Mid-Term Elections: Predict the Outcome

My fearless predictions:

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Currently: 230 Republicans, 201 Democrats, 1 Independent, 3 vacancies
AFTER 11-7-06: 210 Republicans, 225 Democrats, 0 Independents

SENATE
Currently: 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats, 1 Independent
AFTER 11-7-06: 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats, 2 Independents

SENATE RACES (incumbents marked with *)

Connecticut
Ned Lamont (D) v. Alan Schlesinger (R) v. Joe Lieberman (I*)
WINNER: Lieberman

Minnesota
Amy Klobuchar (D) v. Mark Kennedy (R)
WINNER: Klobuchar

Missouri
James M. Talent (R*) v. Claire C. McCaskill (D)
WINNER: Talent

Montana
Conrad Burns (R*) v. Jon Tester (D)
WINNER: Tester

New Jersey
Robert Menendez (D*) v. Thomas H. Kean Jr. (R)
WINNER: Menendez

Ohio
Mike DeWine (R*) v. Sherrod Brown (D)
WINNER: Brown

Pennsylvania
Rick Santorum (R*) v. Robert Casey (D)
WINNER: Casey

Rhode Island
Lincoln Chafee (R*) v. Sheldon Whitehouse (D)
WINNER: Whitehouse

Tennessee
Harold Ford, Jr. (D) v. Bob Corker (R)
WINNER: Corker

Virginia
George Allen (R*) v. James Webb (D)
WINNER: Allen

I hope you're wrong onthe Senate. My wish results would be 51 Dem. - 48 Rep.b - 1 Ind.

Here's my prediction:

The Politicians win.

The People lose.

Impossible Jim. The people get exactly the politicians they deserve.

I hope I'm wrong too.

I rarely play "predict the result" games. I do hope the Democrats make a respectable come back, but don't have confidence the nation is able to change to the good in the near future. More knee jerk reactions to our enemies, the less affluent shoved to the side, medical insurance losing ground, Social Security losing more ground.

October 20, 2006
What Amazes Me Most...
Posted by JAY COST
What amazes me most this campaign season is, without question, the media.

I do not ever recall the national political press corps, and its attendant pundits, vacillating back and forth so violently.

"It's a wave election!" "No it isn't!" "Oh yes it is!" "Oh no it isn't!"

"It's a national election!" "No it isn't!" "Oh yes it is!" "Oh no it isn't!"

"It's a blow-out!" "No it isn't!" "Oh yes it is!" "Oh no it isn't!"

It's been like a Monty Python sketch, hasn't it?

"The GOP is dead, I tell you! It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible!"

"Oh no it isn't...it's just pining for the fjords!"

I can recall five discrete vacillations. You had GOP bullishness around April. That lasted until about mid-May. Then the CA 50 campaign induced Democratic bullishness. That lasted until the actual election, which then again induced Republican bullishness. That lasted until about mid-July, when there again began a period of Democratic bullishness. This shifted around 9/11, which initiated another round of GOP bullishness. Right now we are in a stage of Democratic bullishness, which began at the end of last month.

So -- that's five vacillations in six months!

Unbelievable.

What is most unbelievable is that it is nothing more than vacillation. It is not a real debate in which new evidence swings the pendulum one direction or another. It's the same darned evidence being paraded on both sides. Democratic strengths X, Y and Z are emphasized for a while. Then, they are totally abandoned to emphasize GOP strengths A, B and C. Nobody in the press ever actually gets around to debunking, reconciling, aggregating, or weighing X, Y, Z, A, B and C! They just change their emphases! The story line changes when somebody in an elite position in the media "remembers" the other side's advantages. "And...oh yeah! Well...it looks like things have swung again!"

If we take a step back and ponder this, I think we come up with two different hypotheses:
(1) The election has been as variable as the media has taken it to be. The most variable in modern history.
(2) The election has been relatively constant. The media is the variable factor. It varies because it incorrectly thinks congressional elections work like presidential elections and/or some strange soap opera called "As the Beltway Turns." It just generally has no idea what it is doing. So, it is always getting tricked into false positives, which it soon discovers to be false positives, and which it then justifies by claiming, "Well -- it's a-swingin' back the other way!" And, as it is the media, i.e. our window to the world, (1) appears to be true.

