A lot of people have a tough-to-shake superstition that optimistic predictions directly affect the future negatively. Even when it’s understood academically that this cannot be true, it’s a powerfully compelling notion.
I feel like I came pretty close but on election eve I was shaking like a leaf. 2014-2024 messed a lot of us up.
Ahem. That was me in the OP:
Missed on NE and AK is still not called. Also
Was on target. As was
I wasn’t the only one on target. This one was too:
Very good call on those Governor flips.
I guess I’m not subject to that superstition. Way back in early summer, I was sure of my predictions and considered starting this thread a month before I actually did.
You were pretty close.
It’s not a superstition, it’s super factual.
When someone gets their hopes up and things go badly, their immediate future mental state is extremely negative.
Speculation on what the 2027 Congress tries should probably move towards the post-election thread:
This is a suggestion, not an instruction - note the lack of mod-color and all. And credit to all who had faith to predict a Blue Wave, glad to see a chance to turn things around.
Especially about the future!
Yeah, that thread morphed into what I wanted this thread to be.
A variation of Murphy’s Law. See also Sportscaster’s Jinx.
This would be me during this election. I posted very negative expectations largely because in past cycles I was much more hopeful and saw things go very much the other way. Particularly after 2024 I didn’t feel I could handle getting too hopeful just to have them crushed again.
The multiple people here who were posting incredibly optimistic outcomes made me even more anxious since I saw it at dangerous overconfidence. 55 D in the Senate is one that comment to mind. And look what happened.
As a competitor, overconfidence can be as debilitating as underconfidence. Either can have you making non-optimal plays.
As a spectator, I’ll argue it’s more the pessimist / optimist divide. Which I explain as the phenomenon that a pessimist is happy no matter what happens: If the worst, they can gloat about being right. If the best they can be happily surprised at the good luck of living in happier circumstances. It’s a form of bet-hedging.
Conversely, an optimist is in effect a double-or-nothing play. You’re either right and living in happy times, or you’re living in sucky times and are suffering the pain of having been wrong.
What is American PII?
Yeah. It’s more this. Some people want a win-win. If they’re DEM then they suppose/assume/bet that the GOP will win so if that happens at least the DEM was right about that, and if the Democrats win then that person was wrong in their prediction but at least the have lots of DEMs elected. Win-win!
ETA: sorry I didn’t remember to add this to my precious post
Personal Identifiable Information
It’s a January 2026 NY Times article: “DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says”