Scott Eliott (ElectionProjection.com) is up with his first nationwide ’10 projections, and it isn’t so bad.
Eliott is a wingnut – but he’s as objective as they come w/r/t election data. For example, he called every Senate race correctly in ’06 and just missed 1 in ’08.
His numbers after ’10:
Senate: 56-42-2 (D -2)
House: 249-186 (D -8)
I believe would be depicted as a huge D victory, a virtual endorsement of President Obama’s agenda by a majority of the country.
Scott Elliot has his views, which I disagree with strongly. But he runs a clean site, free of the virtol associated with the typical Wingnut blog (perhaps except for the banner ads).
His record is stellar – he was right on 48 of the 50 states in the ’04 election (he switched IA and WI). He called all six of our Senate gains in ’06, with obvious pain in his words.
Eight days before election day ’08, he said
Eight days from Election Day, here is this blogger’s conclusion: Barack Obama will win this election in a landslide. He will capture at least 350 electoral votes and win the popular vote by 7% or more.
2010 details – w/r/t the Senate, he currently sees
D losses in DE, CO, CT
D gain in OH
w/r/t the House, the current projection shows
R gains in
AL-02, FL-08, ID-01, KS-03, LA-03, MD-01, NM-02, OH-15, PA-07, TN-06, TN-08, and VA-05
While I disagree with him w/r/t FL-08, there will be a lot of wingnut money flowing to whomever opposes Grayson this year.
Eliott also projects D gains in
DE-AL, IL-10, LA-02, PA-06
His formulas are interesting as well. http://www.electionprojection…. –
a quantitative formula based on polls and pundits.
He even uses partisan polls – but includes a 3% correction factor.
For example, I think OH-16 is more like to flip than OH-15, based purely on the partisan leanings of the district and Boccieri’s anti-HCR vote. I think the anti votes will come back to haunt Dems more than a pro-HCR vote, but that’s just me.
A few other general notes off the top of my head:
Four of those projected R gains are from open seats, three of which have deep D benches: LA03, TN-06, TN-07 (maybe KS-03). I think we have fighting chance in all of them.-I think Grayson needs to keep his mouth shot if he wants to win again.
I think we have a solid shot in PA15 as well.-The projected D gains are a really conservative estimate. That’s probably the worst case scenario.
-I think Sestak should stay in the House, but whatever.
Overall, though, I agree with the sentiment. I think it’s going to be a draw on election night. The GOP might gain a net total of 8-10, but I would actually be surprised. I think, contrary to popular belief, those losses will be in moderate districts that D congresscritters voted against HCR and other initiatives.
OH is projected to be D but not MO? I know polls this far out may not be that great but don’t most show the Dems doing better in the Missouri senate race?
…I don’t think we can lose just 8 in the House but still lose 2 in the Senate. Or, put another way, a 2-seat Senate loss translates to certain double-digit losses in the House, around 20ish seats I think.
I say that because there just isn’t any such thing as “low-hanging fruit” in the Senate. I know Dodd and Reid are hurting in polls, but no one really thinks those races won’t tighten and potentially become toss-ups. Almost all our “vulnerable” seats are in blue or purple states, Lincoln in Arkansas the lone exception, and we have several legitimate pickup opportunities where we’re still in legitimate toss-up status even in the current bad political environment.
Contrast that to the House where the Republicans have much more low-hanging fruit than we do, looking at open seats combined with incumbents in strongly opposite-party districts. It’s still not quite as bad in the House as some pundits say it is, but no question we have much tougher sledding with few countervailing pickup opportunities there, as compared to the Senate.
I think, at the very least, Grayson and Perriello get reelected, and Dems hold PA-07, and also Hodes wins NH-Sen.
If that happens then I could live with it. I could even live with that plus Blanche Lincoln and Harry Reid getting defeated.
Those 4 projected D House gains are our baseline. I expect we will get some others as well, although I don’t know which ones, CA-44 may be one of them.
with this set of his House losses:
Of the 31 non-black/non-urban Southern/border seats held by Democrats, there are only 7 on this list. I think it will be closer to double that.
I also think he’s completely off on the Senate seats:
I see no way that the Dems don’t pick up Missouri, except in a GOP wave where they lose at least 5 seats.
I also think Arkansas and Nevada are the most likely seats to go GOP.