I prefer (1). Just kidding!

Here's an idea -- rather than take bets on how many seats the Democrats will pick up -- why don't we take bets on how many more times the media consensus will swing? The last swing was at the end of last month -- and as there is, on average, a swing in the consensus every 1 month and 1 week, the odds are that there will be at least one more, on or about November 5.

But my money is actually on 2 more swings. I think there will be a brief flirtation with "Maybe it won't be that bad for the GOP..." around the end of this month. And then a "Oh...YES IT WILL!"

And then, on Election Day, if the pundits are "right," they will trumpet their keen political sensibilities -- "We called this sucker, didn't we?" "Oh...yeah we did. We had it all along!" "Good for us!"

If they are "wrong," they will trumpet their keen political sensibitilies and procliam how the party ostensibly on the outs managed to perform an unheard-of come-from-behind-feat-of-great-political-cunning-at-the-last-minute-to-snatch- victory-from-the-jaws-of...

...blah, blah, blah. The truth is that, when it comes to campaigns and elections, it is never right nor wrong. It is just unfalsifiable. If Karl Popper were alive to witness this campaign season, his head would explode. I'm actually thinking about wearing a tight-fitting Steelers football helmet between now and Election Day to prevent exactly that from occurring.

31 years and 2 days later Generalissimo Franco is still dead.

Survivor!

The GOP Victory
By JIM MCTAGUE-BARRON'S

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years -- and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don't see it.


Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three

We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls. Thus, our conclusions about individual races often differ from the conventional wisdom. Pollsters, for instance, have upstate New York Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds trailing Democratic challenger Jack Davis, who owns a manufacturing plant. But Reynolds raised $3.3 million in campaign contributions versus $1.6 million for Davis, so we score him the winner.

Likewise, we disagree with pollsters of both parties who see Indiana Republican Rep. Chris Chocola getting whomped by Democratic challenger Joe Donnelly, a lawyer and business owner from South Bend. Chocola has raised $2.7 million, versus $1.1 million for Donnelly. Ditto in North Carolina, where we see Republican Rep. Charles Taylor beating Democrat Heath Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, because of better financing. Analysts from both parties predict a Shuler upset.


Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years. Look at House races back to 1972 and you'll find the candidate with the most money has won about 93% of the time. And that's closer to 98% in more recent years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Polls can be far less reliable. Remember, they all but declared John Kerry president on Election Day 2004.

Our method isn't quite as accurate in Senate races: The cash advantage has spelled victory about 89% of the time since 1996. The reason appears to be that with more money spent on Senate races, you need a multi-million-dollar advantage to really dominate in advertising, and that's hard to come by.

But even 89% accuracy is high compared with other gauges. Tracking each candidate's funding is "exceptionally valuable because it tells you who has support," says William Morgan, executive director of the renowned Mid-West Political Science Association in Bloomington, Ind. The cognoscenti, he says, give the most money to the candidate they believe has a good chance of winning.


WE FOUND NO SHORTAGE of people to challenge us. They argue that money doesn't make a difference when the electorate is as worked up emotionally, as it is this year. John Aldrich, a professor of political science at Duke University who writes extensively about elections, says that a candidate really doesn't need the most money to win; he merely requires enough cash to get his message across. Aldrich believes Democrats will win this year with less money because they won't have to spend so much to persuade voters to switch horses.

"The support for the president, the Congress and incumbents is relatively low by historical standards," he says. In fact, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll says voter disgust with Congress is the lowest in the survey's 17-year history.


It's true that our formula isn't foolproof. In 1958, 1974 and 1994, the wave of anti-incumbent sentiment was so strong that money didn't trump voter outrage. We appreciate that voters in 2006 are hopping mad at the GOP because of the war and because of scandal. We just don't agree that the outrage has reached the level of those earlier times. The reason is that the economy in 2006 is healthier. And the economy is the only other factor that figures in our analysis.

