Midterm predictions

[Supertramp78]

I had a lot of fun with this back in 2008. Everyone put down their predictions on who was going to win and I stored them and then we saw who was right later. I think Millring turned out to be the most psychic of the lot by predicting 60 votes in the Senate.

This midterm we have all sorts of things going. Honestly I have no idea. Aqua is on record as saying "Bloodbath" and I'm assuming he means Dems will lose a lot of seats. What I'm looking for here are predictions of how many.

I did see one interesting poll breakdown today regarding teh Healthcare bill. Lots of people have said that the majority of Americans opposed the bill. The number I kept seeing was 59%. But then someone asked people why they opposed the bill and it turned out that 13 percent of those opposed said the bill was "not liberal enough." They wanted a public option and didn't get one. When asked if they liked the bill vs no bill they said yes. So that made the bill or no bill percentages closer to 52% vs 43% which isn't that much different from Obama's 2008 numbers.

I honestly don't know what the midterms will be. I expect Harry reid will have problems. Most won't. Most of the really mad people already have Republicans representing them so they can vote their butts off and nothing will change.

Maybe a few Dems will flip to the GOP. Spector might have a problem. Not sure who else. Most everyone in Texas is Republican and all of the R's and a few of the D's voted against it.

So anyway, without getting too bent out of shape, anyone who has an opinion go ahead and post it here. As I said, we are going to have a hard time topping the fortune telling that Millring demonstrated last time.

[Deleted]

I predict the public option will be adopted as a "necessity" to appease those who didn't get it in the version that passed. It was part of the original proposal and what Obama had campaigned on.

As for the mid-term elections. Hmmmm hard to tell considering how quickly people tend to forget and the possibility for a variety of distractions/disasters between now and then.

I'm guessing that no less than 50% (likely 60% to 70%) of the incumbents will be ousted.

[omaha]

Republicans +5 in the Senate
Republicans +35 or so in the House, but I wouldn't be surprised if they take control

[Supertramp78]

So right now in the Senate there are 59 Ds and 41 Rs. You are thinking the Rs will move to 46. Possible.

In the House there are 253 Ds to 178 Rs. I think that is right. And you are moving the Rs to 213 and the Ds to 218. Possible more.

[Doug]

Considering short term memory I don't think a blood bath.

I think the Senate did a fair job of shifting the blame to the House. So I think there will be a bigger shift in the House than the Senate. Those who are going to be voting on blame will hit the house harder.

I think Jeff's +5 in the Senate is as good a guess as any. Like Tramp said I think that Reid is toast. NV has been hit hard by economy and Obama's attacks on Lost Wages have hurt the Ds in NV.

I think the House is harder to call. Could be as small as +15 and as many as +70. I think the Obama coat tail Ds in formally R seats are gone. Other than that incumbency wins more than it looses because it's a lot easier to bribe the voters from office than from "I'm gonna when I get elected"

So I guess I'll call +45 for the Rs. But that's just a guess.

[aquaduct]

OK. I'm in with details.

Currently 20% of homeowners are upside down on their mortgages (owing more than the house is worth) and all efforts to correct for that have shown little effectiveness. So far the only folks who have been helped have been folks who shouldn't have owned in the first place and many folks have just walked away. Folks like me who make my payments and are still good credit risks (i.e.- still have paying jobs) can't even refinance because they're too far upside down, while we constantly see others short selling or walking away, only to get government assistance and great interest rates.

The administration is getting ready to push programs that make it easier to short sell and cram down principle on upside down mortgages. Unfortuneately the biggest part of the problem with current programs is that, if they do anything, they drop home values even faster so folks that want to do the "right" thing (play by the rules and honor the contract) never catch up.

And then there's the pending second and third waves of commercial and residential mortgage failures waiting in the wings.

That and the stubbornly high unemployment rate AND rising gas prices AND the Democratic clamoring for a climate bill to drive energy prices up more (that's how you get folks to conserve) means that by the time folks vote in November, the health care thing will be a distant memory. Or, if it's remembered, it's for either unmet expectations or unforeseen consequences (like price hikes).

I then think that a lot of folks (just like they did to Bush and Clinton and I think Reagan) will decide that activist government doesn't seem to work as well as keeping the place in gridlock.

I'll go Jeff a few better. Democrats will lose 10 Senate seats and 40 House seats bringing us back to a nice status quo.

[dickt]

Too early to make any kind of accurate prediction.

Here's a link to historical incumbency reelection rates www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php

The average for the last several decades is about 95 percent. Ten percent defeated would be big news. Fifty percent is out of the realm of possibility.

[Doug]

Mar 26, 2010 12:23:45 GMT -5 dickt said:

Too early to make any kind of accurate prediction.

