The Official Politics in Minnesota 2008 Election Predictions: Part I

Talk about perfect timing. Today is Halloween and today is the day I make our 2008 election predictions. Trick or treat.

First some history. Predicting elections has become a rich PIM tradition. Former PIM editors D.J. Leary and Wy Spano began making them at the inception of this publication in the early 1980s. I joined the two DFLers in 1993 and up until 2002, we wrote all our predictions in one voice. That made for some good late night arguments, but in the end, we all stood by what we decided and wrote.

That changed in 2002, when the national red state/blue state divide exploded into a Minnesota red precinct/blue precinct war after the death of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone. For the first time in PIM history, DFL and GOP editors made separate predictions.

This will be the first election year for PIM when only the GOP publisher (me) is making the official PIM predictions. Much younger DFL-inclined staffers decided they haven’t been around the block long enough. [However, Peter Bartz-Gallagher and Dan Feidt will weigh in later with a post on their thoughts about the much touted, mysterious youth vote.]

Before I get to 2008, and maybe as a precursor to judging whether my predictions are of any value, let’s revisit how accurate I’ve been in the past. From 1998-2006, I made 20 predictions on statewide and Congressional races, as well as predictions about which party would control the Minnesota House.

2006

• Governor. I said Gov. Tim Pawlenty over then-DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch and Peter Hutchinson, 45-41-7. Actual result was Pawlenty, Hatch,Hutchinson, 46.7, 45.7, 6.4.
• U.S. Senate. I said then Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar over then-U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, 58-40. Actual result was Klobuchar, Kennedy, 58-40.
• 1st District. I said Tim Walz over then-U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht, 51-49. Actual result was Walz, Gutknecht, 53-48
• 2nd District. I said U.S. Rep. John Kline over Coleen Rowley, 58-42. Actual result was 56-40.
• 5th District. I said then-state Rep. Keith Ellison wins, GOP candidate Alan Fine would come in second, and IP candidate Tammy Lee would come in third. That was the actual result.
• 6th District: I said then-state Sen. Michele Bachmann over DFLer Patty Wetterling, 53-44. Actual result was 56-42.
• MN House. I said the GOP would retain control of the House, writing, "[who I vote for legislator]… doesn’t
  have the slightest impact on the war in Iraq. I was wrong. The DFL took
  the House with a stunning 85 votes to the GOP’s 49.

2004

• President. I said Pres. George W. Bush would beat U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in Minnesota. I was wrong. Kerry bested Bush, 51-48.
• 2nd District. I picked Kline over Teresa Daly. I was right.
• MN House. I predicted the GOP would retain control, "with 80 or so
  seats." I was right about control but wrong about seats. The GOP was
  reduced to 68 members to the DFL’s 66.

2002

• Senate. I said Norm Coleman over Walter Mondale. I was right.
• Governor. I, along with DFL then-editors Leary and Spano, predicted Pawlenty over Roger Moe and Tim Penny. We were right.
• 2nd District. We collectively predicted Kline over then DFL-U.S. Rep. incumbent Bill Luther. We were right.
• 6th District. We collectively predicted Kennedy over Janet Robert. We were right.

2000

• President. I said Bush would beat then-Vice President Al Gore in Minnesota. I was wrong. Actual result was 48-46 to Gore.
• Senate. We predicted Mark Dayton over then-U.S. Sen. Rod Grams. We were right.
• 1st District. We said Gutknecht over Mary Rieder. We were right.
• 2nd District. We said then-DFL U.S. Rep. David Minge would beat Mark Kennedy, but that Kennedy would "come within single digits." We were wrong. Kennedy prevailed, by 155 votes out of 277,759 total cast.
• MN House. We predicted the Minnesota House stays in GOP hands. We were right.

1998

• Governor. Janecek, Leary and Spano did not make an actual prediction in the Governor’s race, although we did write, "[Jesse Ventura
  will] get the necessary five percent and more to allow the Reform Party
  to hold on to it’s major party status." Talk about dead wrong. Ventura
  bested Norm Coleman and Skip Humphrey, 37-34-28. After the election, the then-three PIM editors ran the following on the front page of the 7 November 1998 issue:

For the record, prior to the 1998 gubernatorial election, polls conducted by the Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and St. Cloud State University, were also wrong. The only poll that got it right was exit polling on election day conducted by the Voter News Service. The VNS polling hit it right on the money, with the 37-34-28 percentages that actually happened.

To summarize, I was right on 15 of the 20 races. Not too shabby — and certainly a surprise to me when I tallied them. Of those 20 predictions, nine were made collectively with Leary and Spano (and we three were right on six of those nine).

Next post: The 2008 predictions!