Fearless predictions: Gazing into the crystal ball for 2020

Each year, I like to go on the record with my top 10 predictions for what some of the big stories will be in the new year. You can click hereto go back and read what predictions I made 12 months ago for 2019.

10. The Kansas City Chiefs will win the Super Bowl.

Tom Brady is the only player to ever beat the infamous Madden cover jinx – Pat Mahomes is about to become the second. Mahomes will overcome the jinx, as well as early-season injuries, to lead Kansas City to its first Super Bowl win since the first one after the AFL-NFL merger more than 50 years ago. Mahomes will also finally help his genius head coach, Andy Reid, check the final box on his otherwise sterling career coaching resume.

9. Soul will be the No.1 grossing movie at the domestic box office.

2020 is a year with no absolute bankable No.1 franchise making a return to the box office, with the possible exception of the anticipated Wonder Woman sequel. But if there's a bankable brand at the movies, it's Disney's Pixar. The brilliant animation studio has had the Midas touch for more than two decades, and its next release seems perfectly-timed to tap into a zeitgeist craving meta stories with existential themes.

8. Four different people will win the first four states in the Democrat presidential primary to set off a free-for-all for the nomination.

This has never happened before, but if we've learned anything the past few years it's that it's time to throw the norms out the window. For months now, former Vice President Joe Biden has been polling much better nationally than he has in the early states. The Democrat base seems united on its primary desire for a nominee – someone who can beat Trump. But it doesn't seem to be settled on whom the best person is for that job. So I think Pete Buttigieg wins Iowa, Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire, Elizabeth Warren claims Nevada, and then Biden's black-voter firewall saves him in South Carolina.

7. For the first time since Kennedy-Carter in 1980 there will be a truly brokered convention.

Not since Senator Ted Kennedy went all the way to the end in his 1980 battle with President Jimmy Carter has there been a brokered convention in American politics. That's going to change in 2020, especially if my previous prediction comes to pass.

6. A move will be made to nominate Michelle Obama as a compromise candidate for president at the brokered Democrat convention, which she will turn down.

Faction within the Democrat Party as well as the media (but I repeat myself) will attempt to come out of their brokered convention in Milwaukee with a dream compromise candidate – former First Lady Michelle Obama. However, she will decline to be a candidate before there's a formal vote.

5. The Democrats will nominate Bernie Sanders for president at their brokered convention.

There's two ways to win at a brokered convention: either be the top second-choice folks can settle on, or the triumph of the will. With no clear second choice in their midst, either, the Democrat Party will complete its full immersion into the spirit of the age by giving way to Bernie Sanders and his Soviet-style mobocracy. When there is no unifying figure, go with the one with the most-devoted following. Besides, the American Left has been obsessed with following in the footsteps of the European Left for years, so it seems only fitting for the Democrats to nominate their own Jeremy Corbyn.

4. Sanders will name Nevada U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto his running mate.

Conventional wisdom would say Sanders must pick a running mate who satisfies more moderate elements in the Democrat Party. But if you're Bernie, you didn't stubbornly stay on the wrong side of history all these years to show restraint now that you're king of the hill. Instead, Sanders opts to improve his intersectionality street cred by naming the first Latina U.S. Senator as his running mate.

3. Sensing the Democrat Party is in disarray and unable to count on it to win at the ballot box, the so-called "deep state" will go all-in to do whatever it takes to stop Donald Trump from winning re-election – including unprecedented disruptions of our foreign policy and economy.

I think this will include everything we've seen the past two years, except now on full tilt. For example, instead of classified intel leaks to partisan media, these will be open and blatant attempts to undo American foreign policy that lifelong bureaucrats will proudly put their names upon. And I wouldn't even be surprised if the Federal Reserve tried to tank the economy in the third quarter if it doesn't slow down all on its own.

2. Iran and North Korea will form a formal strategic alliance whose primary intent is to destabilize U.S. foreign policy across the globe.

And they will commit their first coordinated acts of aggression before the election as well, timed purposely to try and alter the outcome of the presidential race.

1. Donald Trump will be re-elected president with more popular votes and electoral college votes than he won the last time.

Historically, incumbent U.S. presidents win re-election about 70% of the time. So the odds are already in Trump's favor just by sheer precedent. Only once, though, has a president been re-elected with fewer popular and electoral college votes than he was originally elected with (other than during WWI and WWII) and that was Barack Obama in 2012. The nomination of Sanders proves to be too far out of the American mainstream for most voters, so Trump adds states like Minnesota and Colorado to his 2016 coalition.