Mid Term Madness

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A Canadian columnist wrote this. I do not agree with him 100%, but I do think the mid term elections are going to be grim for the Democrats. Am I right? anyone have any predictions?

Wikipedia tells me the following:

House of Representatives (as of June 14, 2010): 255 Dem 178 Rep

Senate (as of July 16): 57Dem 2 Ind 41 Rep

So my math tells me that the Republicans need 39 Representative seats to take the lower house. Can they do it? Is the American population so pissed off at the Democrats that they will swing hard to the Right?

And how about the Senate? it is my understanding that about 33 Senate seats are going to come up for election. I'm just guessing here, but lets say that 20 of those seats are Democratically held and 13 of them are Republican (I'm pulling numbers out of my anus at the moment, just eyeballing generalities.) If 10 of the Democratic seats so to the Republicans, (and they don't lose any to the Dems) then the Republicans will have a very, very narrow majority after the November elections. Is this likely? Will the American people take out their frustrations about the economy, environment, and other such things on the party in power?

I think they will, not because I think the Democrats are so horrible, but because human nature blames stuff like this on whoever is incumbent at the time. Thoughts?

 

It's the economy, plain and simple. Neither side has significant solutions and people are mad at everyone in government because both parties refuse to address the central issue. Despite the talking heads, it's not an issue of "swinging right or left."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38665351/ns/politics/

 

I saw that poll too. If you want the specific numbers they were:

Obama's Favorability Rating: 47%
Democratic Party Favorability Rating: 33%
Republican Party Favorability Rating: 24%

That 24% is the lowest total since they began polling about 40 years ago. I also found it humorous that the Tea Party, while still viewed unfavorably overall, had a higher total than either the Democratic or Republican Party - they got a 37% Favorability Rating.

While people are certainly not pleased with the Democratic controlled Congress, they appear to be equally unconfident that the Republicans can do any better. If anything, I think it is setting up as an anti-incumbent year (just look at the number of incumbents who lost in the primaries). If it's anti-incumbent, that bodes well for Republicans, as they have fewer incumbents. While the Tea Partiers did win a few primaries, they still don't have enough support to take over too many seats. I suspect that the more radical views of the Tea Partiers may actually hurt the Republicans in the general election.

 

It could be an issue of "swinging to the other guy", though, which in this case would mean to the Right. I am especially interested in your opinion, Chandos -- do you think the Republicans will make great gains? Or by the time November comes around will the Democratic campaigners be able to get the American public to believe that the situation is not one of the Democrat's doing and that we should stay with them rather than giving seats to the Republicans?

 

LKD - I believe that the Republicans have a good chance of taking the House, but not the Senate. But both places will be every even, regardless. If it takes 60 percent to pass anything on either side, you may as well forget it. I don't think politicians will be smart or scared enough to stop their political foolery until unemployment hits 12.0 -12.5 percent. We need a national economic policy that can have a wide enough concensus to break the liberal/consevative foolery among the politicians themselves. I am predicting a double-dip recession, with the worst of it in the "second dip." Hopefully, I am wrong.

 

I mostly agree with Chandos' opinions on the composition of the House and Senate after the mid-terms. I'd give the Republicans an even-money chance of taking over the House. With the Senate, the cahnces of a Republican takeover are remote. The two independents are Democratic leaning, and so for a Republican takeover, they essentially need to win a net of 9 seats. While I think it is possible that they could win a total of 9 seats currently held by Democrats, that assumes that they won't lose any seats currently held by Republicans. That is unlikely.

If I had to make a prediction today, it would be that Democrats will continue to hold both chambers of Congress, but with smaller majorities than they presently do.

 

I still believe we need a national, comprehensive economic policy that would heal the economy. I don't pretend to be an economist, nor an expert on economics, but I have some ideas I think should be seriously debated (rather than "anchor babies," gay marriage, "don't ask don't tell" etc). Not that these are not important issues, just that the house is catching fire and someone better put out the fire before the roof falls in. In no particular order, comprehensive policy should include:

1. Tax reform
2. Balance the budget and pay down the national debt.
3. Revitalize American manufacturing (hey, Ford and GM are back!).
4. A review of international trade policy.
5. Consider a return to the American System (to accomplish some of the above).

