Whereas I hit a new bottom in my House and Senate predictions

Tonight I am coming to grips with what I think is the emerging reality of what we face on November 2nd, and it’s a little uglier than what I previously envisioned.

First, the House:  I posted my diary using a rudimentary Cook-based model to “predict” a net loss of 49 seats.  Until tonight I have spent the last month in rising hope that maybe we could buck the tide just enough to keep the House by the skin of our teeth.  But further readings and taking a step back and considering the state of whatever House race polling we have, I am now surrendering once again my hope of keeping the House.  I’d hit a bottom on Labor Day weekend with all the rock-bottom generic ballot numbers that popped up around then.  But then September gave us more positive information, and things started to look better.  But going through StephenCLE’s diary tonight left me resigned.  He pegs our net losses in the mid-30s, and I count several more losses that he sees still ending up our way.  I now think also our pickups, to offset GOP gains, will be limited to the Big 4 of beating Cao and Djou and taking DE-AL and IL-10.  I don’t completely write off the possibility of one or two upsets somewhere by Garcia or Bera or Goyle or someone else, but the odds are long at this point, I think.  Garcia is our best bet, I still give him a 50-50 shot, but I suspect the bad economy tips the scale against us.  That Sink has fallen behind Scott, and Rubio has taken firm command of the Senate race, both hurt him.  All this is to say that while I have been saying the odds of a GOP takeover are “just” 55-60%, I now push those odds all the way up to 80%.

Now, the Senate:  this is where depression is kicking in more heavily tonight.  I’ve conceded for awhile 2 separate tiers of 3 seats each.  Tier I is ND, AR, and IN.  Tier II is CO, WI, and PA.  But I now am counting a couple Tier III seats, WV and IL, as losses.  Even in IL, Obama’s job approval has slipped to mere mortal levels.  Yes I see Brady has gained ground and Alexi is still in a legitimate pure tossup and it’s a Democratic state and the Chicago machine still can come through.  I don’t write off IL, nor do I write off Manchin’s chances of turning around WV.  And PPP today gave us hope in CO.  But all that said, if I have to make bottom-line predictions, I now have to call all these seats losses in a very strong anti-Democratic wave.  If we’re really going to lose more than 40 House seats, then it’s likely the Senate seats, too, will be on the higher side of what’s realistically possible rather than the lower side.  So I’m now seeing a loss of 8 Senate seats, with no takeovers.

My one Senate wildcard:  I now think our best chance of a takeover is actually AK.  The major party candidates are little-known, it’s a late-developing race, and it’s a complicated 3-way where voter preference can change quickly and unpredictably.  That contrasts to ALL other races where we’re fighting for our lives; in all other hardly-fought races, there has been a lot of heavy campaigning by both sides for a long time, and voters are pretty familiar with the candidates and just not likely to shift our way in just the last month absent some unexpected external event driving them.

It’s going to be a tough night, and I don’t write off the possibility that things could be better than this.  But I’m bracing emotionally for a depressing night.  The only positive takeaways I forsee is that still barely holding the Senate and controlling the floor is worth A LOT and nothing I take for granted, and that Obama’s reelection chances really will be enhanced by voters having gotten their pound of flesh and finally settling down.  There’s something to be said for the argument that if we hang on to both the House and Senate, we’re still tagged with all the blame for whatever follows, and voters will feel they weren’t heard by our retaining our majorities and might take it out on us even more strongly in 2012.

There really is an emerging Democratic majority, but it’s emerging slowly.  I think a lot of us let 2008 mislead us because Obama effectively accelerated, through the power of his own persona, a process of changing the electorate that otherwise would happen naturally only much more slowly.  The 2008 electorate was what we’d see in 2016 or 2020 if it wasn’t for Obama.  We might see no growth in Democratic-favoring demographic groups in the electorate in 2016, as Obama is succeeded probably (not necessarily but the odds support this) by a white male as the Democratic Presidential nominee.  For this year, we’re going to see any natural uptick in Democratic-favoring turnout from demographic change over the past 4 years offset, and perhaps more than offset, by depressed turnout from the unfavorable environment and lack of urgency among key voters.

I’m very interested in all of your thoughts on this subject.

51 thoughts on “Whereas I hit a new bottom in my House and Senate predictions”

  1. Conventional wisdom aside, there’s no way Dems keep the House if they’re behind in the generic ballot or even tied. Republican strength is just much more efficiently spread.

    I think what will hurt the most in the Senate is losing Russ Feingold. To tell the truth, I don’t always agree with him or even like him very much, but the symbolic power of that loss will be hard to overcome.  

  2. Here’s my gone list:

    1. North Dakota (duh)

    2. Arkansas

    3. Indiana

    4. Pennsylvania (Joe Sestak, you suck. Really, you suck.)

    5. Colorado

    6. Wisconsin (Russ, read #4 please.)

    West Virginia is dangerously close to being on that list, but i still have hope for Alexi in IL. So in all, not including WV, we lose 6 seats (53-47).

