There’s no question that this has been an extremely rough year for Republicans — just take a look at how far Democrats have spread the playing field in the House battleground this year. The fact that Dems are seriously contesting deep-red districts in Indiana, Nebraska, and Virginia tells you the story of this election pretty quickly.
We’re all aware of the top-tier races, but one thing I know that we’re all quietly waiting for are the freak race shockers of 2008. Few expected the likes of Carol Shea-Porter and Dave Loebsack to knock off Republican incumbents in 2006, and on election eve two years later, a lot of people are finding themselves scrambling to identify possible stunners. Our good friends over at the Cook Political Report, for instance, just moved OH-12 and MI-08, two tossup districts with underfunded Democratic challengers, to their “Likely Republican” column from their previous rating of Solid Republican. If the prognosticator class is doing a double-take on races as quiet as those ones, you know that tomorrow could be potentially explosive.
So if you had to guess, where might we see a surprise win tomorrow and why? I might go for something like IA-04 (a tossup district that Obama is likely to romp in), but I’m sure some of you have even freakier long-odds hopes.
I’ll go with NC-05 just because Virginia Foxx is odious and should be defeated!
Headlines in The Boston Herald, Nov 5 edition.
Does Nye in VA02 qualify as a long shot upset??
My longshot: Debbie beats Dana
Why? Because instead of the usual arrogant Repub bluster, Rohrabacher seems to be showing some real hedging:
Rohrabacher fears Dem landslide. Nine-term incumbent worries GOP voters could stay home.
So is Thelma Drake although I’m not sure if that would be completely out of left field.
My other big prediction is that Obama will win Nevada by a much wider margin than polls are predicting. 55-45.
If Linda Ketner wins, I will literally shit my pants.
My last donation of Q3 went to Becky Greenwald. Mostly because of 1) how districts are drawn in Iowa, 2) the D+0 rating of the district, 3) Obama’s ENORMOUS polling advantage in Iowa, 4) his equally enormous field presence, 5) McCain’s total absence, and 6) the fact that Latham has never acted like a candidate in danger.
Shades of Jim Leach all over again.
Other upsets:
Michael McCaul is possible. Williamson County should be pretty fertile Obama country.
NV-02 would still be an upset. McCain having de facto conceded the state can’t help Heller any.
I would love to see one of Segall, Shulman, and Perriello win.
Do we have any idea who is one the WFP line in NY-26 now?
It’s hard to find a true “out of the blue” possibility because the whole country was officially shifted into Lean Democratic territory when Lehman Bros went down six weeks ago. When you have all those GOP reps going on TV saying “there are no safe GOP seats”, how are you supposed to find the upset that no one else saw coming?
Aha. Dan Lungren. That one could have developed. $400k from the DCCC might have won that, I’ll venture.
And Brian Bilbray might lose. People tend to talk about CA-50 less than CA-46, so that might qualify as an “upset”.
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My actual upset list will have to be Mike McCaul, Dean Heller, Tom Latham, Virgil Goode, and both of the Mike Rogerses. Two of those six will lose. There’s my prediction.
Or add Bilbray, Lungren, and Ros-Lehtinen, and make it 3 of 9 will lose.
ACCIDENTAL CONGRESSMAN STEVE SCALISE DEFEATED
“I guess voters realized he was just an accident.” – Jim Harlan
Harlan to Do Victory Jig in Hilton Hotel Ballroom
MI-11 – the economy is terrible in Michigan, and McCotter is a terrible congress person. He won by a less than convincing margin in ’06 by an almost invisible opponent, and I believe that his current invisible opponent may be able to knock him off in conjuction with Knollenberg and Walberg.
He got some DCCC funding but is listed as Lean Republican by everyone.
If not I’d go with AL-03, IA-04 or NJ-05. Long, longshot upset would be one of the California races. Maybe CA-46.
in PA-6 (Gerlach), MI-11 (McCotter), and CA-26 (Dreier).
Debbie Cook knocking off Dana Rohrabacher would be incredibly sweet.
My personal bete noir, Elton Gallegley, is going to get another term. But who knows, maybe a small asteroid or district-wide electronic voting machine error will make it otherwise…. 😀
Mike McCaul only got 55% two years ago against a guy he outspent around 20-to-1. Similarly, Mark Souder only won 54-46 in 2006, and this year he seems to have ignored the alarm bells. WY-AL just because few outside of the SSP community have followed it much.
but I would personally love to see Tim Prince win in CA-41 because I HATE Jerry Lewis.
