Many of you have pestered … uhh … I mean encouraged me over the last several days to get with it and tally the San Diego General Election Prediction Contest results and announce a winner.  As I’ve said before, what do you want for free?  In good time, nothing’s gonna change … well, except perhaps for the winner in Chula Vista (which, fortunately, wasn’t a question included in our little contest).

If you missed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (okay, twice per cycle, except when there’s a special election), here’s the prior post.

Just as in the primary, we had about 40 respondents.  Before the e-roll, a recap of the questions, the correct answers and a brief analysis of the responses on each:

Question #1: A Taxing Question – Does Prop A, the Countywide Parcel Tax for Fire Protection, win or lose? 

Correct Answer – LOSE.  A solid 75 percent got this one right, even some of the folks in support of the darned thing.  Good start.

Question #2: San Diego City Attorney – Will Jan Goldsmith garner more or less than 55 percent of the vote?

Correct Answer – MORE.  Another three out of four nailed this one.   Since Jan reached 59 percent, it would have been more interesting to ask whether he’d get more or less than 60.  I’ll keep that in mind the next time Aguirre is on the ballot.

Question #3: 78th Assembly – Block or McCann?

Correct Answer – MARTY BLOCK.  A good number of folks apparently saw the wall writing on this one, with exactly two-thirds saying it would be Block.

Question #4: Oceanside – Will Esther Sanchez retain her City Council seat, yes or no?

Correct Answer – YES.  Again, 75 percent guessed it correctly.
 
Question #5: Chula Vista – Will Steve Castaneda retain his City Council seat, yes or no?

Correct Answer – YES. Close to half thought Councilman Castaneda would live to see another day.  This question wasn’t a contest winner-killer, but the wheat was starting to un-chaff for a few contestants.

Question #6: 50th Congressional – Will Brian Bilbray garner more or less than 60 percent of the vote?

Correct Answer – LESS.  A full 83 percent correctly guessed that Brian would come in at less than sixty points.

So, when tallying the scores, at this point I’m seeing quite a few people get the first five or six right, and I’m thinking, wow, this could be close!  But, after that, everything went to the outhouse for most of the entrants.

Question #7: 52nd Congressional – Will Duncan D. Hunter garner more or less than 60 percent of the vote?

Correct Answer – LESS.  The predictions came in exactly reverse of Bilbray, with 83 percent picking wrong, obviously thinking East County and the Hunter name would make it even more of walk-a-way than it ended up.

Question #8: District 1 SD City Council – Lightner or Thalheimer?

Correct Answer – SHERRI LIGHTNER.  A whopping 75 percent missed this one, thinking Phil would pull it out.

Question #9: District 3 SD City Council – Gloria or Whitburn?

Correct Answer – TODD GLORIA.  About 75 percent correctly predicted it.  I guess this was one of too many yawner questions this go-round.

Question #10: District 7 SD City Council – Boling or Emerald?

Correct Answer – MARTI EMERALD.  A complete deal-killer for most of the entrants, with only 14 percent correctly guessing Emerald.

Tie-Breaker A (Only if needed): State Assembly – Not counting the 78th AD, which nominee for State Assembly will receive the highest percentage of the vote in his/her respective district, Diane Harkey (all of 73rd AD, not just San Diego County portion), Martin Garrick, Nathan Fletcher, Lori Saldana, Joel Anderson, or Mary Salas? – Name the individual, not the percentage.  (Sorry, Kevin Jeffries, the 66th AD is not enough in SD County … nothing personal.)

Correct Answer – MARY SALAS.  She received more than 69 percent of the vote.  An amazing 37 percent of the guessers said it would be Anderson, followed by Salas and Harkey getting 18 percent respectively.  The entrants were not disproportionately from East County, so it appears that many weren’t favoring Joel out of anything other than translating his significant press coverage over the last couple of years into an expected high percentage among peers.  On the other hand, Salas’ district is significantly Democratic, and there was one unique thing she had going that none of the other nominees did – only one opponent, no third party AIP or L to suck a few points away.

Tie-Breaker B (Only if needed): San Diego City Attorney – What will be the difference in percentage (the spread) between Jan Goldsmith and Mike Aguirre?  (If this tie-breaker is needed, the winner will be the person closest to the exact final percentage.)

Correct Answer – 19.38 percent, presently.  The guesses on this ranged from 2.8 to 32 percent, with the average prediction being nearly 14 percent.  The entrants weren’t required to indicate whether their guessed margins placed Goldsmith or Aguirre on top … ok, now I’m just being snarky.

Winners: That was it on the questions…ten points possible…two tie-breakers if needed.  Only one amazing soul picked a nearly perfect nine out of ten correctly, so the tie breakers weren’t even needed to decide first place.  I’ll get to him in a minute.

A lot of people scored four, five or six points. The average number of correct answers was 5.53.  Of those with six correct, an honorable mention goes to John Nienstedt of Competitive Edge Research & Communication.  Although the tie-breaking questions didn’t come into play here, John did get both of them nearly spot on, not only picking Salas, but also the Goldsmith/Aguirre margin at 19 percent (again, 19.38 right now, with 45,000 votes left to tally countywide).  No one else in the contest came that close, meaning that in the future, I may have to designate a separate category for pollsters (or at least for those conducting tracking polls on tie-breaking questions).

Those with seven points:  Scott Barnett, San Diego Councilmember Jim Madaffer, Janelle Riella, and John Wainio.  A noble effort!

Those amassing eight points:  La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools Trustee Bill Baber, Andy Berg, Erik Bruvold and Santee Councilmember Jack Dale.  Only one nailed the Salas tie-breaker, however – Bill Baber takes second place in the contest overall!

For the sake of naming a third place winner, then, Andy Berg selected 24 percent on the Goldsmith/Aguirre tie-breaker, but Jack Dale came in at 16 percent.  With the actual margin presently hovering just above 19 percent, third place may be too close to call.  Andy, if you want to concede before the final city attorney votes are counted, please let us know, Jack is waiting.

That leaves the winner.  The amazing Geoff Patnoe of Public Policy Strategies was alone in picking nine of ten right answers!  He only missed the Boling/Emerald question, but so did nearly everyone else.
 
By the way, some consultants were a tad hesitant about me “outing” them on their answers – something about clients and relationships – but Geoff graciously said to go ahead and let the e-world know his picks.

Congrats Geoff!!!  Lunch is on me.  Here’s what he had to say last night, upon hearing the news that he won such a prestigious and solemn recognition among political hacks:
 
"Is there a trophy?  Do I get to make a speech?  This is almost as good as saving 20 percent on my car insurance by switching to Geico.  I actually would have preferred to lose this contest as that would have meant the outcome of some of the local races would have been different, however considering what our taxes are going to be like in the future I could certainly use the free meal."

Until then, have a great week!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.