Senate Democrats gain 3 to 6 seats (R 49, D 47, 4 seats too close to call)
House Democrats gain 21 to 26 seats (Of the 63 Republican seats “in play”, 12 are leaning to the Democrats, and 16 are too close to call. No Democratic House seats are predicted to go Republican)
Actually, it looks like he isn’t doing it this year, or hasn’t yet. In previous years, he’s taken a straight line from one point to the next, ran it to Election Day, and called that a projected result. If a candidate had 50% 2 weeks before and 55% 1 week before, he’d predict 60% on Election Day.
You can see the trend lines if you click on one of the states in which there’s a race. That’ll bring up a graoh. Then click “show trend lines”. It shows a trend line based on the last four polls.
The IEM is like a stock market. There are actually three markets for Congressional control this year:
[ol]
[li]Congress06–contracts in this market represent the possible combinations of control of both houses[/li][list=a]
[li]RH_RS06 - both houses remain in Republican control[/li][li]RH_NS06 - Republicans control the House, non-Rebublicans control the Senate[/li][li]NH_RS06 - Non-Republicans control the House, Republicans control the Senate[/li][li]NH_NS06 - Non-Republicans control both houses[/li][/ol]
[li]House06–contracts in this market represent possible outcomes of the House races[/li][list=a]
[li]RHgain06 - Republicans gain seats in the House[/li][li]RHhold06 - Republicans hold their majority, but lose seats[/li][li]RHlose06 - Republicans lose control of the House[/li][/list]
[li]Senate06–contracts in this market represent possible outcomes of the Senate races[/li][list=a]
[li]RSgain06 - Republicans gain seats in the Senate[/li][li]RShold06 - Republicans lose seats but retain their majority[/li][li]RSlose06 - Republicans lose control of the Senate[/li][/list]
[/list]
These contracts are all futures contracts, and holders of the contracts that represent the actual situation after the election is over receive $1 per held contract. All the other contracts are worthless after Election Day.
Bid, ask, and last represent, respectively, the price a buyer is willing to pay, a seller is willing to accept, and the last price at which a transaction was made.
Look at the last price to get a reasonable idea of what the participants in the market think about the relative probability of any particular outcome. Looking at prices as of today, the consensus seems to be that the Repbulicans will lose the House (2 to 1 over holding–chances to gain are nearly zero). Senate is predicted to remain in Republican hands (hold, but lose seats, is favored 3 to 1 over losing control completely). In the combined control futures, the most likely outcome reflects the figures for the separate House and Senate markets.
Actually it sounds more like making book. (There’s a difference, right?) And gambling debts are not legally enforceable – not even in Nevada, AFAIK. So what’s this crap about “contracts”?
Only helps a little. Sort of like going from Swahili to Greek. But your interpretation was interesting even if I’m clueless about stock markets and gambling.
Actually, I misspoke. It’s really a futures market. You are betting on the final outcome of the election. However, for some reason it appears to be legal. Perhaps it’s considered a game of skill?
Futures are “contracts” in the sense that they are an agreement to buy or sell at a particular price at a particular time. In this case, the contract is with the operators of the market, where they will pay you $1 or $0 (the liquidation price) for each contract you hold at the time of the election, depending on whether the actual outcome matches the outcome specified on that particular contract.
The operators of the IEM are professors of business at the U of Iowa, and the market is not-for-profit (although the individual participants may make or lose money). They are attempting to learn if real money markets are better at predicting outcomes than pundits or polls. This is clearly an arguable position. I have not sifted through their closed markets to see how they have done historically, but IIRC the results of the last Presidential race were reasonably close the final outcome.
Note: I am not now, nor have I ever been a participant in the IEM. I just find it interesting. I’m also hoping the market is wrong on the Senate race (though not optimistic).
To nitpick, a poll that says 48% to 47% with a MoE of 3% is not a statistical tie. 48% to 47% with a MoE of 3% doesn’t mean that its equally likely that either person could be ahead: there’s still a greater overall chance that the 48% person is ahead.
47% to 47% with a MoE of anything is a statistical tie.
At this point in the race, I’m far less hopeful of a Democratic sweep. I think it’s possible that the Dems will only barely take the house, and I think taking the Senate is unlikely. However, I’m pretty happy with that. Ohio will be going solid for a federal Democrat or two for the first time in a long time in truly contested a federal election: that’s a big deal. With the Dems controlling the House, and their fortunes even more hopeful for 2008, this pretty much puts the kibosh on Republican legislative shennanigans from here on out. Even if they don’t take the Senate, they will be so close that it will seriously undermine the Republican ability to do damage: Cheney having to come into play as a tiebreaker is a sign of weakness, not strength.
In some ways, its even sort of good for Dems to not take Congress completely. The Iraq war is going to continue to be a huge mess no matter who is in power: it’s basically too late. That stone is going to sink whomever is clearly in charge, which mostly means Bush… but Bush isn’t running again. A marginally Republican Senate would give the Dems the cover they need to not be totally blamed for doing something about Iraq. If they have both houses, then they might well be expected to do something… and I don’t think there is much that can be done at this point.
Today electoral-vote.com is showing the Montana, Missouri and Virginia Senate races as “Barely Dem,” and projects (?) a Senate with 51 Dems, 49 Pubs, a House with 240 Dems, 195 Pubs.
But, of course, that includes “Fightin’ Joe” Lieberman as a Dem. Two bits says, under the above conditions, he backstabs, making it 50-50 with Cheney in the catbird seat.
At least he is willing to break with his party when he disagrees. We are making a statement about the war and President Bush this election and we are punishing Republican generally because they went along to get along. In some cases we are ousting good Republicans like Chaffee just to make a point and in Lieberman’s case, I think he realizes that losing the primary was a message being sent directly to him and he will mend his ways.
So long as he keeps his seniority, I doubt it. It would be stupid of him to. He agrees with the national party on most of the issues, and doing something like that, he would destroy any Democratic support he has in Connecticut. Democratic Lieberman supporters are willing to vote for him on Tuesday so long as he runs as an independent and votes with the Dems, If he crosses over, he’ll lose all that support.
Apparently I suck as an electoral forecaster. Not sure yet exactly how much, though, as I haven’t heard the outcome of all the Senate races.
Bet I’m going to be right about that part, though.
Well, I got my wish, and now I’ll just keep hoping for things to go better than I think they will, so the Dems can get some real leverage out of it in '08.
