Prediction Thread

An electoral college map is here to help keep you in your prognostication.

Larry Sabato's own map and current prediction.

Make your predictions:

House GOP Gains or Losses. Currently 227-207 with 1 independent. Sabato predicts the outcome will be something like 232-235 R to 200-203 D. Note how many seats you think the GOP will pick-up or lose (+5, -3, etc.)

Senate GOP Gains or Losses. Currently 51-48+a Vermont douchebag. Recent predictions seem to call for about 3 net GOP gains in the Senate. Again, call the pick-up or loss (+2, -3).

Presidential Election: Popular vote share. Call the percent of the popular vote that Bush will receive to the nearest half-percent.

Presidential Election: Electoral Share. Call the number of electors you think Bush will win.

Presidential Election: Time of Declaration. Call the time you think that the first of the major broadcast and cable news networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC (sorta) and Fox) declare an overall winner in the contest. Be aware-- they're not going to do so very quickly this time around.

Presidential Election: Swing States! Call who will win the following states: OH, FL, MI, MN, IA, WI, PA, CO, NJ, HI, NM, NH.

Presidential Election: Tiebreaking Uncategorizable Prediction! Make your bold call of an interesting happening that will occur on Election Night. Will James Carville put another trash can on his head? Will Peter Jennings announce that "Tonight the nation had a temper-tantrum"? Will Dan Rather break down and demand, "What the fuck are you people-- morons?" Humorous and serious predictions welcome.

Overall winner decided by me.

Prize? You get to lead the line when we do a mass "Victory Lap" through the comments of the blogosphere. Plus the usual dumb non-prizes.

Clarification: Cedarford reminds me that Louisiana probably isn't electing a Senator on Nov. 2; it's probably just forwarding two men to a runoff to take place in December. This sort of screws everything up, because, of course, I want to judge a winner shortly after the election, if not that night.

So, because the Republican in LA is favored to win, I'm going to assume that Vitter will win so long as he makes it at least to the run-off (which he will). This is a sorta goofy workaround, since the person who predicts "right" by my rule may turn out to be wrong, but I don't know how else to handle it, given that people have already made predictions, and I don't want everyone to modify their predictions based on this wrinkle.

So I guess we'll just take Vitter as an in-the-bag pick-up for the Republicans, at least as far as these predictions, even though he's really not.

Another clarification: When picking the time of declaration, include a time zone, or else I'll just assume you mean Eastern time. Eastern Standard or Eastern Daylight, whatever the hell we'll be in on Nov. 2. I can never keep that straight.

Yes, very presumptuous of me and all. Very East-Coast-Centric. But we need a default. We can't have this prediction contest descending into a two-week disputed affair with the threat of outright political violence.

Help a Blogger Out: Try to respond to the questions specifically posed, or else it's going to be difficult for me to include you as a candidate for the actual winner. Like, don't just tell me which states Kerry will win. Tell me which of the states I asked about he'll win.

And yeah-- I should have asked about Oregon. It slipped my mind.

posted by Ace at 08:19 PM

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