While it’s certainly too early to put Obama’s re-election in the bank, it’s not too early to speculate on the length of his coat-tails in particular and the magnitude of a Democratic tide on down-ticket races. Who here thinks the Dems will hold the Senate, despite their number of open and vulnerable seats (which may no longer be all that vulnerable), and the surprising number of sudden Pub vacancies? Who expects a tide in favor of the Dems that might result in taking back the House? Why?
I haven’t seen a good roll-up site for the House yet, but electoral-vote.com at least shows some data for the Senate. I am not much of a fan of their graphics, since they respond only to the most recent single day’s poll releases and that favors noise over data, but it’s there. As of now, that data, noise-laden and pre-convention as it is, shows the Pubs with 49 seats and needing 2 more with a Dem VP, but with only bare leads in MT, NV, IN, and TN, and ties in CT, VA, and AZ. The Dems are shown with 47 leads, with their only bare lead being OH.
One might also assume (riskily) that Angus King, who will replace Snowe in ME, will caucus with the Dems, for 48. It’s also conceivable that Collins could be convinced to exit the teahadist GOP for her own protections, but that can’t be counted upon. So, that leaves the Dems needing only 2 more wins from among the 7 races listed above - and again, that’s with pre-convention data.
So, any good speculation? Was the Dem convention bounce, and the GOP convention lack of one, reflective only of support for the top of the ticket, or for the party’s “brands” in general? And does anyone have a good House poll-rollup map? Could we be about to swat the teabaggers and send them to bed without their suppers?
I just have a hard time seeing it happening. Dems need 25 seats, and Pelosi said this week that she thinks Dems can pick up 27 seats. Knowing how congressional leaders are never honest in their forecasts – they either over- or under-estimate their electoral chances depending what is more advantageous at the moment – I would guess that Pelosi’s estimate is on the very high end, hoping to take advantage of the convention momentum.
Who the fuck knows? This election is topsy-turvy in about nine different ways. For starters, there is no way, according to the most ancient and venerated political wisdom, that Obama has a chance in hell of being re-elected! (Do Islamic atheists call it “Hell” too?) But there he is. Not running away with it, but not losing as he is obligated to be.
(There’s a story about Disraeli, which I have so far failed to locate, so maybe its apocriph…aprocroph…not true. His party lost heavily due to food prices soaring after bad crops in England, he said something like the British public will not support a government that fails to control the weather…)
Being a lefty, I am given to bouts of fantasy and longing. So, here it is: the right spends 2.3 Godzillabucks to buy the election, and fail. And the next time Karl Rove goes from door to door with his solid gold begging bowl…
Coattails are an iffy thing. If Obama wins with just a point or two of margin (say 51-49 overall) there’ll be little in the way of coattails. If, somehow he finds himself on E-day as 54-46 then there’s a real possibility of significant downballot gains.
So watch those approval numbers and polls. Right now the safe money is a tightened house AND a tightened Senate. But where those end up can be changed by just how badly Obama defeats Romney.
Intrade says near 90% chance GOP keeps the House. The Senate is more iffy, but Democrats have an awful lot of seats to defend and Connecticut wasn’t supposed to be one of them.
Sabato currently predicts 5 to 10 seats gained by the Democrats in the House. Sabato also points out that Democrats might need more than a 1 seat majority to actually control the House, given the unpopularity of Pelosi:
At least a couple Democratic candidates, as in 2010, will be pressed to specifically promise not to vote for Pelosi. So Democrats would need 30 seats to truly be sure of control of the House.
In 2008 the congressional Dems already were at a majority. In 2012 they start from behind so Obama would need even longer coat-tails than he did have in 2008. Even if he did have them it would be unlikely to make up for the 2010 losses and it would not be surprising if he were to lose the gains again in the midterm.
