Punditology 2014: Which political nerd reigned supreme?

Kari Chisholm

At long last, it is time to report on the results of the 2014 Punditology Challenge.

It's two weeks after election day, but we had late calls on a number of US House seats -- not to mention the delayed election results out of Alaska, and our own race in SD-15. (Congrats to Chuck Riley!) Thanks for your patience.

First, a note about our conventional wisdom.

As usual, as a group - all 201 of us - were mostly right, except when we were wildly wrong.

This year, we were right on 25 out of 27 races here in Oregon. But we were terrible on the national scene, getting just 8 out of 18 right.

Overall, our consensus picks -- had a single individual made them -- would have placed in the top 20. As usual, as a group, we're smarter than most of us are individually.

• As a group, we picked every single Oregon ballot measure correctly. We picked every single Oregon House race correctly. We picked every single Oregon Senate race right, except Chuck Riley defeating Bruce Starr. The only other race we got wrong was for Clackamas County Clerk. (GAHHHH! Sherry Hall survived!)

• And while we got Kitzhaber (win by <10%) and Merkley (win by 10-20%) right, of course, we had no idea that Jeff Merkley's win would be a 17-county victory. Just 9% said it would be 14 or more, and our median pick was 10 counties. For Kitzhaber, our median call was 8 counties, and he got 7.

• In the US Senate races, we were sure of victories by Kay Hagan and Greg Orman, and we fairly evenly split, but called it in favor of Mark Udall and for a run-off in Georgia. The wipeout got us.

• We were even worse on Governor's races, getting it wrong in Alaska, Florida, Georgeia, Illinois, Kansas, and Maine.

• A bit of good news (that's really bad news) is that we correctly called the historic GOP majority in the House, with a 37% plurality pegging it at 240-245 (it's now at 244, with three still in play.)

Go back and review our conventional wisdom here.

Now, on to the real question you care about: Who won? Which political nerd reigns supreme?

Top marks, with 40 of 51 correct, go to Jake Oken-Berg and Nathan Rietmann. Jake ran for Mayor of Portland in 2000 and now serves as an aide to Senator Merkley. Nathan is an attorney in Salem, who once represented Bill Sizemore. Tiebreaker goes to Jake - who pegged Aelea Christofferson's vote total at 60,000. (It was actually 72,186.)

Congratulations, Jake! We bow down to your crystal ball!

Runner-up honors, with 39 of 51 correct, goes to Richard Gray -- a contracts manager at the City of Portland.

Our third tier of punditologists, four people with 38 of 51 correct, includes Metro's Ken Ray, attorney (and self-described "recovering politico") Joel Shapiro, Rep. Brent Barton, and lobbyist Meredith Shield. Big credit goes to Ken Ray, who damn near nailed the tiebreaker -- calling it a nice, round 72,000 votes.

And there were nine in our fourth tier, each with 37 right: John McGovern, Jamal Raad, Jared Mason-Gere, Jon Bartholomew, Jesse Cornett, Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, Josh Goldberg, Julie Fahey, and Logan Gilles.

Jon Bartholomew stands out as having beat everyone on the state level -- with 28 of 31 right; and Barbara Smith Warner (a former Wyden aide) beat everyone on the federal level -- with 15 of 20 right.

The median number picked correctly? 31 out of 51. (Me? I got 28 right. Yeah, I'm an optimist.)

Honorable mentions go to James Sunshine and Teddy Keizer. They called the Christofferson vote total at 72173 and 72123 - just 13 and 63 votes off the current count.

Thanks to everyone who participated. We'll do it again in two years!

By Kari Chisholm Nov. 18, 2014