I’m thinking in terms of numbers, not whether they “should” or not.
I say “yes” to the house, “not a chance” to the Senate.
No. and no.
They will gain seats in both. That seems inevitable.
I’ll say the Senate is out of the question. The House is a possibility but I’m not sure. The campaigns are just gearing up and we’ll have to see what the economy does.
House: No. Possible, I suppose, but IMHO it’s extremely unlikely.
Senate: no freakin’ way.
Things I’d cheerfully bet on at even odds:
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There will be at least 54 Dem Senators once the new Senate is fully seated next year. (By ‘fully seated,’ I’d say the Senate for the current Congress was only fully seated until Franken was sworn in. You get the idea.)
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There will be at least 225 Dem Congresscritters in the new House.
Barring some major disaster that can be pinned to Obama or the Democrats, no and no. The Republicans will make some modest midterm gains as per usual but not enough to take either house.
If the oil gusher in the Gulf doesn’t count as a major disaster, I really don’t want to see a major disaster. Not that I hold Obama solely responsible for that, and I don’t think most of the public does either, but it does not make him look good and it is not going away.
The Tea Partiers are just hurting the GOP’s chances, by supporting hard-right candidates in the primaries who, in most cases, will have no hope of winning the general election.
Still, I’d actually like to see Rand Paul get in, if only for the sake of more ideological diversity in Congress.
Hence the requirement for it to be pinned on Obama. I really don’t know what people expect him to do that he’s already doing.
I feel a GD thread coming on…
It politically impossible for the GOP to retake the Senate. Not enough seats are truly in play. The best they can hope for is to get 40 + 1 seats. That is darn tough.
Since the entire House is up for reelection, the GOP could take control. But again, few seats are really in play.
No. Neither one. The jobs situation will improve, albeit slowly, and the feeling of crisis will pass. The health care debate is over and since the sky has not fallen, the anger over the issue will fade. The oil spill will be seen as the Bush-Cheney deregulation fiasco. Looking at recent special elections, the only GOP win was in Hawaii, where the Democratic vote was split. The Dems will easily take back that seat. Rand Paul is exposing the Teabaggers for the racist halfwits that they are, this will scare moderate independents away from marking the R side of the ballot.
Republican gains will be minimal this fall, if at all. The anti-incumbent feeling may be out there in theory, but when it gets down to voting a lot of people still like their damned rascal.
I look for little change this year, then as the economy gathers steam in 2012, the reelection of Obama and a filibuster-proof solid Dem majority in the Senate.
No and no.
Healthcare reform will continue to slowly increase in popularity, and Republicans who run against it will only hurt themselves at the polls. Lots of Republicans will run against it.
The extent of Bush’s dysregulation at the MMS will become better known, and many southern Republicans will find themselves at odds with the party’s anti-regulatory planks, especially when it comes to oiling their beaches. That’ll hurt GOPers at the polls too.
The teaparty bit will continue to hurt where it matters, in actually getting GOPers elected. Too much extremist crap actually does alienate the independents.
Eh - that would require the Democrats (individually and collectively) to get this message across without any blame rebounding onto themselves and Obama (who has had control of MMS for the past 1.5 years, higher priorities notwithstanding). Without a FoxNews-type organ to coordinate the message, it ain’t gonna happen.
I’m thinking the GOP has even odds of taking the House, and might whittle the Dems down to 52-53 Senators, but that’s about it.
The problem is, the GOP has no big energizing message this year, like the Contract With America in 1994. Jobs are the big issue, but what ideas do Republicans have to offer there? “No!” ain’t enough to win.
This. Polls show the Republicans with a slight advantage in the House, and FiveThirtyEight.com is showing the Dems losing 4 to 8 seats in the Senate. I’m guessing Sestak will win in PA and the Dem may win in Colorado. So that’s a loss of 6 or 7 for the Dems.
A nice juicy federal prosecution would do wonders for the message. Of course, it’s not clear that Obama’s justice has the balls for that. Still, what with housing collapse and bank debacles and insurance company ripoffs there appears to be a bit of reexamination of antiregulatory sentiments. That can only hurt the GOP.
Too soon to tell. The mood of the country may be apparent in September, but the next couple of months will affect people’s attitudes in various ways. Big factors will be the price of gasoline at the pump (which may remain low), unemployment (which may remain high), the Gulf oil spill, hurricanes, international affairs, the flaming out or flaming up of the Tea Party, more political scandals, etc… Until these coalesce, the electorate will maintain its obvious anti-incumbent dissatisfaction shown in primaries, but when election day comes, they have to decide if the unknown candidate is better than the known incumbent. The challengers negatives may make them undesirable in the general election.
To make a general guess, Republican gains in the House and Senate, no change in the dominant party, just the level of dominance.
More interesting will be the changes in the political atmosphere if lots of incumbents are booted out.
That’s a possibility. I think there are two pretty realistic Dem pickups though - MO (I actually thought this was a strong possiblity considering the relative brand value of the Carnahan and Blunt names here - but it looks less likely now) and FL (assuming Crist will caucus with the Dems, which he must if he hopes to win).
Quite frankly, if I got to pick just one result for November, it would be Rubio losing to Crist.
No and no.
Popular views are already against repeal, as the GOP made the mistake of promoting as its platform.
But that won’t matter - Obama’s been in charge long enough that the problems are now his, and the issues will come up only in relation to how much / whether he’s fixed them, not who created them. That said, you may have heard the last of “Drill, baby, drill!” said in earnest.
Don’t be too sure that will matter either. Fox does know how to motivate their viewers, er, excuse me, the Tea Partiers, to get out to vote, and alienated independents tend to stay home. We’ve seen a lot of hard-right candidates elected even before there was a name for them.
Oh, right, the OP: Senate impossible, House almost so.