Admit to a mistake you made in analysis of presidential elections

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

My biggest mistake was that my strategy for paying attention to Florida in the 2016 presidential election during election night coverage was to watch the margin in Orange County, Florida to determine if Clinton was likely to win the state. It completely failed, as Orange County trended heavily Democratic compared to the state.

[Sumner 1868]

I was certain Clinton would keep Wisconsin in the Democratic column until it was too close to call on election night.

[pops]

I thought Trump was going to win Virginia because I didn't know back then that rural Virginia reports faster

[Crumpets]

I assumed if Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Orange, and Duval all swung to Clinton (which it looked like they would before the election, and it turned out to be so) it would mean Clinton would be winning Florida by 5+ points.

[Thomas D]

I thought Dem. turnout would be high enough in Florida in 2004 to win the state for Kerry

[Lourdes]

I thought McMullin would get second place in Utah.

[pops]

I thought McMullin would get second place in Utah.

This but I thought he would get within 5% of Trump

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I was convinced Romney was certain to win because Gallup had him +7 nationally about a week before the election and thought 538 was stupid for saying Obama would win.  I "proved" that through looking at a Rasmussen poll battleground map one day that had Romney winning all the swing states.

Or that I thought there was virtually no chance of Trump being the GOP nominee until late April

[Terry the Fat Shark]

I thought Dick Morris was someone to take seriously in 2012 and he got my hopes up big

[Figueira]

I didn't think that more than a negligible number of people who voted for Obama would vote for Trump.

[Hammy]

2016: I believed Atlas posters and changed my predictions to make Hillary win

2004: I expected Kerry to win Ohio but lose Pennsylvania

[Mechavada]

Probably the mistake the vast majority of us made:

"There's no way Donald Trump is going to become President.  Grow up kid.  Here's a $5.  Go down to the gas station and get me a couple of Fosters."

[Mr. Smith]

2008: I figured Obama would win Missouri since that state was like Ohio in its ability to predict the winner.

2012: I thought Obama would manage to retain NC

2016: I thought the Rust Belt was a silly idea to worry about given the black population and figured there'd be enough coming home to flip Nevada and NH.

[Mechavada]

2008: I figured Obama would win Missouri since that state was like Ohio in it's ability to predict the winner.

2012: I thought Obama would manage to retain NC

2016: I thought the Rust Belt was a silly idea to worry about given the black population and figured there'd be enough coming home to flip Nevada and NH.

Yeah, I sort of had these thoughts too.  I did tell people Hillary needed to campaign more in the Midwest to "secure her margin" but I still thought Trump was chasing a pipe dream by campaigning in those areas.  At the beginning of election night I went to MBA classes filled with almost sexual confidence that Hillary would not only destroy Trump, but she would embarrass him to such an extent that would make Republicans cry.  Maybe even winning TEXAS of all states.

Four hours later when I got out of class and looked at my Messenger I got messages from MattVT telling me that it was a massacre.  I responded back HAHAHAHAHAHA OH YES TRUMP IS DEAD HE'S DEAD WHAT A FREAKING LOSER MAN YO MY DOG COULD HAVE DONE BETTER THAN TRUMP TRUMP IS SO STUPID (not literally this, there were a bunch of swear words but I was almost dancing as I wrote this).  Then I sensed something was wrong and I said "wait. . . . . . .when you say massacre do you mean for them. . . . . or for us?"  "For us."  "S*IT!  F***!"

When I got home I looked as more and more returns came in and I just knew in my gut that Trump was going to win.  When I saw that MICHIGAN was undecided and then started to showing leans towards Trump I knew the election was pretty much over.  Hell, I even assumed that New Hampshire was toast and was relieved af when it voted for Clinton (even though she still lost the gd thing).  When it was announced Trump won the election I shouted "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" and threw a beer bottle against the outside wall of the house (I was outside watching it on my phone).  Me and MattVT talked about "What Happened" and both of us concluded that Hillary Clinton was by far the most incompetent person to have ran for the presidency since. . . . .. we couldn't remember we were drunk.  There should have been no reason NO REASON to lose to Donald Trump and to this day I stand by that assessment.  Just like there should be NO REASON for the upcoming midterms to be nothing short of a blue wave.