In 1958, in sharp contrast to now, the country was in a deep recession. Though the Democrats controlled the House, voters blamed their pain on Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower, and it cost the GOP 48 seats. In 1974, a Watergate year, inflation and an Arab oil embargo pinched household budgets and helped fuel voter anger at Republicans. In 1994, though the economy was improving, unemployment was above 6% and personal income began to fall in the quarter prior to the election, souring the mood of the electorate. People blamed their pain on high taxes, which they associated with Democrats, and ushered in Newt Gingrich & Co.

Take a look at how Jim McTague did with his picks in 2004. (Part 1 | Part 2 )Though the current economy is slowing, unemployment remains relatively low, at 4.6%, and disposable-income growth is positive. While GDP figures will be revised downward in coming weeks and unemployment figures could edge up, it may not matter. Those numbers are "interesting stuff for economists, but voters will continue to focus on pocketbook issues like the price of gas and the value of their 401(k)s," says GOP insider Rick Hohlt. Pump prices have been falling and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been on a tear, reaching 12,000 last week.

Hohlt and analyst John Morgan say Republicans will have unusually tough election-day challenges from Democrats in more than 50 races -- a high number. They recall no more than 20 highly competitive races in 2004. All but 10 of this year's contested seats are held by incumbents, and Hohlt and Morgan aren't predicting an outcome.

On this date in 1936 First tests of the people's car.
In 1934, German automaker Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design proposal to Adolf Hitler's new German Reich government, calling for the construction of a small, simple, and reliable car that would be affordable enough for the average German. Only about one in 50 Germans owned cars at the time, and the motor industry had only a minor significance in Germany's economy. Nazi propagandists immediately embraced the idea, coining "Volkswagen," which translates as "people's car," at an automobile show later in the year. Hitler himself hoped the "people's car" would achieve the kind of popularity in Germany as Ford's Model T had in the United States, and began calling the Volkswagen the "Strength Through Joy" car.

The car of great "farfignuton."

I'm too far away to have the foggiest idea.....but I want to be able to navigate back here and check your predictions against reality.

Here are my picks-- the only states I'm familiar with:

Rhode Island=Chafee
CT=Lieberman
VA=Not the guy who denied his Jewish origins because he's living in a hick (Confederate) state.

Chicago is a far left stronghold which relies on African-American and Hispanic votes to hold on to power. It is not a city which reflects the thinking of the majority of the USA but the thinking of the welfare cheats and the undocumented aliens. The voters will return to the GOP.


Streetcar Line
Coming Home to the GOP?
By Quin Hillyer
Published 10/25/2006 12:08:06 AM
So here's what is going on with the electorate right now: Committed Democrats and committed ideological leftists are excited, committed Republicans are resolute -- and disaffected Republicans and frustrated, sometimes-right-leaning swing voters are starting to reconsider their inclination to punish congressional Republicans for poor performance.

The election returns will be determined by the results of those reconsiderations.

If readers will forgive the amateur psycho-analysis, what those disaffected and GOP-targeted swing voters are thinking (and feeling) goes something like this...:

"Holy #$@$, I wish all this election stuff could end. I don't want to vote for any of these bums. Well, actually, my guy in Congress isn't half bad, but he's not out there fighting those Hastert types to hold their feet to the fire; he's sort of a go-along-to get along guy who cares about our district, but, darn it, he might be worth losing if it sends a message to Washington to get its act together. I just don't know.... You know, I just am sick of all this kowtowing to the big money guys. I'm a main-street kind of guy; I don't care if those big corporations get their tax breaks. I just want government to stop spending too much of my tax money, to stop running up all these big deficits, to keep government from getting too involved in my life here at home. All I really want it to do is to make sure we're protected, and maybe that I won't lose my shirt if I lose my job or whatever.

"I mean, I want our government to kill all those terrorists and keep us safe, but I don't get all this Iraq stuff. Why the hell can't we get things under control over there; it's not like they can match up with our military. I mean, why can't we kick their butts and bring our guys home? These Bush people aren't getting the job done. And meanwhile, all those congressmen are taking bribes and free meals and hitting on interns and putting cash in their freezers, and all they do is yell at each other and bicker instead of making sure that all those foreigners don't take our jobs or our money. Why can't they just make government and the tax code and all our policies less complicated, and why can't they get their act together to protect our borders and keep our jobs at home instead of in Mexico or India or China or wherever?

