According to the natural order of things, 2010 should be a good year for the Republicans. However, they seem determined to drive the crazy train off the cliff instead of sitting down, shutting up, and letting nature take its course with a mid-term backlash against the incumbent party. I’m predicting pretty good results for the Democrats.
SENATE
Democrats pick up six seats, Republicans none. Great results for Dems driven by Repub retirements and a circular firing squad primary in Pennsylvania.
DEMOCRATIC PICKUPS:
FL – OPEN (Martinez) – My Mayor Pam Iorio runs and takes it to the house against Vern Buchanan. Crist does not run.
MO – OPEN (Bond) – Robin Carnahan beats Roy Blunt.
NH – OPEN (Gregg) – Paul Hodes beats who knows what Republican. Pick up the fundraising, though, dude.
NC – Burr – Roy Cooper takes out the ATM bandit.
OH – OPEN (Voinovich) – Lee Fisher beats Rob Portman.
PA – OPEN (Specter) – Pat Toomey beats Specter. Joe Sestak changes his mind about running and destroys Toomey.
OTHER RACES OF INTEREST:
CO – Bennet – Bennet holds on with surprising comfort. Repubs struggle to find a strong candidate.
CT – Dodd – Dodd stubbornly stays in the race, wins nailbiter over Rob Simmons.
DE – OPEN (Kaufman) – Beau Biden wins easily. Castle does not run.
IL – OPEN (Burris) – Giannoulias beats Burris in the primary, cruises in the general.
KY – OPEN (Bunning) – Bunning drops out. Trey Grayson squeeks past Jack Conway in the general. Ben Chandler does not run.
LA – Vitter – Diaper Dave wins primary over porn star and wins general comfortably. It’s always OK if you’re a Republican in LA these days.
NV – Reid – Repubs can’t find a strong candidate. Reid holds on comfortably.
OK – OPEN (Coburn) – Coburn retires (it’s more fun being an M.D.), but Repubs hold on anyway.
HOUSE
Democrats gain five seats and lose one, for a net pickup of four. Dem fundraising looks great. I’m seeing a lot of incumbents winning, with Dem gains driven by Repub open seats.
DEMOCRATIC PICKUPS
FL-10 – OPEN (Young) – Young retires (see miserable fundraising numbers). Strong candidate Charlie Justice wins swing district.
IL-10 – OPEN (Kirk) – Kirk runs for Senate. Democrat wins this heavily Dem district
LA-02 – Cao – Cao is destroyed by a prominent Democrat, perhaps Mayor Nagin. This is no toss-up, Charlie Cook.
PA-06 – Gerlach – Gerlach taken out by Dem in what has become a heavily Dem district.
VA-10 – OPEN (Wolf)- Wolf retires (see miserable fundraising numbers). Democrat squeeks by in this swing district.
REPUBLICAN PICKUP
ID-01 – Minnick – Sali defeated in primary. Stronger Repub too much for Minnick to handle.
GOVERNORS
Democrats pick up five seats. Republicans pick up five also, for a total wash.
DEMOCRATIC PICKUPS
AZ – Brewer – Superhero Terry Goddard takes out the inept, flailing socialist tax hiker Jan Brewer. I CHANGED THIS AFTER BEING CONVINCED BY PEOPLE SMARTER THAN ME THAT I AM WRONG.
CA – OPEN (Schwartzenegger) – Dem partisan edge enough to carry Dem candidate, whomever it is.
HI – OPEN (Lingle) – Same story. Dem partisan edge too much for Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona.
NV – Gibbons – Monumentally unpopular Gibbons loses to some member of the strong Democratic bench.
RI – OPEN (Carcieri) – Repub Laffey steers enough Repub votes away from Indy Chafee for Democrat to squeek by.
REPUBLICAN PICKUPS:
KS – OPEN (Sebelius) – With incoming Gov Parkinson unwilling to run as incumbent, partisan lean is too much.
OK – OPEN (Henry) – Dems have good candidates, but the partisan lean seems too much here.
TN – OPEN (Bredesen) – Tough egg for Dems these days. Predict Republicans win fairly close race.
VA – OPEN (Kaine) – AG’s are tough to beat. Unfortunate scandal for Moran this week, and I don’t think McAuliffe can win. Mr. Deeds? Probably not going to win the primary.
WY – OPEN (Freudenthal) – I don’t expect Freudenthal to go for the third term. Partisan lean way too much.