    I’m not sure AK is a sure thing for us, its reliably Republican and im not sure there’ll be enough Indies/Dems to push McAdams over the top, its kinda like Florida’s senate race, only its waaay more Republican than Florida and the incumbent (Murkowski) had to run as a write-in rather than a nasty intraparty fight (ala, Crist)

  3. I don’t think he is saying Alaska-Sen is a “likely” pickup, I think the point is that it is the likeliest of unlikelies.  Why not gamble on something new when the writing is pretty much on the wall on the others that have been tried?  Why will hitting Blunt for his lobbyist ties work now if it didn’t the last 1000 times?

    As to the “emerging dem majority” part, I think it is better described as “emerged dem majority” and the next thing to discover is the “emerging GOP majority.”  The conditions that created the now-ascendant dem coalition (regardless of this likely impending electoral setback) will not last forever.  Coalitions fall apart and in ways that are not anticipated.  

    Coalitions have problems with becoming victims of their own success.  The idea of the GOP being a victim of its own success may seem laughable at present, but you will find a lot more voters that think reducing taxes from 70% to 33% is reasonable than “Fair tax” supporters, more welfare reformers than social security reformers, etc.  The Dems will quickly have the same problems–see health care reform.  Plus, the focus is on who is in, not who is out.  Being a dem for many of the newer to the coalition in the 2010s meant “not a Bush-style Republican,” not a true believer.  

  4. I’m sure I’ll be excoriated for Eeyore-ism but the only would-be wave election that defied expectations that I know of was 1948.  The conditions that breed wave elections rarely reverse themselves in the final weeks of a campaign, despite the biennial media chatter and hype from the endangered party that always materialized between Labor Day and Election Day that “we dodged a bullet there”.

    There will more than likely be some Democratic equivalents of 2006 Jim Gerlach and Heather Wilson this year….incumbents thought dead that survived.  But I expect there will also be some Jeb Bradleys and Jim Ryuns, caught completely off-guard and washed away with the tide.  I had a list of three completely under the radar Democratic incumbents who I suspected could end up being in trouble.  Just this week I got confirmation on my suspicion of one of them….Jim Oberstar of MN-08.  My other two possible sleeper predictions….none other than progressive heroes Dennis Kucinich and Anthony Weiner.

  5. “a process of changing the electorate that otherwise would happen naturally only much more slowly” … i bet you had race in mind here. But i think the factor that no one is talking about is young people. They’re the wild card.

    1982-1995 marked a new American baby boom that brought us the Millennials, who outnumber the Baby Boomers, have shown a marked interest in volunteerism and civic engagement, and came to the polls in record numbers in 2008. But the thing about young people is that once they register and vote for the first time, they’re dramatically more likely to continue voting. And unlike a lot of parts of the Democratic coalition (cough*gays*cough), young people have gotten a LOT of what they wanted–cheaper student loans, more Pell Grants, tougher restrictions on predatory credit card lenders and a softer line on drugs, an end to the Iraq war, and even access to their parents’ healthcare in time for the election. And all but the tail end of the boom is now eligible to vote, and a huge chunk have voted before. I mean, heck, SSP is practically a frat in terms of demographics.

    Yes, young people have an awful record of voting in midterms, and I’m sure their percentage of the electorate will be lower than it was in 2008. But every pollster already factors that in–and some have shown ridiculously low numbers in their projections. And don’t even get me started on SUSA and its findings of young people in love with Republicans. Even a modest uptick in under-30 turnout could be huge because there are a hell of a lot of them/us and no one expects us to show.

    In other words, chillax, dude, we got your back.

  6. but I do think your house predictions are pessimistic. I think we are likely to hold the house. My 4 reasons for optimism:

    1. The DNC’s huge money advantage over the RNC which is allowing them to put together the largest GOTV operation ever for midterms. I don’t think the Dems have ever had this kind of field operation in place for midterms. The RNC, on the other hand, has seen it’s GOTV operations fall apart due to lack of funding. While Rove’s group can help out the GOP with GOTV efforts, they can’t coordinate with the party and just won’t be as effective.

    2. The lack of conservative ballot initiatives in key states. There aren’t any gay marriage or anti-choice initatives on the books to drive up the conservative vote. There are however liberal ballot initiatives that will drive up youth votes. For example, Marijuana(California, Madison, Massachusetts, Oregon) 21-only bar ordinance in Johnson County, Iowa.

    3. Increased use of early voting/no excuse absentee voting. More states have made it easier to vote which helps our infrequent voters to vote. The early voting #s in Iowa and Ohio so far have been very promising for Democrats.

    4. Lack of scandals for Democratic house incumbents facing GOP candidates with ethical issues. Part of what drove the GOP wave in 1994 was the house being plagued by scandals. Outside of Conyers and Waters, our candidates are pretty much scandal free. The same can’t be said for the GOP challengers.  

  7. bright side is I think there will be a lot of one term wonders this cycle. I think (kind of early but oh well) we have 50-50 shot of regaining the House in 2012. It all depends on the number of seats we lose now. Don’t get me wrong I would like to keep the majority but a divided Gov’t could help Obama in 2012. I’m just glad we got the big stuff done already while he had the huge majorities. Although wouldn’t it be something if we got back the House but lost the Senate in 2012? We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it I suppose.    

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