Contest! Contest! Contest!

We did this back in 2008 and it was fun and I don't know why I didn't do it in 2012. We're going to have a contest to predict the outcome of the presidential race next week! The prize will be absolutely nothing but you'll be congratulated on this blog and that's worth a couple of Trump Steaks.

How many electoral votes will Hillary Clinton receive? Take your best guess, put the number down as the subject in an e-mail and send it to…

I'm obviously presuming Secretary Clinton has this in the ag-bay but if you think Trump's going to win, you can still play. Just send in a guess for Hillary below 270.

Only numerical guesses in the subject line will be counted. You can leave the body of the message blank except give me the name you want me to announce as the winner if it's not your handle. I may or may not announce some runners-up but you just never know what I'm going to do.

You can enter as many times as you want but only one guess per e-mail and only your last e-mail will be counted. So if you send a guess on Friday and you change your mind later and send another one on Sunday, only your Sunday guess will count. All entries must be in our special e-mailbox by 1:00 AM (Pacific Time) on Tuesday morning, November 8. The winner will be the earliest vote received with the correct total…or the closest guess if no one hits it on the button.

I will declare a winner whenever I think the final electoral total is official and unlikely to change. This may not correspond to when Donald J. Trump thinks that.

Since it's my contest, I get to go first. My guess is 350.