Has anyone here just gone to the Huffington post just for the heck of it to look around? Those people truly are messed up in the head.

I’d be curious to know what the cook ratings looked like immediately after that – and if it presented a more accurate prediction of the Nov 08 election.

We, of course, do not know what the future holds in regard to additional surprises between now and Nov 2010, but what we do know is that the press will try to spin it in the Democrats favor as much as possible.

All the same, I still feel good about November. I don’t think any amount of spin is going to significantly sway the “buyers remorse” crowd – particularly the independents who appear to be running from the Democrats as fast as they can.

and all the regular voters start tuning in? I think that’s where the wave, if it is coming, gets decided. I think that is also why running numbers right now doesn’t look like the pick up is big enough to take back the House.

If republican enthusiasm is running as high as reports indicate, it will be contagious in October/November when people start tuning in. That will be make it/break time for turning talk of a wave into an actual wave.

I’ve actually been thinking about this a bit lately, as I’m watching Hultgren (IL 14). People are still sluggish on politics–focusing on summertime, vacations, etc. I think there will be a lot more people engaging in a couple months. This is only the second cycle where I’ve been this engaged and also actually been in the US for it, so I’m curious as to how my reading of the local (and national) mood play out.

As for me, I’ve already sent in my volunteer info to Hultgren, and should be walking the parades, etc., soon. =P

You are using 1% for the opposition’s chance of winning a likely seat, 10% for a lean, and 50% for a toss-up.

Now the toss-up figure seems logical, that’s what “toss-up” means, after all. Do the 1% and 10% come from empirical data of past elections, or are they purely arbitrary?

The failed Porkulus and Gulf oil catastrophe will hang around the Chairman Zero’s neck like an albatross in midterms… candidates will by hiding from him this fall

Hard to see anything changing there… and schemes to ram through cap n tax and amnesty with lame ducks won’t win them any friends…. and they’ve already scared America half to death with the radical agenda, this country’s had enough.

Also IMHO, Obama due for a major international embarassment… all the seeds have already been sewn by these pompous incompetents- that or a terrorist attack they just can’t spin their way out of, Heaven forbid

While I respect Charlie Cook, he weights incumbency very heavily. Is that wise to do in an anti-incumbent year that has already seen incumbents tossed from office in primary elections? I suppose the problem for Cook and everyone else is how to factor in disgust with the current congress. Cook holds to the traditional congress-sucks-but-my-guy’s-alright model. On the other end of the spectrum is “but it’s different this time” , (usually wishful thinking.) I have to believe that the fall elections will end up closer to “different time time” than “my guy’s alright”. At this point in time Cook’s 20 seat pickup should be considered a minimum.

I know that one recent rating changed from ‘safe’ to ‘likely’ Dem, that one being Etheridge’s seat, after a poll came out recently showing him BEHIND in the wake of the scandal involving him and that college student. Apparently if a poll shows you behind, at like 38% of the vote, that rates you being ‘likely’ to win….but I don’t think many people would see that the same way . I think we’ve got an excellent chance of picking up in excess of 60 seats, obviously it depends on how well our candidates campaign in the fall, and if the ‘wave’ continues to be as strong as it is now. But if we win just 20 seats, I think we all know that would mean we pulled a ‘US Soccer Team’ and totally choked when an easy win was within our grasp. Let’s not let that happen .

Cook is just an absolute guess right now–a bad guess in my opinion. There are four huge factors that could and I believe will be in the GOP favor this fall.

1. passion to vote for our candidates and passion to work for our candidates. Its been the “untold” story of the 2010 primary that the Republican party has record off year primary turnout in ME-SC-AL-KY-IN-AR-NM-NV-TX. So far none of the 57 states have had record democrat primary turnout. Word of month reports more volunteer effort as well during this primary runup. There was also record turnout for caucuses in Utah & CO.

2. The economy stinks and unemployment may very well get worse before the election.

3. Superb GOP candidates. In state after state great GOP candidates-artculate conservatives have come forward.

4. The last little factor is money. Well time may cure that. GOP candidates raised 70 million small donations in 1st qtr. We just need a million people to pony up $100 in the next 4 months to get all our great candidates funded.

can be considered “safe” for the Democrats. The left’s base is shrinking and the Independents are abandoning the Democrats in droves.

The Democrats are likely to lose 70 – 100 House seats and 9 – 10 seats in the Senate.

I’m not an expert on these things, but IIRC, it’s not uncommon for the party out of power (us) to pick up @20 seats in an offyear election in normal times.

These (Tea Parties, Porkulus, ballooning debt) are not normal times.

If Cook is right, then expect the Dems to crow well past Christmas and into 2011, as to how overblown the reports of voter frustration were.

I hope Neil’s analysis of Cook’s latest ratings focuses us. The biggest prize in this upcoming election is the House. If we win control, then we control legistation, have subpoena power, etc…

In the House, literally, coming close in an election can really mean no cigar once the new House is seated. The House leadership’s power is almost absolute. A 5-seat Dem margin in the next Congress means that Nancy Pelosi could still be Speaker.

Now, imagine if Obama decides he’s not going to run for reelection. Imagine all the damage that he and Pelosi could do in between January 2011 and November 2012. Scary thought.

