Why Political Pundits Are Becoming More Wrong

This is a difficult time in the business of political predictions. A befuddled Tony Blair told the Financial Times this week, “I really mean it when I say that I’m not sure I fully understand politics right now, which is an odd thing to say when I’ve spent my life in it.” It’s not simply the unexpected strength of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, both of whom, it was assumed, would run aground before they could even reach this week’s Republican caucus in Nevada or the Democratic primary in South Carolina. The earliest moments of the 2016 campaign were marked by a conspicuous pageant of wrongness. Last year’s predictions, as collected by Politico, included explanations of not only how the presidential campaign would be conducted (“Meerkat will change politics forever”) but also who could conduct it (“Joe Biden /Elizabeth Warren/Mitt Romney”) and what would they would need, above all (“Money will be everything”).