Which state was the most surprising?

[Alcon]

Wisconsin - Lots of people screwed up here because of too much trust in Gallup and not enough in Mason-Dixon. Mason-Dixon showed Kerry by 2 on October 29th, while Gallup showed Bush by 8 the next day. I called this one right, because Gallup had been especially weird lately and I trusted Mason-Dixon. But even Mason-Dixon has a MoE of 3%. A call of >40% Bush would have been more than reasonable. It just came down to who showed up on voting day. My final call of 49% Kerry was a direct hit.

Florida - I predicted Bush by 2. It's "close enough" to Bush by 3, but for a swing state, not very close. A bit of a surprise.

West Virginia - Big-ish surprise. I predicted Bush by 7. Polling was quiet the last few weeks. Now we know why.

My vote is personally Vermont, which was my biggest screw-up, with a 9 point discrepency in Bush's favour. Here was my error chart:

Kerry
9:
8:
7:
6: WV
5: ID, UT
4: AR, FL, MA, OK
3: AZ, NE, NE-3, NC, VA
2: AL, AK, DE, ND, WY
1: IL, IN, IA, MO, NH, OH, OR, SD, TX, NE-1, NE-2
0: CA, KS, KY, MI, NV, PA, SC, TN, WA, WI
1: MD, MT, NJ, NY
2: CO, CT, GA, NM
3: ME-1, MN, RI
4: LA
5: ME
6: HI, ME-2
7: MS
8:
9: VT
Bush

So I would vote Vermont (if that was possible) followed by Mississippi, even though the latter was for lack of polling information.

Of those, West Virginia.

[Alcon]

Iowa going for Bush and, Wiscousin going for Kerry.

I agree with this.  By all accounts, it should have been opposite or at least Wisconsin should have gone for Bush.  But not by more than Kerry won it.

Kerry probably didn't actually win Wisconsin.

[Alcon]

Iowa going for Bush and, Wiscousin going for Kerry.

I agree with this.  By all accounts, it should have been opposite or at least Wisconsin should have gone for Bush.  But not by more than Kerry won it.

Kerry probably didn't actually win Wisconsin.

Alcon...what happened to you?  You used to be a nice and sane guy.  Alas.

Anyway, FL was the big shock; I thought we had a decent shot there.

What, you think that there wasn't fraud in Milwaukee?

[Alcon]

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/010427.php

I hadn't paid attention to it since a few days after the election.  It looks from what I can find now like it wasn't likely Wisconsin was stolen, but it was probably closer than actually reported, and there is certainly a chance it was stolen.

At the very least, Milwaukee County has some splainin' to do.

[Alcon]

At the very least, Milwaukee County has some splainin' to do.

Haha, no sh**t there. There was a small investigation a few weeks after the election and they found a couple hundred fake addresses that had registered the same day as the election. That practice needs to go, now.

Were the votes retracted?

Of course not.  They cannot link voters to their votes, thank God.

[Alcon]

Teton County isn't all that surprising, considering what kind of place Jackson is.  Although the sudden swing was still pretty wowing, it was just a noticeable effect of the leftward trend of ski resort areas over the last few years.