I just watched most of a program on MSNBC that was hosted by Chuck Todd and which focused on making predictions about the elections. He had Charlie Cook on to talk about the Senate races and I was interested to see that Mr. Cook’s predictions, if true, would result in no net change in the party composition of the Senate. Mr. Todd also noted the oddness of this prospect and added that it would be weird if all these billions were spent and we wound up with the same president, the same Speaker of the House, and the identical split in the Senate.
We would have had all this argument and wound with basically no change at all. How could that happen in a country in which less than one in ten people approve of the job Congress is doing? The only thing I can say is that corporate money and media are putting a pretty heavy thumb on the scale for the Republicans and that is keeping them afloat. I could get into the details of how they go about doing this, but the details are not necessary to explain the phenomenon.
One woman on the show, when asked to make a prediction about an election surprise, said that she thought the Democrats might take back the House. Chuck Todd almost had an aneurysm. It was all he could do not to laugh her off the set. I’ll admit that I will be surprised if the Democrats win back the House, but it isn’t a totally ridiculous prediction. The Democrats are going to win a lot of House seats. The problem is that they are going to lose quite a few, too. I may make an effort to do a detailed prediction before Tuesday if I can find the time, but my rough estimate is that the Dems will win about 27-30 seats but that they will lose 8-10. That puts them at a low of 17 and a high of 22, which is just short of the 25 they need. I don’t think it’s outlandish to think we might exceed those expectations by a handful of seats and win the House.
I also thought Charlie Cook was too bearish on the Democrats’ chances in the Senate. He picked Tommy Thompson to win in Wisconsin, and I just don’t see where he gets the evidence to make that prediction. Three separate polls released over the last three days show Tammy Baldwin ahead of Thompson and getting between 48%-51% of the vote. He also picked the Republicans to win in Nevada, Arizona, and North Dakota. Those are all close races that are tough for the Democrats, but I don’t think it is safe to assume that the GOP will sweep them all. I fell confident about North Dakota and I think the other two are pure toss-ups. While I am concerned about the polling out of Nevada that shows Heller ahead, I also remember the same polling showing Sharron Angle ahead of Harry Reid. And I think Richard Carmona has the momentum in Arizona and has done enough to win over people in the middle to ride a massive Latino turnout operation to victory. Right now, I am predicting the Dems win two of these three races and also pick up the Wisconsin seat for a net gain of three seats. I really think the worst we can do on election night is to pick up one seat.
On the presidential level, I think there is a good chance that Obama will win all the swing states, which will mean that he will have the exact same result as in 2008 except that he will lose Indiana. North Carolina and Florida are too close to call and may require recounts. I don’t feel great about Colorado, either. The polling looks good but the early voting does not. Yet, I think the Obama campaign has momentum and that their ground game will help them modestly outperform expectations.
The odds are that we will wind up with the same president, a Senate that is more progressive but only modestly more Democratic, and a House still controlled by John Boehner, but by only a half dozen seats or so.
I’d recommend getting involved in House races, because stealing that away from the Republicans would be the real surprise and the real game changer on Tuesday.
