Punditology 2016: Which political nerd reigned supreme?

Well, that sucked.

And while it certainly seems to hardly matter when our republic itself is at stake, I thought this would be a good time to to report on the results of the 2016 Punditology Challenge. Thanks for your patience.

First, a note about our conventional wisdom.

As usual, as a group - all 217 of us - were mostly right, except when we were wildly wrong.

This year, as a group, we correctly picked 28 out of 39 national races and 17 out of 25 Oregon races. That doesn't sound so hot, except that those consensus picks -- had a single individual made them -- would have been among the top 20 responses out of 217 (just like last year). As a group, we're smarter than most of us are individually.

• Of course, we correctly picked Hillary Clinton to win the popular vote (dammit!). And we knew that Ohio and Iowa were going to flip to Trump. But like everyone, we blew it on North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

• As a group, we picked every single Oregon House race correctly (except HD24's Noble vs. Meek, where we had a dead-even tie.) We nailed the counts, calling it for 35 seats in the House and 17 in the Senate.

• And while we got Wyden's big win right, we were overconfident about Kate Brown's more narrow victory. And of course, we blew it on the Secretary of State race.

• In the US Senate races, we only called 5 out of 9 right. Sigh. Collectively, we projected 50 seats for the Democrats, and it's currently 51 with a likely win for the GOP in Louisiana next month.

Go back and review all of our conventional wisdom here.

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

Top marks, with 51 of 64 correct, goes to Alan Fleischman, longtime aide to Rep. Jeff Barker. Congratulations, Alan! We bow down to your crystal ball!

With 49 right, second place goes to Chris Beck, former state representative from Portland. In third place, with 48 right, are lobbyist Phil Donovan and health care economist Sarah Knipper.

I'll note that Alan and Phil tied for the runner-up spot in 2010, another terrible year for Democrats. I think we know who the pessimists (realists?) are among us.

Our fourth tier of punditologists, with 47 correct, were Darrell Fuller, Ryan Mann, Jake Oken-Berg, Chase Tedrow, Joel Shapiro, David Williams, Ryan Kounovsky, Dave Hunt, and Steve Elzinga

This is the third time in the top four for Joel, Ryan, and Dave since 2008. Whoa -- I guess we know who should be asking to make predictions!

I'll also throw in a shout-out to graduate student and former Oregon politico Andrew Simon, who tied Alan with top marks -- 20 of 25 right -- in the Oregon races.

The median number picked correctly? 40 out of 64 overall, and 14 out of 25 in Oregon.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Nov. 26, 2016