I was curious to see how the Minnesota legislature predictions by AndrewMN and OGGoldy turned out.
Biggest Upsets in Minnesota: These are the races where neither diary predicted the correct winner. Either AndrewMN had Tossup and OGGoldy had the wrong party, or both had the wrong party.
Senate:
District 17, Lyle Koenen (D) over Joe Gimse (R)
District 21, Matt Schmit (D) over John Howe (R)
District 28, Jeremy Miller (R) over Jack Krage (D)
District 49, Melisa Franzen (D) over Keith Downey (R)
District 51: Jim Carlson (D) over Ted Daley (R)
4 "big upsets" for the DFL, 1 "big upset" for the GOP.
House:
District 1B: Deb Kiel (R) over Marc Demers (D)
District 2A: Roger Erickson (D) over Dave Hancock (R)
District 2B: Steve Green (R) over Brita Sailer (D)
District 51B: Laurie Halverson (D) over Doug Wardlow (R)
Both the DFL and GOP had 2 "big upsets."
Bonus: Mary Franson (R) only leads by one vote over Bob Cunniff, that might change in a recount. Both diaries had Franson winning. Any DFLer in Alexandria who didn't vote feels like a really big idiot right now.
Some Debate: These were the competitive races where one diary had the GOP candidate and one diary had the DFL candidate winning. Due to the fact that OGGoldy actually picked every race and AndrewMN didn't, I'm not going to evaluate who did better because it wouldn't be an apples to apples comparison.
Senate:
District 24: Vicki Jensen (D) over Vern Swedin (R)
District 39: Karin Housley (R) over Julie Bunn (D)
District 57: Greg Clausen (D) over Pat Hall (R)
Once again, the DFL won two of the debated Senate seats, the GOP won one.
House:
District 5A: John Persell (D) over Larry Howes (R)
District 17B: Mary Sawatzky (D) over Bruce Vogel (R)
District 26B: Mike Benson (R) over Pat Stallman (D)
District 32B: Bob Barrett (R) over Rick Olseen (D)
District 36A: Mark Uglem (R) over Grace Baltich (D)
District 39B: Kathy Lohmer (R) over Tom DeGree (D)
District 56B: Will Morgan (D) over Roz Peterson (R)
The GOP won four of the debated Senate seats, the DFL won three.
In the interests of time and length, I'm not going to list all the races where AndrewMN had tossup but OGGoldy got it right. I'm just going to assume that those races weren't quite as competitive as they looked.
Anyone who can shed some light on why these races turned out the way they did, I would be interested to hear it. I live in Wisconsin right now, and don't know as much Minnesota politics. However, the more I follow Minnesota politics, the more I want to think about moving there, and conversely the more I think I might be interested in living in the Twin Cities, the more I read up on Minnesota politics.
Obviously, it's not just because "Team Blue" is in charge, but because I believe they'll actually put in place policies that will improve the quality of life in Minnesota, such as better schools and universities, good health care policy, and investments in infrastructure and mass transit. Not to mention that even under Pawlenty the incarceration rate (and crime rate in Minneapolis/St. Paul vs. Milwaukee) was much lower in Minnesota than Wisconsin, and I would expect that to continue under DFL control. Conversely, I expect that Walker and the Republicans will continue to cut from schools and universities, undermine health care programs, and neglect transit and infrastructure (except for unneeded pork projects in GOP suburbs). And prisons were the one area of Walker's budget where we actually had massive spending increases under Walker. Just the wrong priorities all around.