Two seats in blood-red R+15 districts that have awesome candidates running great campaigns. There are so many awful GOPers that need to go (Musgrave, Bachmann, Garrett, Foxx, Drake, Westmoreland) and though we likely wont get that last one it would be nice if Shulman, Carter, Nye, Montagano, and Johnson could pull the upsets. Rohrabacher would be nice to get rid of as well and I imagine CA-46 would have to be considered an upset special as well.
I’d say we might see some real shockers in Chicagoland, like Scott Harper giving incumbent Judy Biggert a good run in IL-13 and Jill Morganthaler scaring Peter Roskam in IL-6. Both are completely suburban districts that are about R+4, bu5 I think Obama has a good chance to carry both and his coat tails might bring these two in.
but I’m so pumped for this election. I could win a babka and a Mac Book Pro! And some guy called Barack Obama and some wierd socialist party called the Democrats could get huge margins in this thing called the government.
But mostly I’m hoping I win a MacBook with the DailyKos contest.
Obama to be the first Democrat to win Dixville Notch in New Hampshire since 1968. 4 hours and 20 minutes to go!
I also think TX-10 might happen. Other than that, upsets are possible but unlikely in IA-04 and CA-46.
Even though the DCCC DID play in that district.
Here is one on NO ONE’S radar screen, though. But I have followed FEC reports, and I have seen the candidate, and I just have a vibe.
He may not win it, but he will get closer than anyone would have guessed.
Watch Illinois-13.
Watch Scott Harper.
Other ones: Oklahoma-01, California-26, and South Carolina-2
Perhaps it’s the registration, or just the god-awful Republicans in the Garden State, but I suspect that Jersey will be the haven for a major shift…3 & 7 are probably givens, but I suspect Dennis Shulman may be the Carol Shea-Porter of this round…I suppose a toppling of Chris Smith would be too much to hope for…but what the hell…NJ-4 and -5!
I think these are the “shortest” longshots of my races to watch. Some are shorter than others, of course. In particular, I think the closest are SC-01, TX-07, TX-10, and WY-AL–they’re pretty much the only four that are considered main-tier races as well.
AL-03 Josh Segall
AZ-03 Bob Lord
CA-03 Bill Durston
CA-46 Debbie Cook
CA-50 Nick Liebham
CT-GA014 Kathy Hale (:D)
FL-09 Bill Mitchell
FL-12 Doug Tudor
FL-18 Annette Taddeo
GA-01 Bill Gillespie
IA-04 Becky Greenwald
IA-05 Rob Hubler
IL-18 Colleen Callahan
LA-01 Jim Harlan
LA-07 Don Cravins, Jr.
MI-08 Bob Alexander
MN-02 Steve Sarvi
NC-05 Roy Carter
NC-10 Daniel Johnson
NJ-04 Josh Zeitz
NJ-05 Dennis Shulman
OH-03 Jane Mitakides
OH-07 Sharen Neuhardt
OH-12 David Johnson
OH-14 Bill O’Neill
PA-05 Mark McCracken
PA-15 Siobhan “Sam” Bennett
SC-01 Linda Ketner
TX-07 Michael Skelly
TX-10 Larry Joe Doherty
VA-02 Glenn Nye
VA-05 Tom Perriello
VA-10 Judy Feder
WA-04 George Fearing
WV-02 Anne Barth
WY-AL Gary Trauner
“Obama wins Georgia,” but I think that no longer can be considered an upset. An upset for me is something completely out of the blue, say, Bill Gillespie dethrones Jack “Flag Pin” Kingston in GA-01.
MI-11
SC-02
Definitely think IA-04 is a little more than an upset special.
And what about a clean-sweep of the Minnesota delegation:
MN-2 (the long shot)
MN-3
MN-6 Bachmann BEGONE!
That’ll be my long shit candidate for the night.
…even though I’m less bullish on this one than I was last month.
I’ll go with PA-05 for the big one. Honorable mention: UT-03. The last time they nominated a Jason Chaffetz (his name was Karl Snow back then, if I recall correctly), that most Republican territory in the land elected a Democrat. No reason why it can’t happen again.
