The U.S. National Elections For President, The Senate And The House Of Representatives.

Site under construction to give you more information then you would want to know about the race to control the Senate. I will be back soon with that.
A lot of the data is based on polls. If you don't like polls, this thread might be of little interest.
I would appreciate contributors staying on topic but I am well aware that there is no way to enforce that.

Senators are elected for 6 years. Every 2 years 1/3 of them face reelection if they choose to do so. This year 33 seats will be contested.
The current makeup of the Senate is 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. 2 of the 53 are officially Independents but typically vote with the Dems.
The most recent averaging of polling shows the makeup of the Senate after election day as consisting of 47 Republicans, 45 Democrats plus 8 races that are rated as being tossups. Back to the tossups in a bit.
For the Dems:
30 seats are not being voted on this cycle
7 are being voted on and are listed as being safely in the Dem fold
4 are likely to remain Dem
4 are leaning toward a Dem (3 of them are open seats being vacated by a Dem; the other is held by a Dem).
For the Repubs:
37 seats are not being voted on this cycle
5 are being voted on and are listed as being safely in the Repub fold
3 are likely to end up Repub (INCLUDING 2 open seats now held by a Dem)
2 are leaning towards a Repub (both held by a Repub).

8 are tossups.

= 100

Nap time, eh?

The congressional elections are the important part that will determine the direction our government will go in. The president has power to control the direction of the laws congress passes but is a minor part of our government. Until the voting public comes to realize that, I personally dont have much hope of the government passing laws that benefit the majority. Too much big money and too many lobbyists in government for the common citizens to get a fair shake.

The "...equally if not more important" phrase was not a throwaway line, Rabel, as you noted. I was thinking of Supreme Court nominations, for example.

Here are the 8 states in which the race is considered a tossup. In some of the states there will be primaries to determine the candidates.
Florida: The incumbent is Nelson (D)
Massachusetts: Brown (R)
Michigan: Stabenow (D)
Missouri: McGaskill (D)
Montana: Tester (D)
Nevada: Heller (R)
Virginia: Open (currently held by a D)
Wisconsin: Open (currently held by a D).
I mentioned a couple of posts back that there are 2 seats now held by Dems that are likely to flip. 6 of the 8 tossup contests are now in Dem hands.
The Dems have to hope that Obama has long coattails and/or that the Repub party candidate for president has no coattails.

One thing that has yet to play out in all this is the final determination of districts for the House of Representatives.

Some states are finalizing their districts, some are being challenged in courts, and others are being challenged by the Federal government because the state is under Federal restrictions because of past discrimination.

One thing to note is that US Representatives don't have to live in their district.

Minnesota announced the new districts this last week. Michelle Bachmann no longer lives in the district she represents after redistricting. I believe she has announced she will still run in the district even though she no longer lives there.

Supreme Court Justices:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (DOB: 3/15/33) - (appointed by Clinton)
Antonin Scalia (3/11/36) - (Reagan)
Anthony Kennedy (7/23/36) - (Reagan)
Stephen Breyer (8/15/38) - (Clinton)
Clarence Thomas (6/23/48) - (G HW Bush)
Samuel Alito (4/1/50) - (G W Bush)
Sonia Sotomayor (6/25/54) - (Obama)
John G Roberts (1/27/55) - (G W Bush)
Elena Kagan (4/28/60) - (Obama)

Electionprojection.com has a lot of good info on the status of the redistricting process:


Ongoing (5 states, 41 seats)
Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island

Under Court Challenge (4 states, 76 seats)
Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota, Texas

No Redistricting (7 states, 7 seats)
Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota,
South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming

Complete (34 states, 311 seats)
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Also a chart showing the current state-by-state status of +/- House changes...as of 2/18/12.

The race for the Senate early report for...
VIRGINIA
VA, besides being my home state, is one of the tossup states listed above.
The candidates will be Tim Kaine (D) vs George Allen (R).
Kaine is a former governor who has gone on to become a leader in the DNC which means he has collected some political IOU's. Allen is also a former governor and was elected to the Senate in 2000. He ran an absolutely horrible campaign in 2006 and lost to Jim Webb (sort of a D).
Webb is a political enigma, in my mind. He was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan but then he became a Democrat. He strongly opposed getting involved in the war in Iraq.
He served in VN, was wounded and won medals. In law school at Georgetown he had great disdain for classmates who not only didn't serve but seemed, in his mind, proud that they didn't serve.
He came across as a Senator with a bit of a chip on his shoulder and he hated the endless fundraising associated with being a politician. He also is a novelist.
So he will not be running for a 2nd term.
Allen (R) and Kaine (D) are tied right now.
I think the election will come down to riding the coattails of the presidential candidate.

Texas Senator Cornyn is up for reelection, while Hutchison is due to retire. Both seats are probably a lock for Republicans.

Klobucher (D) is up for Senate election this year in MN. She is considered a lock with an approval rating in the mid to high 50s. The only announced challenger is a 35 year old vet with no political experience at all.

From No Hope To Little Hope.
In Nebraska, former 2 term Senator and 1 term governor Bob Kerrey is likely to reverse his decision to not run to succeed fellow Dem Ben Nelson, who is retiring. Nelson is about as popular as bedbugs. He strayed from the prairie populism to support liberal Dem causes like Obamacare in recent years.
I must admit that I have always liked Kerrey. He won the medal of honor in VN as a Navy Seal. He lost a leg, I believe. That type of service is no longer of import to many and, at 68, he may be regarded as too old.
More importantly his last win in a NE race was 18 years ago and he eventually moved to NYC (and at one time considered a run for mayor). Like Romney in MI his roots to his home state may be withering.
The Dems have very few other viable candidate. The race is listed as a gimme for the Repubs but could move a notch toward to Likely Repub.

Flash! Moderate Repub Olympia Snowe of Maine announced today that she will not seek reelection to the Senate in November. That could be a real blow for the Repubs in their quest to take over control of the Senate as Maine is pretty solidly Dem.
Snowe is only 65 but says that she is fed up with the polarization in DC.

You beat me to it!

My GOP sources online say that there's something more behind this.

Cycloptichorn

Good riddance!

I am interested, of course, in what you are hearing.
My thinking is that
> Snowe would have won in Maine, but
> She would likely be ostricised by her Repub party for being too moderate.
> She can't switch parties, of course,
But
But
> If she retires and her seat is taken over by a Dem
> She could get a plum seat in the 2nd term of the Obama administration.

The popular thinking today is that she is going to run for either Prez or Vice on the Americans Elect ticket.

Which would be a crazy-ass joke, but hey. Stranger things have happened.

Cycloptichorn

Are you channeling okie Joe?