Jan.10

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Looking Backward: The Experts' Predictions for 2022

We're a little behind schedule, but it's time to get down to the predictions. As with last year, we'll look back to see how the predictions for the past year turned out, and then the next day we'll look ahead to the upcoming year.

We commence with the experts' predictions for 2022. Recall that we award up to five points for accuracy and another five for boldness. The boldness points don't count, though, unless the accuracy is at least a 3/5. Recall also that it was decided last year to rate the boldness in advance, so that score is not colored by hindsight.

• S.E. Cupp, CNN: "A gallon of gas and a gallon of milk will each cost $3.15 by the end of 2022."
  
  Boldness: 3/5. We're going to give her credit if she's in the ballpark, but even then, this is somewhat bold because $3.15 is pretty low.
  
  Final Score: 2.5 (Accuracy: 2.5, Boldness: 0). The average cost of a gallon of gas on Jan. 1 was $3.22, which is close enough. But the average cost of a gallon of milk was $4.44, which is definitely not close enough. So, Cupp was half right. And you have to be more than half right to get the boldness points, so she draws a blank there.
  
  
• Paul Callan, CNN: "Democrats will retain control of the House. Republicans will gain control of the Senate."
  
  Boldness: 4/5. The latter part is not too bold, but the former part certainly is.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). None of this was correct.
  
  
• Peniel Joseph, CNN: "Republicans will win the U.S. House of Representatives. Democrats will retain control of the US Senate."
  
  Boldness: 2/5. This is a less bold than the previous, because the Senate is much closer to a coin toss than the House is.
  
  Final Score: 7 (A: 5, B: 2). All of this was correct.
  
  
• Nicole Hemmer, CNN: "[Barack Obama]'s approval was at 48% at the end of 2010, even after the shellacking he took in the midterms. That seems to be about where [Joe] Biden will land as well at the end of 2022."
  
  Boldness: 1.5/5. Predicting middling approval? For a modern president? Not exactly going out on a limb there.
  
  Final Score: 1 (A: 1, B: 0). According to FiveThirtyEight, Joe Biden's average approval on Jan. 1 was 43.3%. We're going to give Hemmer a point for being in the ballpark, but that's all she gets.
  
  
• Raul Reyes, CNN: "Biden's approval rating is low now due to Covid-19, inflation and the rushed pullout of Afghanistan. If he can sell a new version of his Build Back Better program, he can get his approval rating up to 55% by the end of 2022."
  
  Boldness: 3/5. 55% would be nearly 20 points above Donald Trump's average. Possible, but not likely.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). Uh, 55% is nowhere near 43.3%.
  
  
• Idres Kahloon, The Economist: "The Biden presidency is likely to be heading towards gridlock."
  
  Boldness: 1/5. This is too general to be all that meaningful.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). Biden's second year was not particularly gridlocky, if we may coin a word. He signed several important pieces of legislation, orchestrated the Ukraine coalition, and otherwise had an above average year.
  
  
• Elliot Williams, CNN: "In July, U.S. employment will return to pre-pandemic levels."
  
  Boldness: 2/5. They say this daily on CNBC, so it isn't exactly a unique insight.
  
  Final Score: 7 (A: 5, B: 2). In the month the pandemic began (March 2020), unemployment was 3.6%. In December of 2022, it was 3.5% (January figures aren't out yet). That's a winner.
  
  
• Shep Hyken, Forbes: "Employees will return, but they will demand to be treated the right way. Companies will find ways to offer employees fair compensation and treat them better."
  
  Boldness: 1/5. Since this has already been the trend for over a year, and since this is virtually impossible to prove or disprove, we have to give low boldness points.
  
  Final Score: 5 (A: 4, B: 1). We would say this is generally accurate, excepting that some employers are now cracking down on remote work (Disney just became the latest). That is not making employees happy, on the whole.
  
  
• Emily Tamkin, The New Statesman (UK): "The Iran nuclear deal negotiations will break down for good."
  
  Boldness: 2/5. Given that the U.S./Iran relationship and, in fact, the everyone-but-Russia/Iran relationship, has been fraught for generations, this is not too bold a prediction.
  
