In a Wall Street Journal column last December, Karl Rove issued his political predictions for 2012. He ended the article with the following:
<< Predicting the future is always dangerous but conservatives believe in accountability, so let’s see how well I do a year from now. >>
Music to our ears…. Let’s see how Rove fared with the predictions that we deemed sufficiently concrete (not too vague/subjective) to grade:
| Prediction | Outcome | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Presidential election turnout will increase relative to 2008 | FALSE | Down 5 pp |
| Republicans will keep the U.S. House | TRUE | |
| Republicans will take the U.S. Senate | FALSE | |
| Ron Paul will not win the GOP nomination nor run as a third-party candidate | TRUE | |
| Nancy Pelosi and/or Harry Reid will leave the Democratic leadership by the end of the year | FALSE | |
| Obama will not raise $1 billion (will fall as much as $200 million short) | FALSE | $1.1 billion |
| Obama's margins will drop from 2008 among independents, women, Latinos, young people, and Jews | FALSE | Not Latinos |
Final Tally: 2 for 7, $0.37 Yield
As a reminder, the Yield incorporates how bold predictions are by calculating the average payout had you bet $1 on each of the pundit’s calls, based on consensus odds at the time. A yield of exactly $1.00, for instance, means the pundit’s predictions were no better or worse than the consensus view at the time.
Click here to see Rove’s full PunditTracker profile page, which displays all 17 of his predictions that we have tracked to date.
We are now tracking more than 120 pundits on PunditTracker.com. With the 2013 Predictions rolling in, check out all the latest predictions and enter the PT Challenge to compete with the “experts” and win prizes. If you have suggestions for new pundits for us to track, please let us know.