Here's a link to historical incumbency reelection rates www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php

The average for the last several decades is about 95 percent. Ten percent defeated would be big news. Fifty percent is out of the realm of possibility.

I don't know about out of the realm of possibility but probability for sure. The bribe factor is too big.

[dickt]

Is this like NCAA brackets? What do we win?

Here's a Senate tip sheet

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2010

[aquaduct]

Mar 26, 2010 12:23:45 GMT -5 dickt said:

Too early to make any kind of accurate prediction.

Here's a link to historical incumbency reelection rates www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php

The average for the last several decades is about 95 percent. Ten percent defeated would be big news. Fifty percent is out of the realm of possibility.

My predictions are 70% of the incumbents in the Senate will be re-elected and close to 92% in the House, both numbers that are well within the limits of those charts.

And always remember, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the turkey has a 100% historical probability of seeing Friday.

[dickt]

Even if I was extremely unhappy about the current administration it's not like I can vote the bastards out. My bastard will be re-elected with a 60/40 minimum. I don't think they've even found a viable candidate to run against Eric "Get out of my way there's a TV camera" Cantor.

Maybe aqua's rep will get ousted as a RINO--Frank Wolf might as well be a democrat on many issues.

[aquaduct]

I never said any Republicans will be ousted.

[knobtwister]

I predict the public option will be adopted as a "necessity" to appease those who didn't get it in the version that passed. It was part of the original proposal and what Obama had campaigned on.

Oddly enough having a public option would deflate the lawsuits the State's attorneys general are ginning up.

Senate Dems loose 6
House Dems loose 22

Don

[billhammond]

Mar 26, 2010 13:20:33 GMT -5 knobtwister said:

I predict the public option will be adopted as a "necessity" to appease those who didn't get it in the version that passed. It was part of the original proposal and what Obama had campaigned on.

Oddly enough having a public option would deflate the lawsuits the State's attorneys general are ginning up.

Senate Dems loose 6
House Dems loose 22

Don

Google spellcheck misses lose vs. loose.

HIRE ME! HIRE ME!

[knobtwister]

Google spellcheck misses lose vs. loose.

HIRE ME! HIRE ME!

Hey it's spelled correctly, it's just the wrong word.

Don

[Fingerplucked]

Mar 26, 2010 13:29:02 GMT -5 billhammond said:

Mar 26, 2010 13:20:33 GMT -5 knobtwister said:

Oddly enough having a public option would deflate the lawsuits the State's attorneys general are ginning up.

Senate Dems loose 6
House Dems loose 22

Don

Google spellcheck misses lose vs. loose.

HIRE ME! HIRE ME!

I think he meant that while 6 in the Senate & 22 in the house will get caught with their pants down with girlfriends under their desks, the rest of them will continue to be of upstanding character.

Not that the loose ones won't be upstanding too, but it'll be a different kind of upstanding.

[dickt]

This is like The Price is Right. Last bidder gets to pick the most advantageous range.

[TDR]

The Obama win scared the crap out of conservatives. They don't much like any of his agenda. They used the HCB to try and obstruct any forward movement on his part. And they damn near are making the country ungovernable.

I think a lot of folks really don't appreciate that and they aren't doing themselves any favors when it comes to looking good in November.

Maybe the HCB was a referendum on Obama and maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just as much a referendum on Republicam obstructionism, and they lost.

But by November that vote will be yesterday's news and we'll be on to a new crisis du jour. And if the Dems are smart they will have spun away many of the objections to the HCB. Or at least done a better job of selling it than they have so far.

In a way I hope the Palin crowd and the Teabaggers keep doing their thing and just get louder and more insufferable. What it takes to win those seats that are up for grabs is winning the undecideds. They may win a few, but I suspect they are alienating just as many or more.

I wouldn't bet on the bloodbath. A lot can happen between now and November. And you'd hope the DNC got a jolt from the Scott Brown win and are already doing their homework for the midterms. Its not like there are no Rs that might lose seats too.

[Cornflake]

I have no clue. If the election were next week, I'd predict that the Rs would gain about the normal number of seats for such a mid-term election. Polling consistently indicates that people disapprove of the congressional Ds but that they disapprove of the congressional Rs even more. I don't see how that translates into a big shift to the Rs.

But the election isn't next week. Jobs and the economy will be the issue. It looks like things are improving some. I don't know how it will look to most voters in seven months.

[majorminor]

The still sucky main street economy will be the driver and the Dems will get the blame.

The polling trends seem to indicate the independants are swinging away from Obama. The Repubs will vote Repub and the Dems will vote Dem and the fleeing independants will mostly go Repub which will lead to a "minor bloodbath" that will get blown way out of proportion. I dunno...

Repubs +8 in the senate
Repubs + 40 in the House