Revisiting my Predictions of the Election

How did I do with my predictions? Not too bad ... I speculated that the Election would be over by 11 EST/10 CST and I was right. When I heard the crowds cheering and boasting that Barack Obama had become our next President ... I quickly whipped out my iPhone to confirm the time and it was 10 on the dot. This also implies that my prediction that Obama would win was correct.

Now on the other races, I came close. For example: I thought the Electoral vote would be 352 for Obama and 186 for McCain. It looks more like Obama won 364 and McCain 173. I was wrong about the path that Obama would take in winning this election.

In battleground states, I anticipated that Obama would win North Dakota (3) and Missouri (11) while McCain would take North Carolina (15) and Indiana (11). Instead they swapped those states, giving Obama a surplus of 12 electoral votes. Not too bad considering I was off by just 2 states.

I expected the Popular vote to be a bit tighter. I anticipated that Obama would win 51% while McCain 48% of the Popular vote. The end result was wider (6%) with Obama winning 52% and McCain 46% of the Popular vote.

The Senate Results have not yet been determined. I speculated that Democrats will win 57 Senate seats while Republicans would hold onto 40. As we speak, Democrats have 54 Senate seats while Republicans have 40. There are 4 remaining seats that are too close to call but 3 are leaning to Republicans while just 1 may swing to a Democrat.

I was bit modest with the House Results it seems. I predicted that Democrats would come out the night with 257 while Republicans would hold onto 178. I was off by two seats since Democrats won 259 and Republicans came away with 176. Pretty good right?

Missouri's 100+ year streak of selecting the winning candidate was snapped with an Obama win. The South is still red ... dark red at times but any regions with a large population of Hispanics may start seeing that advantage deteriorate over the next years.