With Election Day fading into our rear-view, the Daily Kos Elections team decided that it's high time for some introspection. With that view in mind, the theme of this week's open thread is: What were you
wrongest about this cycle? In the comments, please feel free to share your blown calls, dead-wrong predictions, and incorrect assumptions leading up to November 4th. In the interests of good-faith reciprocity, the DKE team has offered our "wrongests" for you to consider below the fold.
Jeff Singer:
I definitely underestimated how much damage our problems at the top of the ticket would do to our House candidates. In IA-01 and NV-04 I spent most of the cycle thinking that because the GOP nominated blah candidates, Pat Murphy and Steven Horsford would be fine. I also made this mistake in NY-24 and NY-25: I didn't think Cuomo's easy win would hurt Upstate Democratic turnout nearly as much as it did.
Steve Singiser:
I really, really thought that Paul LePage was dead man walking, even when the polls tightened at the end. I just couldn't fathom someone being that batshit crazy and being re-elected.
And, this one hurts more than most--I really thought Mark Schauer would win. I just couldn't fathom there being that many Peters-Snyder voters. I am still more hurt by that race than any other.
David Jarman:
Where it matters, I'd say NC-Sen, where it was easy to be confident because of the sheer volume of polls with Hagan up 1 or 2.
Where it doesn't matter (especially since they seem to have won), I'd say CA-16 and NY-25, since it didn't occur to me that these would be in any danger. (In my defense, it didn't seem to occur to anybody else either.)
Arjun Jaikumar:
I was sure Hagan would win. I was wrongest, surely, about Pryor, who I knew was going to lose by the end of it but not by 16 points.
Jeffmd:
I was dead dead wrong about Quinn. I thought Quinn survived 2010 and wanted to believe he would somehow manage to pull out 2014, even though in retrospect I shouldn't have -- Rauner wasn't weak in all the ways that Brady was (downstate, socially conservative...)
Taniel:
My big mistake for a while was being convinced that polls were wrong in Colorado and not feeling bad about the polls, but I think at some point I got off that horse when polls started showing Hickenlooper doing much better.
I think my big Senate mistake was being convinced that, if the GA polls were wrong, it had to be in Nunn's favor because the minority vote seemed to be a bit low. I couldn't have imagined she'd fall so low among whites.
David Nir:
I thought Pete Gallego would win in TX-23. I also really, really wanted to believe that Charlie Crist would win, but I think deep in my heart I sensed he wouldn't at the last minute.
As for myself, while avoiding obvious choices like VA-Sen or NY-25, or the near-universal error on the part of the DKE team in believing that Pat Quinn would eke it out, I'd offer Pat Murphy's win in FL-18. While we kept on hearing consistent chatter during the course of the campaign that Murphy's internal polling showed him with a comfortable lead, and that his seemingly hapless GOP challenger never seemed to gain traction, deep in my guts, I thought there was a very real chance that Murphy could get washed out in the wave due to no fault of his own. I certainly never expected him to romp by nearly twenty points!