It’s babka time again at Daily Kos Elections! Once again, we’ll be offering delicious chocolate babka (pictured above) from the exceptional Green’s Bakery as our prize for our annual prediction contest.
If you want the chance to win babka, as well as everlasting fame and glory, click here to submit your answers. To enter, you must have had a Daily Kos account on or before Oct. 31. You will also need to provide your email address so that we can contact you if you win (we’ll only use this information to contact winners). The deadline for submitting predictions is 6 PM ET Tuesday, Nov. 7—one hour before the first polls close. You may enter as many times as you like, but only your final prediction received before the deadline will count.
Now, on to the competition! We’ll be taking a page from our 2013 contest and doing something a little different than usual.
• Part 1, three questions. We’re asking you to bet the spread on three major contests: the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, and the special election for Washington’s Senate District 45. We’ve set “lines” (that is, an expected margin of victory) for all three races, and we’re asking you to say whether you think the final results will come in above or below that line. Note that we do not factor in write-in votes for determining the margin of victory. Each correct answer is worth 1 point.
• Part 2, seven questions. This is a traditional pick ‘em. We’re asking you to select the winners in seven contests: Nassau County, NY executive; Westchester County, NY executive; St. Petersburg, FL mayor; Charlotte, NC mayor; Manchester, NH mayor; Detroit, MI city clerk; and Maine Medicaid expansion (Question 2). Each correct answer is worth 1 point. For more information about these contests, see our election night preview here.
• Part 3, one question. This year, the entire Virginia House of Delegates is up. We’re asking you to predict how many of the 100 seats will elect a Democrat on Tuesday (Democrats currently hold 34 seats). If you guess exactly the right number, you get 6 points. If you’re off by one in either direction, you get 5 points, 4 points if you're two off, and so on.
• Tiebreaker. We’re asking you to predict what percentage of the vote (excluding write-in votes) each of the three Virginia gubernatorial candidates—Democrat Ralph Northam, Republican Ed Gillespie, and Libertarian Cliff Hyra—will receive. You may enter as many significant figures as you'd like.
Again, click here to submit your responses. Feel free to share your guesses in comments (though only answers submitted via the form will count). Winners will be notified once all election results are final, so there may be a bit of a delay before we can contact you.
Now go and earn that babka! And good luck! We’ll be liveblogging the results at Daily Kos Elections, starting at 7 PM ET, and tweeting as well.
