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Fox News confirmed on Tuesday that it has chosen not to renew political analyst Dick Morris’ contract, ending his long run at the right-wing network. Morris’ exit is well-deserved; during his time at Fox, Morris made so many horrible predictions that he became widely labeled as America’s Worst Pundit.
Here are five of Morris’ worst prognostications throughout the years:
Hillary Clinton Will Lose Two Senate Races
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During an appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Morris predicted that then-Representative Rick Lazio would defeat Hillary Clinton in their 2000 Senate race; Clinton would go on to win the race by over 12 percentage points.
Apparently unconvinced of Clinton’s popularity in New York, Morris later spent much of 2006 repeatedly declaring that Westchester Republican — and fellow Fox News contributor –Jeanine Pirro was Clinton’s “worst nightmare,” and that “she might just beat Hillary.” Morris went so far as to predict that “Hillary and Bill may read the handwriting on the wall and she may pull out of the race.”
Back in reality, Pirro — facing lagging fundraising and a 30-point deficit in the polls — dropped out of the race just two months after entering it.
Hurricane Katrina Will Help The Bush Administration
In a 2005 op-ed for The Hill, Morris predicted that the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina “has the capacity to shape the second Bush term in the same way Sept. 11 shaped his first term.”
“In a year, Katrina and the relief and rebuilding efforts that are about to follow will be seen as having imparted a new and crucial momentum” to the Bush administration, Morris wrote.
“Responding to disasters is a source of presidential strength and popularity,” he added, “and Bush is about to show how it is done.”
What Bush actually showed was how little strength and popularity his presidency had left; the disastrous response to the storm helped push President Bush’s approval rating to the low 30s, a drop from which he would never recover politically.
Donald Trump Could Be President
In an April, 2012 appearance on The Mike Gallagher show, Morris predicted that Trump would run for president, and could defeat President Obama.
“I take him very seriously,” Morris said. “I think he’s going to run, I think he’s got a good shot at the nomination, and I think if he were nominated, he could beat Obama.”
Republicans Will Win The Senate In 2012
Throughout 2012, Morris repeatedly predicted that Republicans would take control of the U.S. Senate, even stating on multiple occasions that the GOP would win 60 Senate seats. Media Matters compiled a handy video of some of Morris’ awful Senate calls:
In Morris’ opinion, “the worst-case scenario” was a 50-50 split — with Vice President Paul Ryan as the tie-breaking vote.
In reality, the Democrats added two seats to their Senate majority.
“Here Comes The Landslide”
Morris’ prediction that Mitt Romney would win the 2012 election in a landslide — with 325 electoral votes, and a five-percent victory in the popular vote — will always be remembered as the nadir of his awful prognosticating career.
Morris later returned to Fox News to acknowledge that his prediction — which was so bad that it appears to have helped kill Sean Hannity’s ratings — was consciously made to help Romney’s struggling campaign, an admission that should kill whatever shred of credibility Morris had left.
