One Week to Go     Permalink

The election is a week from now. It is virtually certain the Republicans will pick up seats in the Senate and House as well as a few governorships. The question is how many. The key states in the Senate are Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Depending on these, the Democrats could end up with anywhere between 50 and 55 seats in the Senate. If they lose Washington or California (unlikely at this point), they could dip below the magic 50. The House is much harder to predict because so many districts have not been polled at all, and, of those which have been, many of the polls are very old. Predictions from experienced observers say the GOP will gain between 30 to 50 seats (net). It would take a (net) switch of 39 to flip the House. The "net" is important because the Democrats are likely to win 5 or 6 Republican seats.

Enthusiasm Gap Hard to Measure     Permalink

A new poll conducted for Newsweek by Princeton Survey Research Associates shows that among likely voters 48% prefer Democrats and 45% prefer Republicans. This result is completely different from all other recent polls, which show an advantage for generic Republicans over generic Democrats. It is not clear if this is a genuine change in voter feelings due to intense Democratic campaigning the past few weeks, bad methodology in this poll, or a meaningless statistical outlier. The same poll also put President Obama's approval rating at 54% (vs. 40% disapproval). An earlier poll by the same organization put his approval at 48%. This change is more likely to be genuine since comparing polls from the same organization over time is like comparing pineapples to pineapples, not pineapples to kumquats (due to the use of the same techniques and methodology). Nevertheless, one poll does not make a trend.

On the other hand, late in the day, Gallup released a poll showing the Republicans ahead among likely voters 9% to 14%. These two polls are hard to reconcile. At least one of them is clearly wrong, presumably due to poor methodology or a bad demographic model. Prof. Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science, has examined the crosstabs on recent Gallup polls and found some very implausible data there, such as Republicans leading Democrats among minority groups. He concludes that Gallup's demographic model may be off.

Preview of 2012 Senate Races     Permalink

It's never too early to think about 2012 (or even 2014 or 2016), but let's stop at 2012 for now. As usual, 1/3 of the Senate is up for reelection. Here is the list of senators who will face the voters then, assuming there are no retirements. This is a surprisingly young class, with the only potential retirement due to age being Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who will be 88 on election day in 2012. But Hawaii is a fairly dependably Democratic state, so if he retires, the Democrats are likely to hold the seat anyway. The list is sorted by the percentage of the vote the senator got at his or her most recent election.

Statistically, the Democrats have a problem since they have 19 seats up for sure (21 if you count Sanders and Lieberman) whereas the Republicans have only 10). If Kirsten Gillibrand and Joe Manchin win their races, the Democratic caucus will have 23 seats to defend vs. the Republicans only 10. All things being equal, the DSCC will have to spread its money much more thinly than the NRSC.

But another way to look at this is to focus only on the senators who were under 60% last time. The ones who won in a landslide are probably safe. In the 59-and-under club, we find 12 Democrats (13 if you count Lieberman) and only 5 Republicans. This means the Republicans have 12 or 13 potential pickups and the Democrats only 5.

However, 2012 is a presidential year, and Democratic turnout is high then, so the Democratic incumbents will be running in a good environment. Furthermore, all of them did win last time, so they have demonstrated they can win, albeit by a small margin in some cases.

Today's Polls: AZ CO CT FL GA IL IN SC WV CA-20 HI-01 HI-02 MA-04 MA-10 MI-01 OR-01 OR-05 SD-AL     Permalink

New Senate Polls

New House Polls

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