| We were going to wait for all results to be fully official before announcing our contest results (and awarding babka), but Joe "Norm Coleman" Miller seems to refuse to give it up (not even at the urging of Norm "Norm Coleman" Coleman).
Results were calculated as follows:
- For the two-way races, we asked you for a winner and a margin. We take the difference of your predicted margin and the real margin (including third party candidates), and add that to your "regular" score.
- For the three-way races, we asked you for the percentage each candidate was going to get. Again, we take the difference of your prediction and the actual percentage earned by the candidate, and add that to your "three-way" score.
- Your total score is the sum of the "regular" and "three way" scores, with a lower score being better.
- If you didn't enter a margin/vote percentage (or we couldn't understand what you entered), you got a "penalty" equal to the maximum score from a given race.
So a few summary statistics, by race:
- CT-Gov: 69% of you correctly guessed that Dan Malloy would win. Average margin was Malloy by 1.52%.
- OH-Gov: 57% of you correctly guessed that John Kasich would win. Average margin was Kasich by 1.53%.
- OR-Gov: 90% of you correctly guessed that John Kitzhaber would win, on average by 3.39%.
- CO-Sen: 57% of you correctly guessed that Michael Bennet would win. However, the average margin was Ken Buck by 0.40%
- NV-Sen: 66% of you correctly guessed that Harry Reid would win, on average by 0.30%.
- WI-Sen: 91% of you correctly guessed that Ron Johnson would win, on average by 5.17%.
- FL-25: Only 47% of you guessed that David Rivera would win, but the average predicted margin was Rivera by 0.45%.
- PA-07: 75% of you correctly guessed that Pat Meehan would win, by 2.96% on average.
- VA-11: 79% of you guessed that Gerry Connolly would win, and correctly so; the average predicted margin was 2.81%.
In the three-way races:
- MN-Gov: Average prediction was Dayton 44.45; Emmer 39.68; Horner 14.75.
- AK-Sen: Average prediction was McAdams 31.88; Miller 33.36; Murkowski 33.62.
This could almost be a testament to the wisdom of crowds (...or alternatively, the central limit theorem) - as a collective whole, only one race would have been called incorrectly. If averages were an entry, it would have placed 21st.
So, of course, having done our best Census Bureau impression (at least we haven't congratulated ourselves excessively!) - who won?
itskevin, abgin, and UpstateNYer come on down! (And by "come on down", I mean "email DavidNYC with contact information" ...) Sidenote: remember, you had to have submitted your entries before 5pm EDT on Election Day - and had (and still have) a valid account at the time of announcement of contest.
Full results are available here. Thanks to everyone who participated!
If you didn't win, don't worry, there may or may not be a prediction contest for the Chicago mayoral race, too. I see David's babka and raise him one deep dish. That, or some dead fish wrapped in a copy of the Trib, depending on how we feel. |
