co-winner too:

Kadzimiel

  • President: Obama 303, Romney 235
  • House: 202 D, 233 R
  • Senate: 55 D/I, 45 R

Kadzimiel was almost dead-on for both the House and Senate, and missed the presidential split only by Florida, which was a genuine nail-biter that could have gone either way.

So that’s that. The 2012 election is in the books. Kadzimiel and jharp are co-winners of the forecasting contest, and if you guys will send me your email addresses I’ll try to persuade the powers-that-be to sign you up for a free MoJo subscription for 2013. Congratulations!

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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