I was on the phone with my brother, talking about the presidential election this afternoon, and we were wondering when the networks were going to call the election. It occurred to me that this might be the perfect thing for a betting pool to test the wisdom of crowds.
So here’s a little contest for you, gentle reader: what’s your best guess for:
- The number of electoral votes the winning candidate gets, and
- What time (Eastern, please) the first network (ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC) will call the election for the eventual winner.
Just post a comment with your best guesses, and the person with the closest guess for each number will win some Cafe Press schwag (probably a bag and a t-shirt or something similar).
After the entries close, I will update this post with the average guesses.
A few notes on rules:
- In the case of duplicate entries, e.g. two people guessing the same time for when the victor is declared, the first entry wins. In other words, review the other entries before posting and make sure that yours is unique.
- In the event of a tie (e.g. the winning candidate gets 300 electoral votes, and the two closest guesses were 299 and 301), there will be co-winners.
- Entries will close at 7 p.m. Eastern time on election day.
- Yes, my best guesses are the first comment, but no, I’m not eligible to win (obviously). In the unlikely event that I do win, second place will get the schwag.
UPDATE: OK, the average EV count guess is 347.7, and the average time that the race will be called is 11:06. For comparison’s sake, fivethirtyeight.com was predicting Obama 349, McCain 189 and electoral-vote.com was projecting Obama 353, McCain 174 with Missouri exactly tied.
My best guesses are:
1: 390 electoral votes
2: 10:35 p.m. eastern time.
350 EV, called at about 10:50 EST. (Obama, of course.)
364 EV. 10:30pm.
353 EV @ 12:00 EST
My bet is that around 7 AM EST on Election Day, King George will declare martial law and deploy military divisions in media centers and other strategic locations around the country. Congressmen and Senators such as McCain and Pelosi will line up express their support for the coup, because, y’know, darnit, something just had to be done. A handful of “old school” political leaders such as Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd will be quoted denouncing the regime in regional papers that nobody reads. These dissenters will never be heard from again.
Going with a more conservative estimate: 320, around 11:05pm.
312 votes for the Obamashiach, first network to call it at 10:53PM.
345 EV's. First call at 11:50pm Eastern.
Entries closed, comments open.