I believe there are still some things we can learn from Alexander Hamilton, given the decline of American manufacturing and jobs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_on_Manufactures

I know some may not agree, but I will point out that as long as American jobs and manufacturing are lost overseas, we are playing a fool's game. And we will be the losers in the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_School_(economics)

I believe that this is what the national debate should be about, at the moment.

 

I'm surprised at Chandos's and Aldeth's assessment. I'd say (and everything I've seen says) the opposite: that the Reps will likely win a majority in the Senate, but it's iffy in the House. In terms of number of seats in serious play and required to gain a majority, the Reps would have to win almost all in the House without giving up any, while they only need to win about 1/3 in the Senate, without giving up any.

As for polls, I've seen about a dozen recently, and the only thing they all have in common is this: people are pissed at the government. I've seen polls putting Reps over Dems in terms of likelihood to win, how much people like them, how much people trust them, etc, and I've seen the reverse, but the 'trust' and 'like' numbers are always low for everyone.

 

I don't think they can take a majority. I think most voters (and non-voters, but who cares about them) are mainly pissed at the current government. I think quite a few incumbants will fall from both sides of the aisle.

 

I'm with T2. Anti-incumbency sentiment is going to cut and cut hard against the democrats, but I'll eat my shoe and post it on youtube if they actually lose control of either house. If a roughly equivalent percentage of republican and democratic incumbents lose their seats to a challenger (likely), it will still leave the democrats firmly in control of both houses.

 

Thing is, from what I've seen (and I don't know total numbers), the Dems are running more incumbents than the Reps in both houses. I, too, am guessing this will be a bad year to be an incumbent, but that's going to hurt the Dems more.

 

Isn't that automatically implied when they hold a majority?

 

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/

A site I frequently visit close to American elections that gives some pretty comprehensive analysis and predictions on coming election results. Currently they have democrats holding both houses with a small majority.

 

T2, not necessarily in the Senate, and not necessarily in 'serious contention'. Remember, not all of the Senate is elected every two years, only some of it is, so it's possible for one party to hold a majority and be mostly safe (and I'm pretty sure it's happened in the past). Additionally, if a Dem is running unopposed, or with a strong incumbent and only weak opposition (especially in a Dem-heavy district), they may be technically up for election, but not seriously at risk, even as an incumbent.

 

NOG, why guess when we can just look it up?

Six democratic senators are retiring. Six republican senators are retiring. One incumbent democrat (Specter) lost his seat in the primary. One incumbent republican senator lost his seat in the Primary with another (McCain) in danger or losing his seat as well. Assuming McCain survives his primary challenge, there are with 14 seats that have no incumbent. A total of 37 seats are up for grabs in this election. The democrats have 12 and the republicans have 11. To break the democratic majority, the republicans must gain 10 or the 14 seats without an incumbent while losing no more of their current seats than the democrats. A 50/50 split isn't good enough to break the democratic majority because the president of the senate (Biden) is also a democrat. It isn't impossible for the republicans to gain 10 of the 14 contested seats -- just really, really unlikely. So unlikely, in fact, that I stand by my promise to eat my shoe and post it on youtube if the dems lose control of either house of congress this election year. It's a safe bet.

 

I wasn't guessing, I was speaking of generalities, but thanks for the numbers. Like I said, I've seen polls all over the place, so I wouldn't discount discontent with the Dems just yet, but we'll see.

 

Hello??? It's the economy....

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67B05N20100812

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The inverse is that nearly the same amount don't believe that either party has an advantage on the economy. That tranlates into 69 percent of Americans don't think the Dems can fix the economy and 66 percent don't believe the Republicans can either. That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in either party on the economy. I believe it is because neither party wants to face the real solutions for fixing it, and many suspect it is true. I wish that they [the polls] would cut the partisan crap about "which side" people prefer, and cut to what people feel about the current solutions, or lack of them, on specific economic issues regardless of party. I think it would be quite revealing.

http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm

 

I think it might also come to motivation as well, though. I would not be surprised if the Republicans simply get a higher percentage of their supporters to come to the voting booths.

We will see in a few months, I guess.

