How I Fared In My Election Predictions

It's always worth reviewing your predictions when you look prophetic. Actually, this year was an easy year to predict. All historical barometers pointed to a big GOP pick-up, at least in the congressional elections, and the results proved out those time-proven indicators.

Nationally

I predicted a Republican gain in the House of Representatives of 57 seats. It looks like the Republicans gained control by picking up 60 seats. That's pretty close. I didn't fare as well in my prediction of Senate races. I anticipated the Republicans would pick up 9 seats, which meant Democrats would still control the Senate. It looks like a 6-seat pick-up. Who would have thought Republicans would win tough races in red states like Illinois for Obama's Senate seat against the President's golden boy best pal and with an arch conservative GOP candidate in Pennsylvania while losing to "Dirty Harry" Reid in Nevada, an unremarkable appointed senator in Colorado and the senator with the absolute lowest IQ in Washington to an outstanding candidate?

I also thought Republicans would clean up in the gubernatorial races across the country and capture 34 State Houses before the election was over. It was a good night for GOP gubernatorial candidates to be sure. The Republicans picked up at least 6 State Houses, bringing their total to 29. There are three undecided contests, including next door Illinois. How Bill Brady could have come up short against Pat Quinn after the Rod Blagojevich fiasco, Quinn's early release of violent offenders from the state prisons to save money and his unprecedented urge to raise taxes through the roof is anybody's guess. Brady won all but about 4 of the state's 102 counties outside of Cook County, many with margins of 3-1 and 2-1, but still came up short by at least 10,000 votes. While Brady isn't conceding based on his claim that absentee ballots will produce enough votes to put him over the top, he's just pissing in the wind. Whatever uncounted military ballots there are will be offset by the thousands of yet-to-be counted votes in Chicago.

Indiana

It was easy to predict Dan Coats would beat Brad Ellsworth. I thought Coats would capture 52% with 40% going to Brad Ellsworth and the remaining share to the Libertarian candidate. Coats actually captured 55%, while I was dead-on in my 40% estimate for Ellsworth. The Libertarian candidate captured 5% of the vote instead of the 8% I predicted.

I also predicted all of the Republican statewide candidates would win, which was also an easy prediction to make. I thought Secretary of State candidate Charlie White, who is under investigation for voter fraud, would be held to 52% of the vote with the Libertarian candidate picking up a respectable 8% of the vote. Surprisingly, Charlie White out-performed Coats by winning 57% of the vote. Libertarian Mike Wherry captured only 6% of the vote. Vop Osili garned only 37% of the vote, presumably because of the sound of his name. GOP Treasurer Richard Mourdock topped the Republican ticket with 62% of the vote. Auditor candidate Tim Berry only did slightly better than White with 58% of the vote.

I predicted 8th District GOP candidate Larry Buschon would win with 57% of the vote; he got 58% of the vote. I predicted Todd Young's win over Baron Hill in the 9th District with 50% of the vote. Young beat my expectations. He captured 52% of the vote compared to Hill's 42% share. I accurately predicted the tightest race would come in Indiana's 2nd District. I thought the race would be decided by fewer than 2,000 votes; it was decided by 2,600 votes. Jackie Walorski can blame the Libertarian candidate, who captured 5% of the vote, for her one-percentage point loss to Joe Donnelly.

I predicted Indiana House Republicans would regain control with 55 seats. It's now looking like they will win at least 60 seats. Who would have thought House Majority Leader Russ Stilwell would lose, Ed Delaney would win re-election handily and Gov. Daniels' golden boy Kyle Hupfer would lose to Scott Reske, while the Republicans would still manage a double-digit pick-up?  I thought Senate Republicans would hold there 34-seat majority and hold Jim Merritt's seat with 53% of the vote. They picked up 3 more seats and held Merritt's seat with 52% of the vote.

Marion County

I thought Republicans in Marion County were going to be thwarted by the Democrats' excellent GOTV effort in a Republican wave year. Adding to the complete incompetency of the Marion Co. GOP leadership, Republicans managed to lose every single race. Only the prosecutor's race was reasonably close after the state party dumped about $75,000 into the race in an effort to save Mark Massa's poorly-executed campaign. I thought Massa would have to defeat Curry by a comfortable margin if there was any chance of the other county-wide candidates winning given the county party's non-existent GOTV effort. Massa did lead the ticket, but he managed to get only 48% of the vote. Most of the Democrats' winning candidates received 55% to 56% of the vote, with Sheriff candidate John Layton leading the Democratic ticket. I thought the winning candidate in the prosecutor's race winning percentage would closely mirror the winning candidate in the Secretary of State's race in Marion County. Vop Osili and Terry Curry both captured 52% of the vote.