Who Will Be the Wrongest Pundit of Them All?

by Evan Hughes

You have until midnight tonight to get in your bets for The Awl 2012 Electoral College Pool. WHO WILL WIN? Maybe Mitt Romney. Maybe you! Maybe both you and Mitt Romney.

In the name of accountability, here’s your one-stop shop for taunting the punditocracy after the election. Here are assertions from notable pundits about who will win the actual electoral college betting pool.

Romney Wins

Walter Kirn, political correspondent for the New Republic, believes from his time on the road that the polls and the analysts are going down.

Being out there and chatting and seeingtells me this election will be the pollsters and quants HMS Titanic moment.

— walter kirn (@walterkirn) November 3, 2012

Dick Morris: On The Hill, Oct. 30: “Opinion: Here comes the landslide.” And on dickmorris.com, Nov. 2: “There are many reasons that Obama will lose — by a lot — on Tuesday.” Specifically, he’s going 325 for Romney — which includes Minnesota.

Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 31: “Mitt Romney will be declared America’s 45th president. Let’s call it 51%-48%, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more.”

Larry O’Connor, Editor-in-Chief at Breitbart.TV, is going Romney 295, Obama 243.

Here is my Electoral College prediction as heard just now on @wmalmornings w/@brianwilsondc ->bit.ly/TFhsar

— Larry O’Connor (@LarryOConnor) November 5, 2012

Michael Barone of the Washington Examiner: “Going out on a limb: Romney beats Obama, handily,” Nov. 2: “Bottom line: Romney 315, Obama 223.” Barone specifically predicts that Romney will win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Alex Castellanos predicts Romney. “My experience is that the Beatles were right: Money can’t buy you love, or turnout.”

George Will: On “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Nov. 4. Romney in a landslide, 321–217. “I guess the wild card in what I’ve projected is that I’m projecting Minnesota to go for Romney.” Will also predicts that evangelicals who turn out in order to vote to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota will tip the scales there toward Romney, despite that it is the only state to have voted for the Democrat in nine straight presidential elections.

Kathryn Lopez of the National Review also agrees with Will on this one, and that Romney will win because of the “marriage vote.”

i think George Will is right. Romney will take Minnesota, and on account of the marriage vote.

— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) November 4, 2012

Kevin Eder, of the Media Research Center, is going Romney 281, Obama 257.

I’ve been asked several times 2day what my Electoral College prediction is. As I see it right now, it looks like this bit.ly/VMFYUD

— Kevin Eder (@keder) November 5, 2012

Ellen Carmichael, former Herman Cain spokesperson, says Romney and Scott Brown will win, “rooted in facts.”

My prediction for tomorrow: Romney wins, Scott Brown holds onto seat. Not just optimism. Rooted in facts (too many for a single tweet).

— Ellen Carmichael (@ellencarmichael) November 5, 2012

A notable Congresswoman from Minnesota is excited.

George Will says #MNRed is a reality on #thisweek! Keep watching @kstp in Minnesota for my debate at 10:00 am CST today. #MN06Debate

— Michele Bachmann (@TeamBachmann) November 4, 2012

Charles Krauthammer, on Fox News, Nov. 3:

SEAN HANNITY: Charles Krauthammer, your best prediction.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Romney. Very close, but he’ll win the popular by I think about half a point, electoral college probably, uh, a very narrow margin.

Jay Cost, Weekly Standard, “Morning Jay: Why Romney Is Likely to Win,” Nov. 2: “I am not willing to take polls at face value anymore. I am more interested in connecting the polls to history and the long-run structure of American politics, and when I do that I see a Romney victory.”

Newt Gingrich, on Fox News, Oct. 25: “I believe the minimum result will be 53–47 Romney, over 300 electoral votes, and the Republicans will pick up the Senate.”

William Kristol, “Marvelous Mitt,” Weekly Standard, Oct. 26: “As president, Mitt Romney will have the extraordinary opportunity to rescue America from the spirits of the shady night of a decadent liberalism, and lead the nation onto the broad sunlit uplands of solvency, prosperity, and, yes, greatness.”

Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary under George W. Bush and CNN analyst, comes in with minimum 271 for Romney.

My prediction: Romn 50.1%-49.5%. Romn w minimum 271 EVs (FL, VA, CO, WI, NH). 309 EVs if he takes OH&PA. Pres-elect Romney

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) November 5, 2012

Finally, for comparison, Mitt Romney’s political director Rich Beeson predicted they’d get “more than 300 electoral college votes.”

Obama Wins

Jim Cramer of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” in the Washington Post, Nov. 3, predicts that Obama will win 440 electoral votes to Romney’s 98. “The presidential race is nowhere as close as the polls suggest.”

@fivethirtyeight So … you’re saying there’s a chance!

— Matt O’Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) November 5, 2012

Charles Gibson, former ABC World News anchor, speech at Quinnipiac University, Sep. 20: “But folks, Barack Obama’s gonna win.”

David Gergen, speech in Walnut Creek, CA, Oct. 24: “[Gergen] predicted Obama will win, boldly asserting the split would be 53 (Obama) to 47 (Romney).”

Here’s Jamelle Bouie, in the American Prospect: “An Obama win in New Hampshire, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Colorado, and Nevada, with Romney wins in North Carolina and Florida. That means the president claims 303 electoral votes to Romney’s 235, and he ekes out a popular-vote victory of 50.4 percent to Romney’s 48.2.”

Former governor and current War Room-er Jennifer Granholm:

My prediction: POTUS wins 303 electoral votes! Incl. VA, CO, NH, OH, WI, IA, NV.The swing states he cld lose: FL and NC. Even then …

— Jennifer Granholm (@JenGranholm) November 5, 2012

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, Nov. 3. Obama will win narrowly, Cillizza says, collecting 277 electoral votes.

Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC, Christina Bellantoni of PBS NewsHour, and Juan Williams of Fox News (yes, the one who got fired from NPR) all independently predicted, on Nov. 3 in the Washington Post, that Obama will win by a score of 290–248. My hunch is that they are matching Nate Silver’s call on 49 states, but awarding Virginia to Romney rather than Obama. That’s precisely the map that Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics projected today. Another possibility is that they are matching Silver’s map in 48 states, but flipping Colorado and New Hampshire to Romney.

Matthew Dowd, on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Nov. 4.

Just predicted on this week that Obama wins electoral college with 303 votes. Very very tight in national popular vote. Tiny edge to Obama.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) November 4, 2012

Talking head Paul Begala:

Okay,@cnnopinion, here’s my final prediction: POTUS wins 297 electoral votes; Romney 241. #electionwin

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) November 5, 2012

Allan Lichtman, author of Keys to the White House, predicts an Obama victory. He has correctly picked the winner of the popular vote in every presidential election since he began using his “13 keys” system in the 1984 race. But note that he gets an asterisk for 2000, when Al Gore, his selection, won the popular vote but lost the election.

Brit Hume, on Fox News, Nov. 4. Hume did not unambiguously make a prediction, but he said: “And we’re about to find out whether these state-level sentiments [favoring Obama] that are measured with relatively small samples of voters turn out to be correct. I think it’s unlikely — it’s hard to imagine as a political journalist that these many polls are off.”

Finally, for comparison, Joe Biden didn’t put numbers to it, but declared they’d handily win and take “Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire,” with an “even chance in Virginia and Florida.”

My own prediction, since we’re here, is that Obama will win with 323 electoral votes. Where I differ from the 538 model is that I think Romney will take Colorado, but that Obama, as I said last week, will pull off an upset worth 29 electoral votes.

As long as we’re defying Nate Silver’s math and going with our gut, I think Obama takes Florida.

— Evan Hughes (@evanhughes) October 31, 2012

If you want to get in the game, because clearly anyone can play, join The Awl Electoral College Pool.

Evan Hughes is the author of Literary Brooklyn. He’s on Twitter, making with the predictions.