Every spring brings a new opportunity for politicians to pander to their constituents with March Madness brackets. This month, however, we’ll hold them accountable. Here are some highs and lows of leading pols’ NCAA tournament predictions over the years, from a Mitt Romney masterclass in 2015 to John McCain’s 2017 Final Four catastrophe–with a lot of Barack Obama’s flailing in between.

Highlights

Mitt Romney, 2015

Behold, our finest-ever March Madness bracket for a politician. Romney finished in the 99.9th percentile on ESPN, correctly picking 23 out of 28 round of 64 games, 10 out of 16 round of 32 games, and six of eight Sweet 16 games. He proceeded to go undefeated in the Elite Eight, Final Four, and national championship–plus, he picked against Kentucky in a year when the undefeated Wildcats were a runaway favorite, making his feat doubly impressive. 

Here’s Romney’s 2015 bracket side-by-side with Obama’s:

It might be hard to read, but it’s enough to notice lots of red on the left side and mostly green on the right. Thank God–for Democrats–this didn’t happen three years earlier, when Obama and Romney were competing for a good deal more than March Madness bona fides.

Barack Obama, 2009

Obama’s first presidential bracket didn’t reach the levels Romney’s would six years later, but it was still impressive. The president correctly picked 14 out of the Sweet 16 teams, plus North Carolina to win the tournament. His Final Four was shaky–he only hit on UNC–but this performance likely would have placed him above the 90th percentile in most groups. I wonder if he would’ve traded a couple of his successful Sweet 16 selections in exchange for a few ticks lower in the unemployment rate?

George H.W. Bush, 2018

In the last NCAA tourney before his death, the elder Bush’s 2018 bracket was masterful. The only blemish was picking seven-seed Texas A&M to win the title–but even that homer pick proved beneficial, since it meant Bush was among only 4.1 percent of all brackets predicting the Aggies would down North Carolina, a two-seed, in the second round. Just as impressive: he picked Nevada’s mammoth upset of two-seed Cincinnati. 

But Bush’s success waned as the tournament progressed (like his presidential approval rating, which peaked at 89 percent following the Persian Gulf War but dipped to 29 percent in mid-1992). This time, he didn’t have a weak economy to blame: Bush picked just two Elite Eight teams and one Final Four participant. Still, he racked up points by tapping Villanova to reach the title game (they ultimately won the championship), and his hot streak within the first weekend remains one of March Madness’s most memorable presidential success stories.

Larry Hogan, 2016

I debated knocking the Maryland governor for picking his home-state Terrapins to win the title, but the Terps were a respectable five-seed and he had another election coming up in two years, so I get it. And overall, Hogan’s was a pretty good bracket. He correctly picked North Carolina to make the title game and added another Final Four team by choosing Oklahoma to come out of the West region. All the more proof he would be a good president.

John Boehner, 2015

The only thing harder than judging the former House Speaker’s 2015 bracket is reading it (see the screenshot below if you want to feel a little dizzy with a steady headache). 

From what I can decipher, Boehner correctly picked two of the Final Four and four of the Elite Eight. It’s not a dominant showing, but I give him credit for choosing Baylor over Xavier, his alma mater, in round two. Did the then-Speaker’s GOP colleagues know about his March Madness exploits when they forced him to resign six months after this bracket was crafted? Was it Boehner’s mistake-laden East region that made those Republicans so angry?

Lowlights

Barack Obama, 2015

Obama struggled mightily with two things during his presidency: building healthcare websites and picking March Madness winners. Only once did he predict the eventual champion–and 2015 wasn’t one of them. His bracket that year was mostly mediocre, despite nailing two of the Final Four. He hovered around the 50th percentile throughout the tourney and was ultimately outshined by Romney, whose 2015 bracket was historically accurate.

Joe Biden, 2023

The 46th president devised a forgettable 2023 bracket (Biden probably did, in fact, forget it existed) that made Obama’s March Madness record seem impressive. Biden’s biggest blunder? The Afghanistan withdrawal–no, wait, my mistake–it was his picking Arizona, knocked out in round one by Princeton, to win the title. He ended up with no Final Four teams and only two of the Elite Eight. Even in an upset-laden tourney, this wasn’t Biden’s finest moment.

Barack Obama, 2011

Back to Obama, one last time. The 44th president’s second-ever bracket was… not good. It started out well–he was near the top of ESPN leaderboards heading into the Sweet 16–but unraveled quickly, leaving Obama without a correct Final Four pick. Sure, 2011’s Final Four was full of unexpected teams–no one- or two-seeds survived–but he picked all top seeds to make it, which is the sort of chalky decision-making that some say caused the crisis in Libya.

Marco Rubio, 2013

The lights were shining brightly on Rubio in 2013: he was two years into his Senate term and the political universe was zeroing in on him as a potential 2016 Republican nominee. Unfortunately, his bracket that spring doomed his presidential campaign before it began. It wasn’t long before he was just Little Marco, second (third? fourth?) fiddle in a Trump-centric GOP primary.

It wasn’t all bad: Rubio did pick Louisville, the eventual champion, to make the title game. But his all-Sunshine State semifinal hurt–Florida fell in the Elite Eight, while Miami didn’t even make it that far–and Rubio ended up with a below-average bracket (and, a decade later, a below-average political career). 

John McCain, 2017

I’ve heard that Donald Trump likes war heroes who aren’t terrible at predicting March Madness games. McCain picked his home-state squad to win the tourney–when does that strategy not work?–but the two-seed Arizona Wildcats were slayed by Xavier to begin the second weekend. Things didn’t get better for McCain from there. He managed to correctly pick half of the Elite Eight, but he was shut out in the Final Four and one of his title game participants–UCLA–didn’t even reach the Sweet 16. Oof, these picks make the Sarah Palin selection look good.