I think the Tea Party will hurt the Republicans in November. No majority in either house of Congress, and a smaller gain than expected.
Forgot to add that Rand Paul is making it more and more likely by the week that the Dems will pick up the KY Senate seat as well.
You don’t think the Ninja Cats are going to come through for them? 
They’ll gain seats, but I don’t think they’ll win a majority in either house, with the caveat that it’s a long time until November, and that if the economy stays the same or gets worse, that’ll help the Republicans, and that might let them pick up more House seats. I’m also assuming, of course, that no one does anything insane.
Moderate gains for the GOP, but the Dems will keep their majorities in both houses. The 'pubs will be emboldened, however, and dig in in 2011 and with 41+ senate seats will try to block just about anything the Dems try to pass.
I think it’s impossible to say what the Tea Party will do. It will doubtless split the Republican vote, and result in a bunch of primary wins by candidates too far to the right to win an election, but it may also increase GOP turnout enough to offset these issues.
Indeed. Democrats underestimate the Tea Party at their own peril - not because the 'baggers necessarily have useful policy ideas or even popular support, but because they are doing a helluva job of firing up the Republican base, while the Democratic base is at a nadir of enthusiasm. And independents don’t just include politically-active moderates, sadly. It also includes lots of apathetic non-political types who might swing towards the Paulbots just because they represent something new (you can tell this type because, if pressed on why they vote the way they do, they can’t come up with anything more specific than “Washington is full of dirt, throw the bastards out!”).
That being said, I still think the Dems hold both the House and Senate, although the former only narrowly. A major factor that could tilt the election one way or the other will be how the economy acts over the next five months. If things look good, the Dems may be able to minimize their losses (it is unlikely in the extreme that they will actually make any gains). If things start looking bad again, then the Dems will probably lose the House.
The problem the Republicans are going to have is whether they can turn the movement from being anti-Democratic into being pro-Republican. The Tea Partiers are already convinced that the Democrats in office a problem but they still have to be sold the idea that electing Republicans is the solution.
There’s a strong possibility that the Tea Partiers will just drop out of the election process entirely. That will be a disaster for the Republicans. The Democrats will still be able to use the Tea Party as a focus to run against while the Republicans will gain nothing from the movement.
I don’t think this is true. The Tea Party is, for all intents and purposes, a subset of the Republican Party. This isn’t a “Green Party” situation, wherein the extremists might vote for Nader over the less-palatable but more-electable Gore. They’re not even like Perot’s supporters, who disdained both major parties more or less equally.
In contrast, Tea Party members strongly identify with and support the Republican Party (Nate Silver goes over the relevant data here). They’re looking to move the Pubbies rightward, to be sure, but only via the primaries. They’ll happily support a moderate Republican over ANY Democrat in general elections. Just look at what happened here in Massachusetts. Scott Brown wasn’t expected to be a blip on the radar, and ended up winning - partly because his opponent was one of the least-effective candidates I’ve ever seen (seriously, who is stupid enough to call Curt Schilling a Yankees fan in Boston?!), but just as much because he had some serious Teabagger energy behind him.
Where are you getting that there’s a ‘strong’ possibility, or even a possibility that the TPers will sit the election out? I’m not getting that at all, well, aside from the rhetoric from talking heads.
Further, to your excellent point that the TPers sitting out would be a disaster for Republicans, I think the meme that TPers are not primarily Republicans is a bunch of hooey, and because they’re Republicans first, idealists second, and because they will oppose any Democrat for any reason and no reason, in the end, the TPers will fall in line and back the Republican candidate, even if said candidate promotes an agenda that’s against their better interests.
To answer the OP, close but no cigar in the House, and not a chance in Hell in the Senate.
ETA: Tanbarkie pretty much said what I did, but better.
More diversity, say, from a few libertarians, might be a nice thing, but Rand Paul is just far-right economically and socially, putting him in about the same place as plenty of other Republicans. There’s nothing new there.
To the OP, I give a House takeover at most 1 chance in 10, and the odds of a Senate takeover are too low to even bother worrying about. I also think that the Democrats will probably lose seats in both houses, but that in the House, at least, anything that leaves the Democrats with a majority should be viewed as a victory for Dems, just perhaps a smaller victory than it might be. Control of the chamber is decided by the number of seats, not the derivative of the number.
For what it’s worth, Intrade favors the Democrats about 3 to 1 to retain the Senate and about 55-45 to retain the House.
The stupid are already overrepresented in Congress.