IMO, the 2006 party switch in Congress was symptomatic of weariness with the W Neocon Era, not of a rise of fudamental liberal sentiment. In 2008 that got combined with the Obama phenomenon to make for another strong showing in Congress (including the disguised curse of the “filibuster-proof” Senate majority: it’s a disguised curse because it gives some majority Senators too much power to threaten the majority’s cohesion from within).
2006-08 was seen by the Right not as a rejection of conservatism per se but as the necessary cleansing of the compromised-conservative Washington insiders and big-spender-neocons, and the Right felt that the solution was to get "Real Conservatives"™ back in the game, hence the rise of the Tea Party faction within mere months of the election. The 2010 shellacking had to do with the Republicans being highly motivated; the liberals not really caring partly because it was not Obama on top of the ticket but also to a great extent because the state/district-level Dems were hastily running to the center/right in panic; and too many of the 06-08 gains having come in districts that had been moderately-Republican territory and now easily swung back.
People tend to stick with people who have been in office long enough to become familiar names. Thus it is hard for a new Democrat (or new Republican for that matter) to unseat someone who has been in that office for a long time. Sure - it happens. But smart money will say that, barring some huge scandal, long term Senators and Congressmen have been there long-term because they are the proverbial comfortable old shoe.
Billy Bob Dipshit might be an idiot, but chances are good his daddy was a bigwig Dipshit, his grandaddy was a bigwig Dipshit, and Billy Bob knows all of the skeletons in every county in his district. People might switch over to vote for Obama but will stick with Billy Bob because he knows their family and once helped their cousin get a loan on his house.
I think the only exception to this folklore rule of thumb would be if lots of new voters, with fewer ties to the old guard, come out to vote and stick to the party line.
Absolutely. Hoyer would probably be acceptable to all. But that’s not a sure thing. If the choice comes down to breaking your promise to your constituents and becoming an enemy within your own caucus, those one or two anti-Pelosi Dems might just switch parties.
If there are Dems who hate Miss Nancy as much as you seem to think, how did she ever get elected Speaker in the first place? Second, the Congressgit in question was presumably put in place by Democrat voters, and there is a Democrat majority in Congress, or they wouldn’t be choosing a Speaker. So, right when being a Dem is like having the winning lottery ticket, they go rogue?
So, what does he say to the people who put him there? “Hey, I know you guys wanted to elect a Dem, but you were wrong, so I changed your mind for you!”
But what if he pulled through because he promised not to vote for Pelosi? And the caucus refuses to consider another candidate?
They will be asked the question and personally I’d like nothing more than for Mia Love to win in Utah because Jim Matheson tells the local press he’ll vote for Pelosi. But if he does say he won’t do it, he has to vote against her. And if the only choices are Boehner and Pelosi, that’s it. He has to vote for Boehner.
I’m pretty sure that the only votes that count are the ones in the majority party. This isn’t an open vote on the floor of the House, this is the caucus deciding on their leadership. So it won’t be Pelosi vs. Boehner, it’ll be Pelosi vs. various Democrats (from up the thread, it sounds like Steny Hoyer may be the consensus #2).
I imagine its a secret ballot, also - you don’t want to be known as the guy who voted against whoever ends up as the party leader - not good for your committee assignments.
Voter turnout looks to be key this election (as it has in most other elections).
The uncertainties associated with voter access laws and certain actions in Ohio and North Carolina (to name two states) may make the outcome a legal matter. That would be less than optimal for the republic in general. However the welfare of the republic doesn’t seem to be the most important factor in many of the political equations in play this time.
What with Todd Akin’s gaffe, and the general buffoonishness of the Republican party these days, is there a chance that downticket races will just be ignored? And if so, what effect will that have? Basically, I think that some Republicans will not vote for Akin, but would sooner die than vote for McCaskill. What say y’all?
I am pleased when I can answer a question immediately, without hesitation, and in complete confidence! I have no idea.
According to standard political wisdom, Obama should have no chance whatsoever. He should be facing a landslide crushing, the small donors who form that basis of his campaign funding should have abandoned him in droves. The Pubbies should be romping and stomping.