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In the proud American tradition, we made an error tallying up the results of Trailhead Primary Pool. As a result we have a NEW WINNER in Robert Ziff, who edged out Mark Lyons with 62 points to Lyons' 61. Contestant Luke Goodwin also had 61 points.
A note on scoring: Because John Edwards suspended his campaign prior to Super Tuesday, we did not award any points for third-place predictions in the four Feb. 5 Democratic primaries in our pool. Thus, the original scoring for Super Tuesday is valid, and Ted Steger remains the honorable mention with 38 points on Tuesday and a respectable 55 over all. Steger had 17 points coming into the week, not the 13 we originally reported, and we thank him for catching our mistake.
Mark, our sincere apologies for falsely elevating your hopes. But please return the proverbial yoga mat.
Original post:
Trailhead reader Mark Lyons has won the Primary Pool with a final score of 59 points, a three-point lead over runner-ups Andrew Packer, Robert Ziff, and David Wohl. Lyons was a consistent presence in the top ten each week, though he only officially led the pack once prior to his victory. Congratulations, Mark!
An honorable mention is in order for Ted Steger, who notched 38 points this week with excellent Super Tuesday predictions. Unfortuantely for Ted, his last-minute blitz could not push him into the lead as he had only 13 points at the beginning of the week.
Our thanks to everyone who threw in their hat for the pool. (Meanwhile, Trailhead never wants to see an Excel sheet again.) Mark, we would love to send you one of our Slate yoga mats, but apparently there are legal problems with offering official prizes. Eternal glory will have to suffice.
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With the results from the Florida Republican primary
tallied, Trailhead reader Meghan Jensen has edged ahead with 26 points out of a
possible 41, making her the fifth person to lead in as many rounds of our Primary
Pool. Four other contestants are right at Meghan’s heels with 25 points.
Florida proved elusive,
with only four contestants predicting the first-, second-, and third-place
winners correctly when predictions were submitted the day of the Iowa caucuses. With only
one round of the pool remaining and eight Feb. 5 contests in play—New York,
California, and Missouri for both parties, Illinois for the Democrats and
Massachusetts for the Republicans—there are still 48 points available next
Tuesday, making this pool anyone’s for the taking.
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Trailhead reader Mark Lyons has taken the lead in the Primary
Pool contest, notching nine of the 12 possible points over the weekend to bring his total to
25 points out of a possible 33. Mark was one of eight contestants to guess the
first-, second-, and third-place winners in the South Carolina Republican
primary.
This week’s honorable mention goes to Quintus Jett, the only
contestant to correctly guess the results of the Nevada
Republican caucuses, in which Ron Paul finished second to Mitt Romney,
ahead of John McCain in third place.
Also, Trailhead owes an apology to Jeremy Naylor, whose
original submission was not included in our pool due to a formatting error. After
the Michigan
primaries, Naylor had earned 18 points, which put him in the lead over two contestants
who each had 17. Naylor now has 22 points.
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With the results from Michigan tallied, Trailhead reader Audrey Provenzano has caught up with front-runner Larry Krajeski to tie for the lead with 17 of a possible 21 points in our Primary Pool. Provenzano was one of 14 contestants to correctly predict the top three Republican finishers in the Michigan primary in the correct order.
“I knew he had a lot of family ties there,” Provenzano says of Romney’s win in Michigan. But make no mistake: Romney's success has not changed her opinion of the former Massachusetts governor. “He’s a complete schmuck and I really dislike him. The only thing consistent about him is his egotism and ambition.”
Provenzano, an Obama supporter and Wellesley graduate (like Hillary Clinton) who is now in medical school at Yale, predicts that Mike Huckabee’s make-or-break moment will be in South Carolina. While she now expects that McCain will win the state—though she originally chose Huckabee—she says the former Arkansas governor needs a strong second-place finish to propel him through Super Duper Tuesday on Feb. 5.
As for the Nevada caucus this Saturday, Provenzano predicts Obama will win the state, followed by Clinton and then Edwards. But as she says, “Nevada is kind of dicey. No one knows what will happen.”
