The clean Republican sweep in the 2024 elections came as no surprise to FDL Review: On November 4, we predicted that Republicans would win the House, Senate, and presidency, even though betting markets thought there was only a 36% chance of this happening.
Now that the results are certified, here’s our final scorecard.
Presidential Election: 96% Right
We accurately called 48 of the 50 states in the presidential election, where President Donald Trump managed the best result for a Republican since George H. W. Bush in 1988. The only states we got wrong were Michigan and Nevada.
Across the ten battleground states, our final projection was off by an average of 1.65 points and overestimated Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.66 point.
We were vindicated in our prediction of a Trump victory in the national popular vote, which betting markets thought he had only a 26% chance of winning. He outdid our final estimate of a 0.73-point victory, winning the popular vote by 1.47.
Our sub-argument that Trump would win the popular vote because of strong performance in Democratic strongholds also proved correct. We wrote on October 19 that “Trump would lose California by 22.83 points, compared to 29.16 in 2020. In the Empire State, he would lose by 11.71 points—half his 2020 margin of defeat there.” Our numbers were almost exactly right: Trump lost California by 20.14 percentage points and New York by 12.41.
Senate Elections: 97% Right
We accurately predicted the result of every U.S. Senate election except in Pennsylvania, where Republican Dave McCormick narrowly upset incumbent Democrat Bob Casey.
Across the eight Senate battlegrounds, we were off by an average of 2.92 percentage points and overestimated Democrats by 1.11 points. Our biggest misses were in Montana and Nevada, where we accurately called the final outcomes but were off by more than five points.
House Elections: 99% Right
Republicans won 220 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, slightly underperforming our final projection of 225 GOP seats.
But we underestimated Republicans’ performance in the national House popular vote, pegging their lead at 0.29 percentage point only for them to win by 2.70.
Presidential Election: 96% Right
We accurately called 48 of the 50 states in the presidential election, where President Donald Trump managed the best result for a Republican since George H. W. Bush in 1988. The only states we got wrong were Michigan and Nevada.
Across the ten battleground states, our final projection was off by an average of 1.65 points and overestimated Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.66 point.
Our sub-argument that Trump would win the popular vote because of strong performance in Democratic strongholds also proved correct. We wrote on October 19 that “Trump would lose California by 22.83 points, compared to 29.16 in 2020. In the Empire State, he would lose by 11.71 points—half his 2020 margin of defeat there.” Our numbers were almost exactly right: Trump lost California by 20.14 percentage points and New York by 12.41.
Senate Elections: 97% Right
We accurately predicted the result of every U.S. Senate election except in Pennsylvania, where Republican Dave McCormick narrowly upset incumbent Democrat Bob Casey.
House Elections: 99% Right
Republicans won 220 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, slightly underperforming our final projection of 225 GOP seats.
But we underestimated Republicans’ performance in the national House popular vote, pegging their lead at 0.29 percentage point only for them to win by 2.70.
— Declan M. Hurley
Comments
Post a Comment