 

That is a very interesting point. Here in MA when we had the senate election that elected Scott Brown as the first republican senator from MA in many peoples lifetime that was one of the reasons. Brown was able to convince the independent voters to vote for him and the urban (meaning black) voters without Obama to vote for stayed home as they really didn't care about Coakley (the white female crime fighter).

 

Turnout is very important in midterm elections. A lot of people who will go out to vote for the president won't go out and vote for a member of Congress. (That's seems very odd to me, but polling numbers bear out that in a midterm election, only about 25%-30% of registered voters turn out to vote.

The difference is opportunity. All 435 members of the House run every two years. In theory, the Democrats have to defend all of their House seats. In the Senate, only 1/3 of the chamber runs every two years, so there simply isn't as much opportunity to win seats. There were a lot of retirements/resignations this past year in the Senate, but most of those were for seats that were going to be included in this election anyway. That's why we only see 37 seats at stake. (That's actually not an uncommon number. While there are always 33 or 34 seats up for election in the Senate, the number is typically higher to replace Senators who have resigned (or died). Most state Constitutions allow the governor to appoint a Senator, but only for a limited amount of time. The state has to put that seat up in the next election (even if that seat was not supposed to be in the cycle of the next general election), and voters elect a Senator to complete the prior Senator's term.

In the case of Scott Brown in MA, their constitution requires a special election if there isn't a general election in the near term (I think they must hold a special election if the general election is more than six months away). But likewise with Brown, he will not serve a full six years before running again. His election was to finish Ted Kennedy's term, which was set to expire in 2012. So Brown will have to run again in 2012, just as Kennedy would have.

---------- Added 4 hours, 19 minutes and 16 seconds later... ----------

To expand a bit on the 2010 Senate races:

Races in which Republicans have a very good chance of taking a seat presently held by a Democrat:

North Dakota
Arkansas
Indiana

States where Republicans have a fairly good chance of taking a seat presently held by a Democrat:

Colorado
Delaware
Pennsylvania

States where the race is essentially tied that Democrats hold a seat:

Nevada
Illinois
Washington

States where the race is essentially tied where Republicans hold the seat:

Florida*
Ohio

*Charlie Crist currently holds a slight lead in the polls, and he is running as an independent. However, he's running as an independent because he lost the Republican nomination (a la Joe Lieberman running as an independent after losing the Democratic Primary in 2008).

States where Democrats have a fairly good chance of taking a seat presently held by a Republican:

Missouri
Kentucky

States where the Republican has a relatively poor chance of taking a seat currently held by a Democrat, but a win is conceivable:

California
West Virginia
Wisconsin

States where the Democrat has a relatively poor chance of taking a seat currently held by a Republican, but a win is conceivable:

New Hampshire
North Carolina

So we are looking at just 18 Senate races that are considered competitive. In the other 19 senatorial contests the party that presently holds the seat is a heavy favorite. But this illustrates just how hard it will be for the Republicans to take over the Senate. Even if you give them all the races that they currently lead, it's just a net gain of 6 seats. Even if you give them three more where the race is esentially tied, that gets them up to 9, and they would have 50, but would still lose with Biden casting the tie breaker.

However, that also assumes that they win all the contests where the Democrats have a realistic shot of picking up a seat (four of them). If you lose any of those four, then you have to start hoping for one or more of the long shots to come through (3 of them) and none of the Democrat's longshots come through (2 of them).

---------- Added 16 hours, 55 minutes and 21 seconds later... ----------

Sorry - one more update...

Let's look at the list above again, and come up with an idea of how many seats the Rs are likely to pick up.

I'll give them all 3 of the "very likely" ones.
I'll give them 2 out of 3 of the "fairly likely" ones.
I'll give them 2 out of 3 of the "tied" ones.
I'll give them 1 out of 3 of the "unlikely" ones.

I'll give the D's 2 out of 4 of the tied ones held by R's
I'll give the D's 0 out of 2 of the "unlikely" ones.

I think that the above somewhat overstates the actual chances of the R's, but lets go with this somewhat rosy projection. And in this scenario, the R's would pick up 6 net seats. So they'd still be in the minority, but at 53-47. (Two of the 53 Ds would technically be D-leaning independents, while one of the R's would be a R-leaning independent.