We evaluated the predictions of politicians, journalists, and pundits (collectively, “prognosticators”) over a 16-month period surrounding the 2008 United States federal elections. We sought to test the accuracy of these predictions and understand what makes individuals unusually good or bad at prognostication. We evaluated a random sample of Meet the Press, This Week, and Face the Nation transcripts and printed columns from the most prominent American prognosticators. Ultimately, we determined that some prognosticators are significantly better than others, and there are characteristics that significantly impact a prognosticator’s predictive power.
After finding which characteristics make an accurate prognosticator, we ranked prognosticators based on outcomes. We found that a number of individuals in our sample, including Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, Ed Rendell, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Kathleen Parker were better than a coin flip (sometimes, substantially so.) A number of prognosticators were frequently inaccurate, including Cal Thomas, Lindsey Graham, and Carl Levin. Our paper explores the reasons for these differences and attempts to evaluate the purpose of prognosticators in the media in light of their varying degrees of accuracy.