No and No. The GOP will pick up some seats but not enough for control and to make thing worse for the GOP the few wins the Teabaggers do get will replace incumbent GOPers in already red areas with freshman Congresscritters with no seniority and no clout in Congress.
There is a decent chance of a Dem pickup in Ohio also. If Voinovich was running again, he would win, but Fisher has a chance against Portman. If Brunner had won the primary, I think the left would have been more excited about the general election, but I don’t know if that would have been enough to make her the better candidate. (Well, I thought she was, but that does not necessarily follow in the General Election.)
For the OP, barring something really horrendous happening, no and no.
There are not enough Dem seats vulnerable for the GOP to take over, even if they hold onto their own vulnerable seats. And the Tea Party candidates could help some of the Dems. What happens if Sue Lowden is the GOP candidate in Nevada? While Blumenthal will have some problems in Connecticut, McMahon was hardly the best choice for the GOP.
The House is more volatile, but if the economy continues to improve, even as slowly as it is, the Dems should be able to keep their majority. It will probably mean even more power to the Blue Dogs, which is not good, but better than the GOP taking over.
This is a great point, I think. The impact of the Tea Party could be positive for the Republicans in races where there was not a contested primary (or where the TP didn’t “win” the primary), like they were in MA, but in races where they were or may be a factor in the Republican primary (KY, CT, FL, maybe NV, maybe AZ if they primary McCain) it’s possible they will do the GOP some damage.
I was never really counting CT as in play though, even with the Blumenthal “scandal”.
Another interesting factor will be the impact of any immigration reform talk. The AZ law has already given Reid a nice boost in the polls, and had what seems to be a large impact in the NM races this week. It could be significant in CO as well.
The interesting thing will be the post-election repercussions, if so. I’m sure that some Republican leaders (coffMcConnellcoff) are already regarding the Tea Party crowd as a bunch of rabble who ought to stay in their place (which is to show up and make a fuss when, and only when, their betters consider it politically useful for them to do so). That attitude would surely spread, and inevitably become known, if they have reason to blame the TP for disappointingly low gains.
I think if Paul loses in Kentucky, the GOP leaders will start trying to dump the Tea Party. Rubio losing to Crist would suck from their POV, but would be livable. Reid hanging on in Nevada, again, not a good thing. But both of those have some outside explanation. But Paul losing in Kentucky would be an outright rejection of the Tea Party line by the general populace, with no name recognition or incumbent power to explain it. The name recognition would even go the other way, with Ron Paul’s wide exposure in the Presidential elections.
Nate Silver at 538.com shows a 50-50 chance the Dems will have at least 54 seats after the elections. (Unfortunately, quite a lot has happened since the last update to the forecast, like Crist going independent. Will be interesting to see how that affects things.) While not a great number, still solidly in control. IMO, what will really tell the tale for future elections is who wins the Republican pickups.
If Tea Party candidates win a decent share of the Republican seats (Amazing how a “non-partisan” movement is not attempting to win any Democratics primaries. :rolleyes: ) The GOP will have no choice but to continue to pander to them. Which will probably really hurt come 2012’s Presidential race. I can’t see the people that actually decide the races, the moderates and independents in the middle, going for someone like Ron Paul after being exposed to their ideology for a couple of years at the Federal level.
If, OTOH, the Tea Party candidates don’t make it in, the GOP can try to start working back to the center, maybe getting a more moderate image going by then. I don’t know if they would succeed at that, some of the leaders just don’t seem to be able to lead in that direction. But it is a possibility.
Exactly. People who think they’re not going to fall in and vote Republican this fall or in 2012 are just engaging in wishful thinking. They’re not going to vote for a third party candidate. Conservatives don’t do that (well, 27% of the people 19% who voted for Perot in 1992 were conservatives. look at how well that turned out, though.) Liberals don’t even vote for third party candidates very often, despite Nader having been a far bigger name than any supposed tea-party candidate thus far.
That’s more or less why the Tea Party exists in the first place: the Republican Party got very skilled at using Tea Party type voters. For maybe 30 years, Republican candidate and the RNC used wedge issues and such to get them to turn out and vote Republican in elections, but they did not deliver very much for them at least on the federal level. After a fashion the Tea Party is Karl Rove’s fault: if you take your liberal goggles off, what did Bush really do for these voters? He didn’t ban abortion, and didn’t even move the Supreme Court significantly close to doing so. He didn’t ban gay marriage. He ramped up the size of the government and government spending, including TARP, which was one of the real ‘last straws’ here. Not that Bush was the only Republican president or candidate who excited these people and didn’t deliver as much as he promised. But maybe you get the idea here.