Absolute Last Call on the Election
It looks as though my September for 110 Republican seats gained in the House was overly bullish for the GOP, although I submit that conditions on the ground at the time made such a scenario possible. I'm now rolling back my calls for Republican gains back to my original instinct from earlier this summer....in the 92 range. A number of Democrats who I suspected were endangered have showed enough polling data to suggest they're not, but much of this polling remains dubious. Two polls showed Ben Chandler in KY-06 with a comfortable lead but the latest shows him with a scant four-point lead. Meanwhile, also as predicted, other polls are coming out to show Democrats long believed untouchable to be very vulnerable. Solomon Ortiz in Texas is the latest to be caught flat-footed.
Whatever the case, conditions are still rotten and far more rotten than what most believe. I fully expect a bare minimum of 80 lost seats for Democrats in the House.
Moving onto the Senate, I'll update most of my calls with predicted margins.
Alabama--Shelby by 31
Alaska--Miller by 3 (Murkowski's write-in campaign will come up short because of the obvious inconvenience of it, as Shelley Sekula-Gibbs can attest to, managing to lose by 10 points to a Democrat among an electorate of suburban Houston oil barons!)
Arizona--McCain by 43
Arkansas--Boozman by 28 (Even I wouldn't have thought Blanche Lincoln would underperform Obama in AR, but now I suspect she will)
California--Boxer by 3 (This morning's LA Times poll showing her up by eight is bullshit but I do suspect the SEIU's ground game will save her)
Colorado--Buck by 3 (Barring another major gaffe, suburban Denver voters that swing CO elections will hold their nose and cast a protest vote for this clown)
Connecticut--Blumenthal by 10 (McMahon's momentum that I thought would guide her to victory last month was short-lived)
Delaware--Coons by 15 (O'Donnell has proven an even worse candidate than I suspected last month at this time)
Florida--Rubio by 21 (Disgusting that the divided non-Rubio vote couldn't consolidate and keep this very dangerous GOP all-star out of the Senate....Crist vs. Rubio would probably produce a Crist win)
Georgia--Isaakson by 23
Hawaii--Inouye by 14 (This will be closer than a lot of people think with plenty thinking Inouye has overstayed his welcome)
Idaho--Crapo by 45
Illinois--Kirk by 3 (Alexi overplayed by calling Kirk a "traitor"....otherwise this race may have broken the other way....a perfect storm for the GOP in the wake of Blagojevich and an incredibly bad Democratic Senate candidate capable of pushing this unlikely state to the GOP)
Indiana--Coats by 22 (Another horribly wasted opportunity mismanaged from the get-go. Rot in hell, Evan Bayh)
Iowa--Grassley by 30
Kansas--Moran by 40
Kentucky--Paul by 10 (Conway will slowly lose support by those who grow into disrespecting him because of the over-the-top Aqua Buddha ad. He wasn't gonna win, but he could have had a two-point race here with the quality campaign he was running up to that point)
Louisiana--Vitter by 15
Maryland--Mikulski by 17
Missouri--Blunt by 10
Nevada--Angle by 3 (The blowback from Reid's monthslong ad campaign that "this woman is crazy" backfired during their only debate when she did not appear crazy. She remains a walking gaffe machine but Reid is too weak and too pitiful to effectively take advantage of it. The SEIU could still theoretically pull this out for Reid, but I'm not optimistic.)
New Hampshire--Ayotte by 8 (Crazy how silent this race has been this month)
New York A--Schumer by 37
New York B--Gillibrand by 16 (DioGuardi needed a surge of momentum and a bully pulpit to win as I thought he would last month. He didn't get the surge and the insanely awful Carl Palladino stole his bully pulpit and wasted it.)
North Carolina--Burr by 16 (Another pathetic waste)
North Dakota--Hoeven by 50
Ohio--Portman by 20 (The saddest waste of all. How do you lose by 20 points in Ohio to Bush's former outsourcing guru?)
