My layman’s guess: 20%
Well, since 1856 when Republicans and Democrats squared off for the first time there have been 38 elections. 60.5% (23) have been won by Republicans and 39.4% (15) have been won by Democrats.
Aside from that general statistic I think it’s impossible to say. Truman won in 1948 despite the Democratic party being at one of its lowest places in years and despite wide national assumptions that he had no chance whatsoever of winning. Even the Dems tried to find a way to get him off the ticket.
I think it’s impossible to say without knowing who the final candidates are going to be.
45%
I’m usually wrong on politics, but I think the Dems ability to lose easy contests coupled with the general apathy is going to make this closer than we want to believe.
While it’s impossible to make any guarantees.
If the Democrats nominate: Richardson, Edwards or (long shot) Al Gore I predict they will win.
If the Democrats nominate: Obama, Clinton, or Biden, I think whether or not they win is based on who the GOP nominates and of course the campaigns themselves.
If the Democrats nominate: Dodd, Gravel, or Kucinich, they lose unless facing one of the GOPers directly below.
If the Republicans nominate: Brownback, Gingrich, McCain, or Ron Paul I predict they will lose, unless facing up against Dodd, Gravel, or Kucinich in which case I consider it impossible to predict.
If the Republicans nominate: Giuliani or Romney, I think they have a shot of winning depending on who the Dems nominate (I don’t think Richardson/Edwards/Gore would lose to any of the GOP current field.)
Anyone else I didn’t mention from the GOP I haven’t paid enough attention to to have formed an opinion.
At least 80 percent…if not more…of the electorate already knows how they are going to vote. And with two candidates, the odds are either 100 percent…or zero depending on your prediction.
I’m also predicting that Obama turns out to be this year’s Howard Dean. I strongly expect Clinton, Biden, or Richardson to get the nomination from the Dems. Edwards is an outside shot, I think Obama will suffer a collapse in the early primaries just like Dean did in 2004.
I’d put it at 30%. The republicans are having the same in-house difficulties the dems have been having for god knows how long, with each candidate distancing himself from Bush in different ways, and still further with the silencing of Ron Paul, who from my limited knowledge seems to be the only real conservative of the bunch, if not a bit moreso than most people are comfortable with.
All the talk in the media is who’s going to be the next president–Obama or Hillary. Buzz for the republican party is nonexistant. I would give the Democrats a 90% chance of victory, but I don’t trust them to not find some way to screw things up for themselves.
Me, I’m throwing all my support behind Ron Paul. He seems like the least crazy of all the candidates.
I would say at least a 75% chance. The Republican field is much stronger right now and the Dems have a history of screwing these things up. The American public is perfectly willing to elect another Republican even if people don’t like GW Bush in particular. Any type of liberal-ish Democrat is a loser right off the bat. I would give higher odds but I can’t discount the possibility of a charismatic, moderate unknown like Bill Clinton was to emerge.
Edwards? Why? Is it because he’s Southern?
I think Giuliani or McCain would overwhelm Edwards in the experience arena, and Edwards would sink like a stone.
As for the OP, I’d just say it’s way too early to tell. Anything now would be no better than a guess-- too much can happen between now and Nov '08.
Pretty much, although he suffers just as much from complete lack of experience as Obama does (something that isn’t hit upon a lot, but I think will contribute to Obama’s unraveling by the time of the first primary–impossible to say for sure, though.)
I’m not entirely convinced the Dems can win with a non-Southern candidate, they haven’t done so since 1960.
Wow. I’d hate to see what you’d consider a weak field.
McCain is quickly becoming a joke. I can’t imagine Giuliani would draw the Republican base, and he has a lot of negatives, as anyone who really followed his term in NY knows. Yes, he did a good job with crime, but that’s not a presidential priority. There are only so many times he can mention 9/11, and he pushed a Mafia buddy as head of Homeland Security. I wonder how that’d going to play.
Romney isn’t exactly catching fire. So I’d say 25 - 30% - but if the Dems are really stupid and nominate Kucinich or something, all bets are off. But the chances of that are less than 1%.
Thanks to Diebold I think it’s pretty safe to say the chance is 100% 
Please let it be Giuliani-the newspapers would have a field day with his past political and private records.
That’s all fine but the biggest mistake that people make when looking at these things is to do a technical analysis on the candidates and try to figure how the entire population of voters will respond. It makes no difference whatsoever how energized people in Cambridge, MA get over a particular Democratic candidate or how the good people of Tulsa, OK get fired up over a Republican one for example. The only thing that matters is a very small percentage of independent voters that live in one of the swing states. I say that there is still a very strong anti-liberal presidential bias in the places that matter although I have nothing to go on but feel. That is the problem with this type of thing. Commentators even among ourselves tend to look at irrelevant populations when deciding who has the inertia.
My gut feeling is that the GOP has a much higher chance than others think. Putting a number on something so variable and far away is pretty difficult. I’d go with a coin flip at 50%, 100% if the Dems nominate Hillary or Obama.
I agree. George Bush was handed a gift when the Massachussetts Supreme Court made gay marriage an issue in 2004. Ohio was decided by a small number of swing voters who were hurt economically during Bush’s term, but who are very socially conservative. It boiled down to Kerry=gay marriage and thus Bush won Ohio and the election.
Sounds about right to me, although I’d bump it up to 85%.
The Dems will get all enthusiastic about somebody unelectable like Hillary. You can see it coming a mile away.
45%
Looking at the presumed Hillary vs Guiliani matchup, I give Hillary a narrow edge. Fundraising and demographic issues are on her side. Guiliani is particualrly unpopular with racial minorities and unions, two groups which are strong in the midwestern swing states. Further, people tend to like Guiliani better when they don’t know much about him. New Yorkers loathe the guy because they actually had to put up with his policies.
Since Hillary is currently leading every major Republican in the polls, I don’t think the word “unelectable” means what you think it means.
Unelectable people lead in early polls all the time. Unelectable means that you can’t win the election at hand, not that you can score some points in polls when the race is still very abstract. The two are not the same. Only time will tell with her though.