Available election data show that Friedberg’s prediction of a broad, anti‑incumbent wave in local U.S. politics did not materialize, even though there were several high‑profile exceptions that fit his narrative.

1. Overall incumbents mostly kept their jobs, including locally.

• Ballotpedia’s nationwide analysis of the Nov. 8, 2022 general elections found that, across all levels (federal, state, and local), about 94% of incumbents who ran were re‑elected, with local‑level incumbents still winning about 90% of the time and local legislative incumbents about 84%. (inkl.com)
• A political science study of 2022 state house races found 96% of state legislative incumbents on the November 2022 ballot won re‑election, the highest rate since at least 2010. (degruyterbrill.com)
• U.S. House incumbents remained extremely safe as well, with re‑election rates around the mid‑90% range. (x.com)

These figures point to continuity, not “widespread local political turnover.”

2. School boards saw more contestation, but still no mass throw‑the‑bums‑out wave.

• In large districts Ballotpedia tracks, incumbents won about 53% of school‑board seats in 2022, down from 60% in 2020 but still a majority; non‑incumbent candidacies increased, yet incumbents remained more likely than not to retain seats. (inkl.com)
• A broader study of school‑board elections found that when incumbents do run, they win over 80% of the time, and that turnover is driven mostly by incumbents stepping down, not by voters ousting them for poor performance. (edweek.org)

So even in the area (education/schools) he specifically mentioned, voters did not generally remove incumbents en masse.

3. What did happen: notable but geographically limited backlash cases. There were several prominent examples matching his mechanism—voters angered over crime, schools, or perceived mismanagement ousting local leaders:

• San Francisco school board recall (Feb. 2022): Voters overwhelmingly removed three school‑board commissioners in a rare recall, blaming them for mismanaging the district and prioritizing symbolic issues over reopening schools. (en.wikipedia.org)
• San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin recall (June 2022): 55% voted to recall him, with analyses tying the result to frustration over street conditions, property crime, and public safety. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Baltimore City State’s Attorney (2022 primary): Incumbent Marilyn Mosby lost the Democratic primary to Ivan Bates, who campaigned on changing prosecutorial leadership amid concerns that crime was “out of control.” (thegrio.com)
• Alameda County DA Pamela Price recall (2024): Voters removed another progressive prosecutor just two years into her term, again amid intense debate over crime and prosecution policies. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao recall (2024): Thao was recalled less than two years into her first term, with coverage emphasizing voter anger over crime, homelessness, business departures, and a federal corruption probe. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Bay Area “recall fever”: Local media described a broader regional trend in which multiple Bay Area officials (school‑board members, district attorneys, supervisors, mayors) were removed via recalls over quality‑of‑life and governance concerns. (kqed.org)
• 2025 Utah local races: Reporting on municipal elections in Utah noted an unusually high number of incumbent mayors losing, with observers explicitly describing a “push against incumbency” tied to frustration over affordability, growth, and local decisions. (deseret.com)

These cases validate that in some places and on some issues—especially crime and local governance—voters did in fact “vote those folks out.” But they are clusters and high‑profile examples, not a pervasive national pattern.

4. Net assessment relative to the prediction. Friedberg predicted that across the nation and in many cities and localities, upcoming elections starting in 2022 would see voters broadly ousting the leaders they blamed for current problems, producing widespread local turnover. The empirical record from 2022–2024 shows:

• Persistently very high incumbent re‑election rates at federal, state, and local levels, including local legislative bodies. (inkl.com)
• Only pockets of intense anti‑incumbent activity (CA Bay Area recalls, a few prosecutors/mayors, scattered municipal upsets like those in Utah), significant politically but numerically limited.

Taken together, that means his forecast of a broad, nationwide wave of voters “voting those folks out of office” did not come true. The mechanism he described did appear in some high‑salience locales, but the scale and geographic spread fell well short of what he predicted. Hence: result = wrong.