  Final Score: 6 (A: 4, B: 2). There is no new nuclear deal, and we were told many months ago that "if we don't have something in a few weeks, it's over." So, the agreement is either mostly dead, or just dead. Someone should check with Miracle Max.
  
  
• Matthew Gagnon, Bangor Daily News: "There will be a major international incident involving either Russia or China."
  
  Boldness: 0.5/5. In other news, the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
  
  Final Score: 5.5 (A: 5, B: 0.5). We would say that the invasion of Ukraine, which commenced on Feb. 23, counts as a major international incident.
  
  
• Irwin Stoolmacher, The Trentonian: "Russia will invade the Ukraine and the United States will dramatically increase military aid after the fact. President Biden will be attacked by the Republicans for not taking preemptive action prior to the invasion."
  
  Boldness: 2.5/5. Given how clear the tea leaves are at this point, this isn't too much of a stretch.
  
  Final Score: 7.5 (A: 5, B: 2.5). Stoolmacher was right on all counts.
  
  
• Christina Greer, Gotham Gazette: "Kathy Hochul will cruise to victory and Bill de Blasio will garner an embarrassing single-digit percentage of Democratic primary voters."
  
  Boldness: 2/5. It's New York, so predicting a Democratic romp is not exactly a high-risk proposition. And he's Bill de Blasio, so predicting that he will be unpopular is an even lower-risk proposition.
  
  Final Score: 1 (A: 1, B: 0). Hochul most certainly did not cruise to victory, while de Blasio didn't survive long enough to get a single-digit percentage of the votes. We'll give Greer one point for correctly assessing the former mayor's general unpopularity.
  
  
• Carl P. Leubsdorf, Bozeman Daily Chronicle: "In the multi-candidate Missouri GOP Senate primary, Trump-backed former Gov. Eric Greitens will emerge as the winner and will face ex-state Sen. Scott Sifton."
  
  Boldness: 4/5. There are a lot of candidates in the race, so committing to a specific one on each side is pretty bold.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). Both of these candidates withdrew before the primary. The race ended up as Eric Schmitt (R) versus Trudy Busch Valentine (D), with Schmitt winning easily.
  
  
• Antonia Lopez, Ipsos: "More than 80% of the world's population will receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine."
  
  Boldness: 4/5. Given how powerful anti-vaxx sentiment seems to be, this is pretty bold.
  
  Final Score: 7 (A: 3, B: 4). She was on the nose for the U.S., and not that far off for the world as a whole (70%). Since she was probably wishcasting a little bit here, we're going to be generous with the scoring.
  
  
• Bill Gates, billionaire philanthropist: "[T]he acute phase of the pandemic will come to a close some time in 2022."
  
  Boldness: 3/5. This seems moderately bold to us, although people are so tired of the restrictions that maybe it's not.
  
  Final Score: 7.5 (A: 4.5, B: 3). Outside of China, perhaps, this is entirely correct.
  
  
• Ric Edelman, financial analyst: "By the end of the year, more than 500 million people worldwide will own bitcoin."
  
  Boldness: 3/5. A somewhat outlandish projection, but not totally outlandish.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). It's currently 106 million people. Even if we count all people who have invested in cryptocurrency of any sort at any time, the figure is still just 320 million. So maybe it was totally outlandish.
  
  
• Nostradamus, French mystic: "Sacred temples of the Roman time, will reject the foundations of their foundation." (Nostradamus whisperers say this means the EU will collapse.)
  
  Boldness: 5/5. If Nostradamus is right, particularly from the vantage point of nearly 500 years ago, he can have full boldness points.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). As far as we know, the E.U. still exists, despite the best-laid plans of Nigel Farage.
  
  
• Baba Vanga, Bulgarian mystic: "There will be another pandemic, this time discovered in Siberia, that is caused by a frozen virus that will be released by climate change."
  
  Boldness: 5/5. This is so specific, that she surely gets the full five if he's right.
  
  Final Score: 0 (A: 0, B: 0). Correct about everything except the pandemic, Siberia, the frozen virus and climate change.

By our count, that's 57 points out of a possible 180, for a very solid batting average of .317.

As noted, we'll have experts' 2023 predictions tomorrow. And we'll start collecting readers' predictions later in the week. (Z)