While many readers have 16 points, the honorable mention goes to Paul Stenbjorn, the only entrant who has a perfect record in the Republican primary. Stenbjorn currently has 15 points.
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The Trailhead Primary Pool has a new frontrunner after New Hampshire, which counted for twice as much as Iowa for correct
guesses. Larry Krajeski, the executive director of the non-profit Catskill Mountain Housing Development Corporation
in central New York,
has 16 of a possible 18 points, including a 1.000 batting average for the
Republicans.
Krajeski, who used to live in Massachusetts,
says he picked McCain to win New Hampshire
because he thinks the Arizona senator fits in
well in New England. “If I met him on the
street, I might think he was from New
Hampshire,” he says. “He’s that flinty, Yankee type.”
Clinton
will do well on Super-Duper Tuesday, he predicted, powering her through to the
nomination. He’s less optimistic about the other New Yorker running for
president.
“I don’t have much faith in our other native son, Rudy
Giuliani,” he said, predicting that the former New York City mayor could become merely “a
footnote in the history of bad campaigns.”
Besides Krajeski, only one other contestant, Paul Stenbjorn,
correctly guessed the top three Republicans in both states. Four
contestants—Carl Hetler, Craig Stuart, Marco Forehand and Laura Marschel—predicted
the top three Democrats for both states in the correct order.
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Of the 100 entrants in the official Trailhead Primary Pool, only one, University of Chicago political science student Max Gallop, successfully predicted the first-, second-, and third-place winners for both the Democrats and Republicans in yesterday's Iowa caucuses.
Over all, contestants fared much better predicting the Democratic side. Excluding Gallop, 22 readers guessed the Obama-Edwards-Clinton result in the correct order, while only five predicted a Huckabee-Romney-Thompson finish. McCain's narrow loss to Thompson for third-place honors—the Arizona senator took 13.1 percent to Thompson's 13.4 percent—robbed 13 contestants of a perfect record.
We've left Max a message asking him to inform us who will win the election—stay tuned.
With Chadwick Matlin and Jon Rubin.
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Entry to Trailhead's first-ever contest has closed. Here are the percentage breakdowns of where the candidates will finish tonight, according to Slate readers. These are the percent of readers who think the given candidate will finish first, second, or third in the caucus.
Dems
|
Edwards
|
Clinton
|
Obama
|
Biden
|
First
|
21%
|
16%
|
63%
|
0%
|
Second
|
32%
|
42%
|
26%
|
0%
|
Third
|
44%
|
41%
|
11%
|
4%
|
|
|
|
|
|
GOP
|
Giuliani
|
Romney
|
McCain
|
Huckabee
|
First
|
1%
|
35%
|
1%
|
63%
|
Second
|
0%
|
62%
|
5%
|
33%
|
Third
|
7%
|
3%
|
72%
|
3%
|
(Not listed are Fred Thompson (9% of readers think he'll finish third) and Ron Paul (6% of readers think he'll finish third. Neither had any first or second place predictions.
With Chris Wilson and Jon Rubin.
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Nothing like washing that turkey sandwich down with a good ol' fashioned contest. Enter Trailhead's primary prediction competition to win the respect of all of your Trailhead peers. Visit the original post for the rules, or figure it out yourself by downloading the spreadsheet, filling out your name and predictions, and emailing it to TrailheadContest@gmail.com. Entries must be received by 5 p.m. today.
Giddy up.
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If you're too lazy to make your own office pool, join Trailhead's instead. Send us your predictions, and we'll track who is the top Trailhead soothsayer. The winner gets a blogosphere shout-out and unending respect.
The rules:
- Points will be awarded for correct guesses on first, second, and third place finishers in the states listed. No need to get the full slate in exact order to be awarded points.
- Certain states are weighted more than others. See the spreadsheets for point rundowns.
- Democratic and Republican predictions will be tallied together.
- There's a tiebreaker just in case. Guess the number of delegates the frontrunner will have through Feb. 5. Maximum number of delegates is on the spreadsheet.
Entry is simple. Download the spreadsheet and fill out your name and your predictions. Then send it to TrailheadContest@gmail.com. Entries must be received by 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 3. We'll keep you updated.