These may seem a little out there but I have 4 picks for ‘what-the-fuck just happened?’, Carol Shea-Porter-style upsets. I’m effectively writing them off but would not have a heart-attack or shit myself if they occured. The I may be batshit crazy, 10 to win 1000 bets have to be:
IA-05: Steve King (R-i) – Rob Hubler (D)
Blue Tsunami in Iowa?
MS-03: Joel Gill (D) – Gregg Harper (R)
Race for the open seat of Chip Pickering. Higher African-American composition than MS-01.
NY-03: Peter King (R-i) – Graham Long (D)
Just because I don’t like Peter King…or the last name King.
TX-32: Pete Sessions (R-i) – Eric Roberson (D)
Obama will keep close to McCain in this R+11 district (Hispanic makeup is 36%). But will the crooked politician who’s never gone above 56% go down?
I’m going for districts that haven’t been talked about at all here, or have only been talked about in brief via posters or quick hits:
GA-03: This district is 40% black (!) (is there any district with a larger black population represented by a Republican?); Westmoreland is an idiot, Obama GOTV in Georgia is massive, and the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer endorsed Camp. Might not flip because Camp is underfunded, but it’ll be a lot closer than people realize.
FL-12: Adam Putnam is not well liked in his district, and is generally regarded as a spoiled rich kid whose family bought the seat for him. The Democrat has been struggling for attention from the DCCC, but hasn’t received any, despite Putnam’s status as third ranking Republican. Central Florida seems very Democratically inclined this year, if FL-08 and FL-24 are any indication. Plus, knocking off an obnoxious GOP mouthpiece like Putnam would be sweet.
IN-06: R +6, Pence way to the right of his district, Obama has some ground game in Indiana. I don’t think Pence will lose barring a miracle, but it’s one to watch. And wishful thinking on my part. Knocking off Pence would probably do more damage to the conservative cause in the House than even knocking off Boehner would.
MD-06: Bartlett is old and scandal plagued, but its a very red district. Still, if we can win MD-01 (and we will), I think we can win here. It will be close.
MI-08: Turnout in Lansing and DCCC spending in neighboring districts could knock out Rogers.
MI-11: I’m heartened to see people suggesting this one. If Rogers is vulnerable because of DCCC spending and GOTV in neighboring districts, McCotter definitely is, especially as MI-11 is smack in between MI-07 and 09. McCotter was also one of the lead anti-bailout cheerleaders despite the fact that he represents an R +2 suburban district in a state that badly needs economic relief. If he doesn’t lose, he’ll at least be in for a scare.
Also, I agree with IA-04, but if there’s a really big wave in Iowa, we might see IA-05 flip as well, which would be really sweet. It happened in 1974.
In some places that have a strong populist bent (like Iowa) are really hurting economically (like Michigan), and/or have a large, energized population of Obama voters with a strong GOTV operation in place (GA-03), I think the floor is a lot farther down than the pundits realize. What happened in Indiana in 2006 (People get angry at Bush and Daniels, 3 Republican incumbents lose) will happen all over the country tomorrow, especially in the Midwest.
#1 would be TX-10 D-Judge Larry Joe Doherty over R-Michael McCaul.
#2 would be VA-5 Tom Perrillo over Virgil Goode.
and the please please please upset is MD-1 D-Frank Kratovil against R-Andrew Harris wingnut deluxe.
I will be working the polls tomorrow registering same day voters. I sure hope Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s goon squad doesn’t pick our ward for his “special guidance in preventing voter fraud”.
Good Luck tomorrow to all Democrats, mighty and small.
I’ve been tearing my hair out over why the IA-4 race has been largely ignored until two weeks ago (how quickly everyone forgets Loebsack!). Latham has never run terribly impassioned campaigns (I campaigned both Norris and Johnson against him) and all his opponent needs is an extra push over the finish line. Well, what do you think Obama, Sen. Harkin, Gov. Culver, and Rep. Loebsack might portend for Becky Greenwald? That’s right, it will be a tie race, may the winner have a good lawyer. And don’t discount Hubler in IA-5 either, Senator Grassley may soon be the only Republican left in the state (and he’s ready to retire anyway).
15 votes to 6 🙂 May it send me on the way to babka and a new mac!
Sharen Neuhardt has run an excellent campaign.
The wave will be a tsunami.
Our posters here are of the highest quality! 😉
It could happen:
http://www.swingstateproject.c…