The year 2015 is over so I’m going to take this time to look back at the ten predictions I made earlier this year – just as a fun exercise to see if my crystal ball from back then was operable. Here’s what I wrote January 2nd, 2015:

1. Governor McCrory will use the phrase “steppin’ on toes” no less than 20 times. Wrong. Goofy prediction. Not serious! And I’m not sure if he even used the phrase once this year.

2. The N&O will continue to push its newfound cause of nonpartisan redistricting. As in 2014, they’ll be out with a redistricting-focused editorial nearly every two weeks. Wrong. The real rate is once a day.

3. There will be conflict between the General Assembly and the governor. The legislature will win most of the battles, but McCrory will win politically by staking out centrist positions. Possibly true; it’s still an open question whether or not McCrory came off better politically. Interestingly, McCrory’s worst numbers of this year came after he distanced himself from his conservative base.

4. Medicaid expansion will be a big issue. Liberal editorialists will, for once, support McCrory’s position. They will assert that the legislature is essentially turning down free money, with no strings attached. It’s still an issue, but it didn’t get as much coverage as I thought it would. I’m going to go with “mostly wrong” on this one.

5. No viable alternative will appear to Cooper’s left. He will face up against a bunch of gadfly candidates, but there will be more than sufficient progressive passion on his side due to his moving to the left in the past two years. Indeed, no truly strong candidate has emerged on Cooper’s left. Progressive passion, however, has been somewhat muted since Cooper joined McCrory on the Syrian refugee issue.

6. I agree that Democrats will struggle to find someone to challenge Burr. Saying no – Hagan, Cunningham, Shuler, McIntyre, Foxx. 100% right. They struggled even more than I thought they would. The current roster of candidates (Deborah Ross, Chris Rey, Kevin Griffin) were on no one’s radar.

7. Both state parties will pick women to be their new chairs. Patsy Keever will be elected to chair the NCDP. North Carolina Republicans will choose former Rep. Carolyn Justice.
Half right. The Democrats went with Patsy Keever, but Justice didn’t run on the Republican side and Hasan Harnett was chosen in a huge upset.

8. In the presidential race, NC will be getting an atypical amount of candidate visits due to the change in the primary calendar. Ben Carson, at least for a time, will enjoy frontrunner or runner-up status in state and national polls. It depends on how one defines ‘atypical.’ We’ve been getting a few visits, mostly low-key fundraisers. But overall we haven’t seen anything crazy. Bottom line, nobody would mistake North Carolina for South Carolina.

The Ben Carson prediction was probably my best one out of all of these. I should have also predicted that he will definitely not the nominee, as it was obvious back then and is even more obvious now.

9. A bill to change the formula for sales tax redistribution will produce unlikely coalitions, divided more on urban/rural lines than by party. The fate of the bill will rest in the hands of Governor McCrory. Partially true. The real fight was between the State House and the State Senate. What was ultimately passed only slightly resembled the original proposal, which would have helped rural counties considerably.

10. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest will continue to be the darling of NC conservatives for his views on social issues and his anti-Common Core stance. He’ll be a target for Democrats in 2016. Forest is one of those politicians with an uncanny ability to please both the establishment and the grassroots. And he’ll definitely be a target next year, as evidenced by the sheer number of candidates stepping forward for the Democratic nomination.

To sum it all up, I think I fared OK on the predictions side (at least those made on the 2nd), though many of them were fairly safe. I’m debating whether or not to make a post on 2016 predictions, as some of them are pretty “out there” and in a month’s time I could be looking very foolish. I’ll think about it.

John Wynne

John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.