If we want to put a stop to the way things are going in Washington now—-while there’s still some money left in our grandkids’ bank accounts—-then we need to take control of the House.

I’m worried that too many of us are accepting GOP control of the House in 2011 as a given. It isn’t.

Thanks, Charlie Cook and Neil Stevens, for waking us all up.

Seems to me that, in order to routinely pass legislation, a ruling majority needs a cushion of seats. It’s not enough to only hold the majority by 1 or 2 seats, because you always have members who defect or miss certain votes.

What size margin should the GOP shoot for? How much of a “buffer” does a party need in order to be effective?

I’m guessing 10 seats at a minimum. Does that sound right? Too high? Too low?

If my math is correct, that means we need to pick up 50 seats in November.

I’m asking this because, I’d like to have a clear idea on exactly what target we all need to hit.

Thoughts?

How can we predict something as abysmal as a Martha Coakley campaign? Who saw that coming 2 months out? Or, Bob Etheridge attacking a student? Or someone pulling a Stupak? You can look at the race now and call it a toss up, but before stupak went back and forth it was viewed as dem lead. And what can you do with an Alvin Greene ? Not that Demint was in any danger anyway, but its like they are not even trying.

We have blunderers on our side, to be sure. Which we need to minimize. But the dems appear to have imploded.

You can’t predict how some of their stupidity will come back to haunt them.
We’ll pick up more. Add an extra 8 Neil just bcause the dems are trying harder to screw up their chances this year.

If we take the House by a decent majority, “blue dog” Dems. who have been lapdogs for Pelosi could find their putative inner conservatism and collaborate with a new majority.

If we get a 50-50 split in the Senate, we can still dominate that body because as the “deliberative chamber,” it is famous for burying Congress’ more egregious errors.

No funding for Obamanatiocare and ilk–even more, Freddie and Fannie that are still poised to bite our finances in the b*tt– could choke those laws at the hyoid bone.

I hope these numbers are low also. I’ve been tracking about 115 races and I also think these predictions are conservative. I look at races like ID-1. Cook gives it a lean Democrat, but when you look at race factors it should at least be toss-up. Internal polls (which are biased) shows R40/D29, the top of the ticket races are even stronger with gov R60/D28 and Senate exactly same (Rasmussen). The district went for McCain over Obama, & Cook gives district an R+18 rating. The Dem incumbent has much more money and did vote no on HC, but the money was short for Labrador because he wasnt expected to win the primary. Minnick is getting Washington money not local, and the DCCC is at least concerned enough about the race that it is devoting resources to the race. This is just one example, but I could give dozens more like this in Cook’s ratings like SD which Cook gives to Dems instead of toss-up even though there are real polls showing race R53/D41 in an R+9 district that went for McCain, where Gov is up 15 points and no Dem even bothered to run for Senate, only 38% approve of HC, 43% approve of Obama and 49% approve of the tea party. If more people approve of the tea party than the president, and polls show the seat flipping, I personally would at least call it a toss up. Anyway, I have greater faith that GOP will pick up more than 20 seats than the models are currently showing. Guess we wont know until Nov though

The tough part is getting new polling info on house races nation wide. Rasmussen reports on the at at large house seats like South Dakota and North Dakota. Both those races show the Republicans ahead in those races, the opposite of the Cook Report.

A state by state map of updated poll numbers would be better than the analysis of some one who values incumbency this year.

Are fundamentally based on models from the last election, voter demographics, polling those demographics, and local polls with a weighted bias toward the incumbent. These predictions are based on political science models that have found these criteria to be indicative of future behavior. They are pretty good indicators if you accept the premise that this mid-term election is like other mid-term elections.
However, is this election cycle like previous election cycles? The Prognosticators didn’t see Massachusetts or New Jersey coming. They also are perplexed by the volatility and negative numbers coming out in polling. So, they rely on the tried and true to the exclusion of differences. They point to Murtha’s district and those special elections in Florida and California as indicators this election isn’t so different. Demographic groups voted per usual and previous election results were not far off, only 10-15%. The problem is they are assuming a general election and a special election are similarly attended and acceptable as rubrics.
Surges in public support are like waves. People begin making up their minds and talking about their responses before general elections more than with special elections. There are serious intangibles to this coming cycle the polisci bean counters cannot measure, therefore they don’t.
They are completely ignoring the negative data about country’s direction, generic ballot, voter engagement, and voter identification. Those metrics have not been particularly helpful in the past. They will weigh heavy on this cycle though.

there’s a prediction for today–then there is a November projection.

Of these 100 or so congressional races that will be key we still lack official nominees in 30 to 40 of them. No NY primary yet but we fairly set in 5/7 key races but look at CT/MA/NH/KS/WA plus numerous other states we have no nominees.

We have got a “primary” bump that often occurs when a party nominee is settled. So if the election held today is even more of a guess then it should be in many crucial congressional seats.

I think its highly possible that the recovery continues in a tepid way–the democrats/liberals becom more disenchanted and that the conservatives/teaparty/republican folks get even more eager to vote for real change.

It couild be very very bad for the Pelosi/Reid/Obama