With the final recount finishing up last week and the beginning of 2011 next week, we can now finally turn the page on the November 2010 election in Maine... but not before we announce the full results of the Down East/Kennebec Journal election prediction pool.

The charts below are the results of 85 valid entries, the most participants I've ever had. The results used to judge accuracy come from the Bangor Daily News and the Secretary of State's recount announcements.

I've already announced the winning predictors of the governor's race, so let's skip right to the congressional races.

In the first Congressional District, most participants predicted that Pingree would win, but that this would be a much closer race, with the average at around 52-47. A 56-44 prediction was popular enough, however, that many came close. Mike Turcotte was the clear winner here and I bet Tim Bissell is wishing he hadn't got fancy with percentages.

It seems that Mike Michaud has been running long enough that his election victory margins are fairly predictable. The mean prediction for this race was within a percentage point of the actual result. A prediction of  55-45 was the mode, so a lot of people gained ground on this one.

The results of Question 1 (on a casino in Oxford) didn't change much with the recount, and pool participants had it pegged long before then. The average was within half a percentage point of the actual. Marc and Alan Brewer came very close on this one and there was a 10-way tie for fourth place.

Question 2, the dental bond, passed with a much narrower margin than pool entrants predicted. Brandon Maheu's use of decimals finally paid off.

Question 3, on the other hand, which provides funding for land conservation and working waterfronts, passed with a much wider margin than most predicted, with the average prediction about 5 points lower on the Yes side. John Anton was the winner here.

In both the House and Senate, the Republicans outperformed expectations.

In the Senate results, there were plenty who came close to the actual result, and we saw a 10-way tie for first place, but no one pegged the outcome exactly.

In the House, there was much more of a range and a few of those in the top ten had actually predicted a Democratic victory. If a Green candidate had won a seat, Mark Yerrick would have been spot on.

With so many entries this year, it really takes a look at the average error rates over all the races and ballot questions to provide some clarity. In the end, hoagie came in at first overall. Since he has already received a prize for coming in first in the governor's race, the Down East calendar will go to second-place winner CPM.

I came in at 6th, which I think is my highest ever, right behind Tea Party frontman Andrew Ian Dodge. The average of all the predictions would have come in at fourth place, showing that, once again, all of us together are better than almost any one of us in predicting election outcomes. Here are the top 20:

The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.