OTHER RACES OF INTEREST:
GA – OPEN (Perdue) – Republican staves off tough challenge.
MI – OPEN (Granholm) – Dem squeeks by on partisan edge.
MN – Pawlenty – Pawlenty wins a close one.
NJ – Corzine – Corzine squeeks by again by going deep into his piggy bank.
PA – OPEN (Rendell) – Western PA Dem (Onorato or Wagner) beats Repub Tom Corbett by about 5.
VT – Douglas – Douglas wins a narrow plurality in a three-way race. Legislature respects the will of the voters and gives him the seat.
I think there’s going to be more turn over in the House, though only a gain of a handful in general (but Republicans will gain, not Dems).
and lose, though even if he does drop out, our close race against McConnell shows that we can win a Senate race in Kentucky depending on the candidates. I think Conway would beat Grayson.
Imagine that, having a 66-34 seat majority in the Senate…I wonder if Democrats would still be afraid of angering the GOP minority?
As for governors, Brewer has never been elected governor and will fall pretty easily to Attorney General Terry Goddard. I am also more optimistic about us holding Oklahoma and Tennessee. Much better Dems than Repubs running in those races.
As for the House, I think we’re more in line for 7-15 pickups, though it will be hard to say for some time. Retirements will obviously be the big news in most of those races.
What was the nature of the scandal involving Brian Moran? I’m in Virginia and I haven’t heard anything about it.
Senate:
FL – secedes in August 2009 for no apparent reason. No Senate election.
OH – Jim Bunning moves to Ohio to run for the open Senate seat. McConnell not sure how he found his keys.
NH – Hodes contracts mercury poisoning and moves to Ohio to take on Jim Bunning. Charlie Crist wins in a landslide as a Democrat.
DE – Biden becomes homesick and takes the Amtrak home.
House:
IL-10 – Mark Kirk swims to Cuba to escape Obamunism!!!
VA-10 – Frank Wolf swims to Cuba to escape Obamunism!!!
LA-02 – Joseph Cao swims to Cuba to escape Obamunism!!!
IL-10, VA-10, LA-02 – Jim Bunning wins all three districts on the Connecticut for Lieberman line
but I think your predictions are extremely good. I might quibble with your comments on the Virginia Governor’s race, though. “AGs are tough to beat”? Well, in the past seven elections one party has nominated a former AG for Governor. (In Virginia, it is tradition that an AG running for Governor resigns the AG office.) Let’s look at the track record:
2005: Jerry Kilgore (R). Lost.
2001: Mark Earley (R). Lost
1997: Jim Gilmore (R). Won.
1993: Mary Sue Terry (D). Lost.
1989: Marshall Coleman (R). Lost.
1985: Gerald Baliles (D). Won.
1981: Marshall Coleman (R). Lost.
Tow wins and five losses? Not so good.
RI – I think Chaffee takes it for the Independents
OK – Narrow dem win, but a dem win nonetheless with Edmondson
VA – too early to tell, but I swear Terry SEEMS to be doing well on the ground. I’ve met Terry and found him to be a jerk a year ago. Terry the candidate seems . . . man I want him to win, he’s charming.
WY – I say Freudenthal does go for the third term
AZ – Education cuts swallow Brewer alive
GA – Toss up til e-day. An Obama appearance puts Baker over the top.
MN – Pawlenty does not go for term 3
NJ – If we win, it is not with Corzine.
I think you’re right about your prediction that we’re going to pick up some more House seats in 2010, but not as many as in 2006 or 2008. I notice you don’t have any House pickups in California, even though there has been a lot of recent discussion here about targeting California House seats in 2010. I feel a net gain of 10 House seats, although I can’t say which ones.
Jim Douglas (R) is facing the first contentious term of his miserable career. He’s permanantly crippled himself by vetoing gay marriage and going out of his way to slash state jobs, for the first time he has a legislature that will actually stand up to him, and every viable Democrat in the state was running even before he shot himself in the foot. (It’s likely to be either former Lt. Gov, State Senator, and 2002 nominee Doug Racine or SoS Deb Markowitz who gets it, and both are popular enough to win statewide.)
Knowing the uselessness of the Vermont press and of the so-far-left-they’re-borderline-fascist Progressive Party idiots around here, he still has some time to pull it out, but this is easily going to be one of the most difficult races of his career.
He always waits before picking up his fundraising. Simple as that.