Oklahoma--Coburn by 42
Oregon--Wyden by 16
Pennsylvania--Toomey by 4 (I think Sestak peaked a week too soon)
South Carolina--De Mint by 46 (Greene may finish third place here)
South Dakota--Thune uncontested
Utah--Lee by 43
Vermont--Leahy by 31
Washington--Murray by 2 (By no means are we out of the woods here)
West Virginia--Raese by 12 (Breaks BIG for Raese in the closing week, effectively leaving Manchin with nothing more than the 2008 Obama voters as everybody else will buy into Raese's "don't give Obama an ally" argument. Raese's "hicky" ad came two weeks too early. The anger by WV voters will be long forgotten by November 2.)
Wisconsin--Johnson by 4 (Feingold could have pulled this one out if he had taken the challenge seriously. He was his own worst enemy and his late surge will be too little, too late.)
Whatever the case, conditions are still rotten and far more rotten than what most believe. I fully expect a bare minimum of 80 lost seats for Democrats in the House.
Moving onto the Senate, I'll update most of my calls with predicted margins.
Alabama--Shelby by 31
Alaska--Miller by 3 (Murkowski's write-in campaign will come up short because of the obvious inconvenience of it, as Shelley Sekula-Gibbs can attest to, managing to lose by 10 points to a Democrat among an electorate of suburban Houston oil barons!)
Arizona--McCain by 43
Arkansas--Boozman by 28 (Even I wouldn't have thought Blanche Lincoln would underperform Obama in AR, but now I suspect she will)
California--Boxer by 3 (This morning's LA Times poll showing her up by eight is bullshit but I do suspect the SEIU's ground game will save her)
Colorado--Buck by 3 (Barring another major gaffe, suburban Denver voters that swing CO elections will hold their nose and cast a protest vote for this clown)
Connecticut--Blumenthal by 10 (McMahon's momentum that I thought would guide her to victory last month was short-lived)
Delaware--Coons by 15 (O'Donnell has proven an even worse candidate than I suspected last month at this time)
Florida--Rubio by 21 (Disgusting that the divided non-Rubio vote couldn't consolidate and keep this very dangerous GOP all-star out of the Senate....Crist vs. Rubio would probably produce a Crist win)
Georgia--Isaakson by 23
Hawaii--Inouye by 14 (This will be closer than a lot of people think with plenty thinking Inouye has overstayed his welcome)
Idaho--Crapo by 45
Illinois--Kirk by 3 (Alexi overplayed by calling Kirk a "traitor"....otherwise this race may have broken the other way....a perfect storm for the GOP in the wake of Blagojevich and an incredibly bad Democratic Senate candidate capable of pushing this unlikely state to the GOP)
Indiana--Coats by 22 (Another horribly wasted opportunity mismanaged from the get-go. Rot in hell, Evan Bayh)
Iowa--Grassley by 30
Kansas--Moran by 40
Kentucky--Paul by 10 (Conway will slowly lose support by those who grow into disrespecting him because of the over-the-top Aqua Buddha ad. He wasn't gonna win, but he could have had a two-point race here with the quality campaign he was running up to that point)
Louisiana--Vitter by 15
Maryland--Mikulski by 17
Missouri--Blunt by 10
Nevada--Angle by 3 (The blowback from Reid's monthslong ad campaign that "this woman is crazy" backfired during their only debate when she did not appear crazy. She remains a walking gaffe machine but Reid is too weak and too pitiful to effectively take advantage of it. The SEIU could still theoretically pull this out for Reid, but I'm not optimistic.)
New Hampshire--Ayotte by 8 (Crazy how silent this race has been this month)
New York A--Schumer by 37
New York B--Gillibrand by 16 (DioGuardi needed a surge of momentum and a bully pulpit to win as I thought he would last month. He didn't get the surge and the insanely awful Carl Palladino stole his bully pulpit and wasted it.)
North Carolina--Burr by 16 (Another pathetic waste)
North Dakota--Hoeven by 50
Ohio--Portman by 20 (The saddest waste of all. How do you lose by 20 points in Ohio to Bush's former outsourcing guru?)