IN 2008 I was shocked when Obama didn't win Georgia.  I thought the blowout would be so bad he would be over 400 Electoral Votes.  I really underestimated how racist a lot of people were and thought it was just a case of "devoted follower" syndrome at the campaign stops.  Just amazes me how in an election in the middle of a freaking economic downturn when it seemed like every other day stocks were tanking and with an incredibly stupid and short sighted war going on in Iraq there were enough people voting Republican to prevent Obama from even having a 10 point victory.

2012 I had the opposite mentality.  I thought Obama would get re-elected but he would do it by a considerably smaller margin.  My words:

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tl;dr: I predicted Romney would win Florida.  That was the only state that I got wrong on that one.

[morgankingsley]

I thought trump would win the popular vote since he was 980k ahead after he won the election and even wrote about that on Facebook and such. Not that it really matter since as we have learned, popular vote is totally superfluous and the electoral vote is the one that matters. In the future, I'm just focusing on state by state numbers and the overall electoral number, not the overall popular vote. Never again.

[VPH]

1.) While I was vocal about the Democrats lacking outreach to WWC voters throughout the whole cycle, I overestimated the convention's effects. It gave me some hope. I assumed that they had put some kind of strategy together with Biden campaigning and all that would be enough to get Hillary over the finish line.

2.) I erroneously assumed that Hispanic voters would turn out en masse to repudiate Trump, when in reality turnout didn't surge and he didn't do that much worse than Romney with Hispanics.

3.) I overestimated the suburban swing towards Hillary, having assumed it would deliver North Carolina  and Florida to her.

[bagelman]

I thought that Trump was sure to have less than 40% of the UT vote and the McMuffin would defeat Clinton for second place. In fact, I seriously thought he could win the state. Aside from wrongfully predicting a Clinton win like everyone else, that was a clear mistake.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

I was certain NC would be a tie or a 1 point victory for either candidate. Trump's 4 point win there still shocks me.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Clinton didn't win the midwest and that cost her in the election.

[MarkD]

I thought Trump was going to lose, because it appeared that he was trying to lose. He was running the worst campaign I have ever seen. The fact that that campaign was successful at appealing to pluralities of voters in 30 states is still astounding to me.

[Alabama_Indy10]

I thought McMullin would come in 2nd in Utah

[dw93]

2008: I though McCain would eek out a win until Palin opened her mouth and Lehman Brothers collapsed. Even after that, I didn't think Obama was gonna win by as big a margin as he did.

2012: I also though this would be a close one that could go either way. I felt the same way about 2004, and like 2004 I went into election night with a gut feeling that the incumbent would win. The difference was, Obama won more decisively than I thought, Bush's margin of victory was about right.

2016: From 2014 - mid 2015 I thought a Republican was gonna win. As the primaries went on, I thought the Democrats would eek it out given the circus  that was the GOP primary, though I felt the GOP still had a chance. Then Trump won and won states I never thought he would win.

[here2view]

2016, I thought Florida was a Tilt Democrat state to start because Obama won it twice. I thought Clinton would win it easily by 2 or 3 points. Like most, I didn't see Trump winning the midwest. I thought his best approach was winning Romney 2012, plus Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Nevada, and New Hampshire to get to 269. Then he'd have to pick off either ME-02, Colorado, or Virginia. (Again, I didn't think there was a chance the "Blue Wall' would collapse.)

This was my prediction Election Day:

Clinton: 302
Trump: 236

[blacknwhiterose]

2008: I underestimated how different Obama's map would look from Bill Clinton's.  Hillary was the favorite well into the primaries so maybe I didn't have enough time to process just how different Obama's coalition was going to be from her's or her husband's >>>> I knew Kentucky and West Virginia weren't gonna break for him, but I was shocked that he carried Indiana, surprised by North Carolina, while (narrowly) losing Missouri.  His margins in some of the western states (CO, NM, and even CA) surprised me a little.  I predicted he would underperform with hispanics in these states.

[I Can Now Die Happy]

I don't admit to mistakes. I never make mistakes. Everything I do is by definition the correct decision. Every answer I make is by definition the correct answer.

Period.

Full stop.

End of story.

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