Are there any projections yet if power will shift in the House and Senate?
How strong is the Republican House majority? The Democrat Senate majority, is it secure?
Well, Durbin, a democrat thinks the majoritys will stay about the same.
The Dems have something of an uphill battle to keep the Senate this year, as they were defending considerably more seats and had several retirements in places like Virginia and Indiana where the GOP has a general edge.
But the polls have been improving for their candidates in the last few weeks. And they’ve had a few lucky breaks, with Akin screwing up what should have been a GOP cakewalk in Missouri and Olympia Snowe calling it quits in Maine. And of course, the rising Dem chance of keeping the Vice Presidency also improves their odds, as the VP decides tie-votes.
So Nate Silver has bumped them up from a 40% chance of having a majority to something north of 70%.
The Dems are also projected to win seats in the House, but not many people think they’ll win the 25ish contests they’d need to gain control. FWIW, here’s a counter-argument to the conventional wisdom.
Nate Silver currently projects the Democrats will hold the Senate with, on average, 51.9 seats.
He doesn’t do the House, but Sam Wang at Princeton recently made news by predicting the Dems will take the House too. Most prediction systems have not gone that far, although the generic congressional ballot has shifted towards the Dems pretty strongly in the past few weeks.