I think I’m about to post the most optimistic set of predictions this board will probably see. Aside from a brutal South, I think Dems will be relatively okay through the rest of the nation.
(As a side note, I’ll be knocking doors in Pittsburgh all day tomorrow, so I’m signing off until 9PM-ish tomorrow.)
Reasoning:
1. I fundamentally believe that the polling is off in our favor-too much Razzy goodness, too much crappy Republican internal polling, and bad, bad LV models (also cell phone effect) have been baked into the so called “cake”. I just don’t buy it (either that or I’m in denial).
2. …..except in the South, there I do buy the polling actually being as bad as it is.
3. The other major thing that should help Democrats, especially in the Philadelphia-Kansas City corridor is the GOTV ground game brought to you by your friendly local unions. This conversely explains why the South will be so bad.
4. In key states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and New York, while they may not all win, Senate and Gubernatorial candidates are doing well enough to save the Chris Carneys, John Salazars, Zack Spaces, and John Halls of the world.
5. Too many bad GOP candidates like Allan West, Tim Walberg, Tom Marino, Andy Harris and Sharron Angle (among many others).
6. Everyone remembers the great GOP landslide of 1998, don’t we….
Senate
Senate (D-4)
North Dakota
Indiana
Arkansas
Wisconsin (though I can easily see PA here)
House:
Republican Gains (31)
South (14)
Arkansas 1st
Arkansas 2nd
Florida 2nd
Florida 8th
Florida 24th
Georgia 8th
Louisiana 3rd
Mississippi 1st
Tennessee 4th
Tennessee 6th
Tennessee 8th
Texas 17th
Virginia 2nd
Virginia 5th
Northeast (5)
New Hampshire 1st
New York 29th
Pennsylvania 3rd
Pennsylvania 7th
Pennsylvania 11th
Midwest (9)
Michigan 1st
Illinois 11th
Illinois 17th
Indiana 8th
Kansas 3rd
Ohio 1st
Ohio 15th
Wisconsin 7th
Wisconsin 8th
West (3)
Arizona 1st
Colorado 4th
New Mexico 2nd
Democratic Pickups (7)
Arizona 3rd ****UPSET SPECIAL****
Delawrare-AL
Florida 25th
Hawaii 1st
Illinois 10th
Louisiana 2nd
Washington 8th ****UPSET SPECIAL****
do as well as you think they might, they will break open champagne bottles in the White House.
I’ve been more optimistic than most, but man, even I’d have a hard time going beyond a five-seat majority.
do as well as you think they might, they will break open champagne bottles in the White House.
I’ve been more optimistic than most, but man, even I’d have a hard time going beyond a five-seat majority.
that i consider Industrial Midwest (plus Pennsylvania) as the most problematic region for Democrats this year. And i still think so if Senate and Governorships are included (luckily, there were extremely few Senate and Governor races with Demnocratic incumbents in the South, otherwise the bloodbath would be even more impressive). But as only House races are concerned – yes. And mostly because local Republican candidadet doesn’t run against Childers, Taylor, Edwards, Boyd and so on (most of them would win their races if campaigns were really localized)- they run against well-known and rather hated in the South trio: Obama-Pelosi-Reid. In some aspects this is a mirror image of 2006, when Democratic candidates, say, in IA-02 and RI-SEN ran not against Leach and Chafee, but against Bush. That alone was enough then and may be (i still hope – not in all cases) enough today. When you have such “juicy targets” as i mentioned – you run against them, not against “direct opponents”….