I honestly don’t know. I’m hoping Snowe is primaried by a tea party candidate who will lose the general, and I’m hoping Scott Brown is replaced too (either in the primary by a tea partier who will lose or he will lose the general). Also Lieberman will hopefully be replaced by a more stalwart democrat (although Lieberman did vote for a lot of good bills in the last congress).
So if that is 2 minimum pickups for the dems, the GOP need 5 to have an even tie.
Since it’ll be a presidential election year turnout will be higher and if the GOP puts up a shitty candidate then the bias against them may spill over into the senate.
The dems are defending 23 seats, the GOP only 10. And this was on the trail of the 2006 election, where the dems picked up seats they probably wouldn’t pick up except for massive public opinion on their side at the time.
At InTrade, Dems are actually looking better to retake the House (44.8%) than to retain the Senate (35.9%, assuming Obama’s reelection). Something I could definitely see happening.
It’s possible, but it’ll be a tough battle. A lot of the seats Dems will be defending next year are in red states. Scott Brown, though he rode the Tea Party’s coattails last year, has proven to be fairly moderate and if manages to retain the nomination I can see him coasting to victory. Same with Snowe.
Snowe was in some danger of being primaried, IIRC. She’s one of the most popular Senators in the country with regards to her constituents so if she gets the nomination of her party she’ll almost certainly win, but a couple months ago her numbers amongst Maine’s GOP primary voters were pretty crummy.
25 vs 10 is a pretty rough disadvantage. I would give them a higher chance of retaking the house than keeping the senate. Hopefully the Tea Party will sabotage them again.
Everything depends on the economy, and more specifically the unemployment rate.
Now that Republicans are getting specific about spending cuts they are likely to lose support from Republican voters who depend on programs GOP politicians want to cut or eliminate.
At the end of the day, this is the most important fact. Even if the GOP nominates a weak candidate, there are several seats of those 23 that are going to be very, very hard for the Dems to hold – North Dakota, Missouri, West Virginia, etc. Those seats were won in 06 as anti-Bush, and now they have to be held as pro-Obama.
West Virginia was won in '10. Agree Missouri will be a tough fight and N. Dakota is probably a lost cause. On the other hand, assuming Obama holds the Presidency the Dems can loose a net of three seats and still retain control. And the Dems usually have a turn-out advantage in Presidential election years.
Not that I think the Dems will necessarily keep the Senate, but I think there chances are a lot better then the 23-10 number suggests.
Another way to put the same thing. If half the seats listed as “toss-up” by the cook report ratings flip, then the Dems will either retain control of the Senate or it will go to whomever controls the Vice-Presidency (depending on if you round up or down). So I’d say by that analysis the Dems are slightly favored.
On the other hand, the Dems have two “leans Dem” seats to defend while the GOP doesn’t have any such seats. By that analysis I’d say the GOP is slightly favored.
So in anycase, a lot closer to 50:50 odds then the 23:10 a more naive analysis might yield.
While I agree with the main point you are making here, I think it would be more precise to say they are likely to lose support from independent voters. Republicans for the most part are going to vote the party line regardless what cuts are proposed.
The Repubs are pushing some very unpopular agendas. They want to privatize Social Security. They want to keep tax breaks for the wealthy. They are trying to ruin Medicare.
These walk straight into a headwind of popular support. But they have come out early to ease the sting and give them time to push their views over and over before the election.
Are any Republicans actually pushing for a plan to ‘privatize Social Security’? I thought that pretty much died with Bush II. As for the tax breaks for ‘the wealthy’, it’s ironic that this has become the rallying cry from the left, considering that they seem to be in favor of keeping SOME of those tax breaks in place, while letting others go (the others being those for ‘the rich’). We were assured for years that the only people who were getting any benefits at all out of the Bush tax cuts were ‘the rich’ after all. How do they want to ‘ruin Medicare’, exactly? Do you have details?
If the Republicans are really flying in the face of popular support then you should be crowing with glee and rubbing your hands together in anticipation of how they will get reamed in the next election. Perhaps the Dems can win back all those seats they lost in the last election, ehe?
I haven’t heard of any new initiatives to privatize Social Security.
As for “ruining” Medicare, they plan to essentially eliminate it altogether, and replace it with a voucher system to subsidize the purchase of private health insurance.
Until the last few weeks, I was very worried that the Dems would lose big in the next election. But if the Republicans stick with the Ryan Plan, I expect to be crowing with glee in 2012.
Has anyone ever done a study on whether appointed incumbents really have a large advantage over their rivals in the next election? I know incumbancy in general is a big boost, but I’m not sure it follows that appointees would necessarily get the same advantage.
I am honestly under the impression that the Tea Party is weakening. I haven’t heard a lot about any “grassroots” crap in a while. I don’t think they’ll be as strong in 2012 as they were in 2010, as they were stronger in 2009 than they are now. Even people in the Tea Party themselves are complaining about lack of involvement.
I actually wonder if they will be as big a problem as they were before.
I just heard Chris Matthews citing Nate Silver on this very subject. It’s not nearly the advantage that might be assumed. Historically, only about 50% of senators appointed to a seat get elected to it later, compared to 88% winning their seat when running for re-election.
I wonder if there’s a correlation related to party – if the percentages change if the appointed senator is in the same or a different party from the one who lost his seat?
Yea, even if they had no advantage from their incumbency, I’d expect it to be at least a little higher then 50%, simply because the appointments are usually done by governors who presumably appoint members of their own party, and you’d expect a state that elected a governor from party X to want to elect a senator from the same party.