Oklahoma--Coburn by 42
Oregon--Wyden by 16
Pennsylvania--Toomey by 4 (I think Sestak peaked a week too soon)
South Carolina--De Mint by 46 (Greene may finish third place here)
South Dakota--Thune uncontested
Utah--Lee by 43
Vermont--Leahy by 31
Washington--Murray by 2 (By no means are we out of the woods here)
West Virginia--Raese by 12 (Breaks BIG for Raese in the closing week, effectively leaving Manchin with nothing more than the 2008 Obama voters as everybody else will buy into Raese's "don't give Obama an ally" argument. Raese's "hicky" ad came two weeks too early. The anger by WV voters will be long forgotten by November 2.)
Wisconsin--Johnson by 4 (Feingold could have pulled this one out if he had taken the challenge seriously. He was his own worst enemy and his late surge will be too little, too late.)
posted by Mark at 11:02 AM
6 Comments:
If Democrats lose 80 seats in the House, they will win back at least 40 in 2012 just because of the fact that many horrible Republican candidates will have won some very Democratic districts.
Lets do my House predictions:
GOP pickups:
1.AR-01
2.AR-02
3.AZ-01
4.CO-04
5.FL-02
6.FL-08
7.FL-24
8.GA-08
9.IL-11
10.IL-14
11.IL-17
12.IN-08(Again, rot in hell Bayh)
13.IN-09
14.KS-03
15.LA-03(Melancon you idiot)
16.MD-01
17.MI-01
18.MS-01
19MS-04
20.NH-01
21.ND-AL
22.NM-02
23NY-29
24.OH-01
25.OH-15
26.OH-16
27.OR-05
28.PA-03
29.PA-10
30.PA-11
31.SC-05
32.SD-AL
33.TN-06
34.TN-08
35.TX-17
36.VA-02
37.VA-05
38.WA-03
39.WI-07
40.WI-08
41.NJ-03
Dem gains:
1. DE-AL
2. FL-25
3. LA-02
4. HI-01
5. IL-10
Democrats lose 36 seats.
Ill let you know that I do suspect Republicans will pick up a few seats that I dont expect(TX-23 and AZ-05 for instance) and win back the House narrowly, but they wont win 80 seats.
Sestak's surge in PA helps Democrats hold down losses there in the House as does Whitman's implosion in California.
As far as lists go, yours is better than some. Far too optimistic by my estimation, but possible. Of course if the Democrats hang on by one seat, the GOP still gets the majority since there will be at least a couple surviving Blue Dogs who vote for John Boehner for Speaker if not switch parties outright.
Seems pretty amazing to me that you think the Dems will hang onto CA-11, MI-07, NY-19, NY-23, NC-08, PA-07, and PA-08, but I guess there will be some survivors nobody expected to survive.
I think our chances of picking up IL-10 have been highly overrated (this will be the third straight cycle we thought we've captured this white whale) and I'm also very doubtful we'll get FL-25. HI-01 is plausible but I still think Djou has the advantage. Keep in mind turnout is likely to be low in Hawaii if indications suggest a GOP blowout on the east coast.
I think the upballot coattails will be just enough for Democrats to keep NY-19 and NY-23. Same with CA-11 now. I go back and forth everyday with PA-08 and I now think Murphy will lose(but run again and win in 2012). I think Sestak will do well enough in PA-07to drag Lentz across the finish line.
HI-01 will go to the Democrats as liberal voters lash back at the GOP wave. With IL-10, even Charlie Cook moved that seat to "Lean Dem"
I agree that the Dems will not lose any House seats in California and in fact may come close to picking one off in CA-03, where Bera has outraised Lungren every quarter. The anti-incumbent/anti-Dem atmosphere is just not there in California, one of the states where Obama is still popular. It also doesn't help the CRP that "outsider" Arnold is leaving office with 20% approval ratings, and Whitman is looking more and more like a carbon copy of Arnold with each passing day. And then there is the pissing off of voters by running ads nonstop and spending nine-figure sums of money while they're forced to cut back. I will be very surprised if she manages to make the race a low-teen loss.
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