So we have a final presidential map:
How many of you predicted an EV total of 365-173?
With Alaska decided, all we have left is Minnesota before we can determine the final Senate tally for purposes of the contest. Remember, the prediction was only for the final tally from Election Night. So you scored if you guessed that Georgia would go into a runoff. And the tally was only for Democrats and Republicans, so no independents were to be counted. So the final tally will be either 56-41 or 57-40.
In the House, we have what, two races left to account for? The AP hasn't officially called VA-05 for Perriello, but he's pretty much won that one. So the big question marks left are OH-15, which Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy should win, and CA-04, which is still anyone's game. LA-02 and LA-04 are in runoffs, so they don't count for purposes of this contest. The final tally will be either 257-176, or 258-175.
The last outstanding question before we can figure out who won the Macbook is the final popular vote percentages. As you know, the numbers are still moving around as final certified vote tallies continue to stream in from all over the country. What was a 52-47 victory on election night is now at 52.7-45.9. And what was a 4.5 million popular vote lead is now almost a 9 million popular vote lead.
Given that our contest required you to guess the popular vote percentages to the tenth of a percent, we're going to have to wait until we're pretty sure the numbers won't shift up or down a tenth of a percentage point anymore.
I want to know who the winner is (won't be me), so this wait is killing me!
If you participated in the contest, you can review your guesses here. Mine were:
57 Democratic Senate seats
40 Republican Senate seats
268 Democratic House seats
166 Republican House seats
390 Obama Electoral Votes
148 McCain Electoral Votes
53.6 Obama Popular Vote Percentage
45.2 McCain Popular Vote Percentage
I hope I get the Senate prediction wrong right, definitely overshot the House, overshot Obama's electoral vote haul, and overshot his popular vote margin. So no Macbook for me!
Also, once final votes are certified, I'll go back and review my more detailed predictions.
Update: synchronicityii in the comments:
Actually, you COULD do a shortlist
since there are only 8 possible end results (57-40 or 56-41 in the Senate, and 255-178, 256-177, 257-176, and 258-175 in the House). If you just imported the picks into Excel and sorted for each variation, you could determine the (relatively few) people who still have a chance.
I'm convinced. We'll run the numbers tomorrow and come up with the top 10 predictions for each of these scenarios. Well, not all, since the House will be either 257-176 or 258-175. I'm curious to see if we even have to get to the tie-breaker for any of them.
The formula?
It was 5*senators, 2* EV's, 1* house
with popular vote percentage as a tiebreaker.
So, if you guessed, say 56 Dems 42 Reps and it turns out 57-40, you'd be off one Dem and 2 Reps, for a total of 3 off, times 5 equals 15. Which right there puts you out of the running.
Update II: I dug up the rules, and pasted them in the extended entry.
Rules:
- You must be a registered user with full account rights (one week old)
- Results are for Tuesday's election. So if a seat goes to a runoff, it's not counted for either party.
- Independents are not Democrats or Republicans. They are independents, no matter who they caucus with.
- Everyone's final score will be made public so we can laugh at how pathetic you are, or marvel at your sheer
luck genius.
- The contest will be scored as such:
Senate: [Number of Senate seats guessed] minus [actual results] multiplied by five. (In other words, if you guess 59 Democratic seats and we end up with 60, your score is 5. If you guess 61 and we end up with 58, your score is 15.)
Electoral votes: [Number of electoral votes guessed] minus [actual electoral votes won] multiplied by two.
House: [Number of House seats guessed] minus [number of House seats won]
Tiebreaker: guess Obama and McCain's percentages of the national popular vote, down to 1/10th of a percentage point.
If we still have a tie, the winner will then be chosen by random drawing of the top scorers.