"That's why I was gonna send a message to those guys. I sorta lean toward the Republicans usually. I thought they were tougher about keeping the terrorists away and fighting crime and keeping government out of our lives, but instead they just pad their own pockets and build bridges to nowhere and fiddle around while we screw things up over in Iraq. I'm so sick of them...I was gonna stay home on election day, or maybe vote for some independent guy or maybe at least take a look at one of those Democrats. You know, shake things up in Washington, keep Bush's feet to the fire, or just not bother voting because none of those guys are worth the bother.

"At least that's what I WAS gonna do. Now, I just don't know. I mean, these are dangerous times, and I'm not doing too bad myself. I don't want my family to lose all we've built up, so maybe we shouldn't rock the boat. I mean, the media is going crazy telling us how the Democrats are gonna win all these elections, and just to shake things up in Washington I was thinking that wouldn't be such a bad thing...but now I'm not so sure. I mean, I've been thinking about this, and I haven't seen a single thing from these Democrats that gives me any confidence. All they do is tear down Bush for the sake of tearing down Bush. Clinton gave us a good economy, in a way, but I think all those Democrats in Congress are big libs who are gonna raise my taxes. The stock market is doing okay right now -- what if the Democrats come in and scare the stock market and screw everything up with high taxes? And what if they just cut and run from Iraq without letting us keep our respect? What if they just make us look weak? The Bush people look like they can't tie their shoes in Iraq at the same time they chew gum, but at least they show that we Americans can't be messed with. If those Democrats make us cut and run, won't the terrorists just come back here and blow up more of our buildings?

"I just don't know. At least the Republicans talk a good game about keeping government from getting too big. And at least they understand how bad those crazy jihadists are. The Democrats seem to think Bush is even worse than bin Laden. That's just crazy.

"Here's what I really think. If I had needed to vote last week, I either woulda stayed home or voted for somebody else against the Republican who's my congressman right now. Just to send a message. But now I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll stick with my guy one more time. Maybe all of this hoopla will scare the Republicans straight. Maybe the media deserve to have their hype shoved down their own throats. I already know the worst the Republicans can do; maybe they'll do better than they have been, but at least they won't do any worse and at least right now I have a job and my family has a nice home and everything.

"But those Democrats? All those crazy liberals, you just can't trust them if they get any power at all....

"Maybe the thing to do is to let Bush and the Republicans finish the job for two more years. They got us into all this; let them get us out. If they still screw it up, we'll have a chance in the next presidential election to really change course. Why not just let things play out right now and let the Republicans clean up their own mess? Aw, hell, I voted for them in the first place, maybe I'll just stick with my guns one more time.

"So how about you. What do YOU think?"

In other words, Republican-leaning voters and small-government conservatives are thinking about "coming home" to Republicans one more time, and making it possible for the GOP, just barely, to hold both houses of Congress. Their minds are still in flux, but they are thinking that with the Democrats as the alternative, a vote to punish Republicans may amount to cutting off their noses just to spite their faces.

In short, their votes are still in play.

Yeah, right.

I and several others posted our predictions

in the other thread

Theres a neat little set-up, a bit more summary than this thread's - you fill in the likely winner for a shortlist of close Senate races, end.

ONLY EXPERTS CAN MAKE RELIABLE PREDICTIONS
RCP SENATE RATINGS- REAL CLEAR POLITICS SITE-

Dems Need Six For Control

RCP Avgs Project: Dems + 4

---------------------------------

TOSS UPS
MO: Talent (R) | Chart
MT: Burns (R) | Chart
NJ: Menendez (D) | Chart
TN: Open (R) | Chart
VA: Allen (R) | Chart
LEANS DEMOCRAT
MD: Open (D) | Chart
MI: Stabenow (D) | Chart
OH: DeWine (R) | Chart
PA: Santorum (R) | Chart
RI: Chafee (R) | Chart
LEANS REPUBLICAN
AZ: Kyl (R) | Chart
LIKELY DEMOCRAT
MN: Open (D) | Chart
WA: Cantwell (D) | Chart
LIKELY LIEBERMAN
CT: Lieberman

I got my wish 51 Democrats, 49 Republicans, 1 Independent!