Two weeks ago, I thought a dozen House seats shifting from left to right (and sometimes) back again was a lot to cover. Me and my big mouth — this week we’ve got 22 races.
First, the Real Clear Politics chart I take my numbers from. RCP’s poll averaging is a great tool for sifting out bad numbers and freaky outliers. And here’s how it looks today.
With the election one month away, the center of the chart, the Toss Up races, should be emptying out to the left and the right, as candidates from both sides firm up their support. Instead, the center fills as the left empties — and the right clambers, with mixed results, to take advantage.
When I started this project back in April, the Democrats had a lock on about 160 or so seats. In addition, there were 35 Likely Democratic seats, including two pickups in Delaware and Louisiana. Today, Dems have a lock on only 139 seats, plus 18 Likelies — and not a single pickup in the bunch.
Toss Up races have swelled to 38 from a summer low of 26. All but one are currently held by Democrats.
Back in April, the GOP looked set to gain 18 seats and lose two for a net of 16. As of this morning, Republicans can count on netting 30. The magic number to take back the House is 40. Of those 38 toss-up races, the GOP needs to net ten.
Those are the raw numbers. Or, you can read Bob Shrum for some wishful thinking, number-free, on just how the Democrats will keep the House. Your call. But please note that Shrum’s strategy is, and I quote, “It’s Rove time for Democrats. Rally the base—and save the Congress.”
That worked for Rove in 2002, with a wartime President leading a still-popular war. How’d Rove do in the subsequent elections, Bob?
Derp, derp, derp.
OK, let’s look at where the motion is, and which way it’s going.
Lay off the vodka until 11/3/10. Your analysis is as they say in Poaland, guwna.
I used numbers. You used… a Polish swear word?
Numbas shmumbas. Ya gotta have hoit! Lotz and lotz of HOIT!
Points for novelty?
The word you want is “gówno”, nitwit.
Dude, he couldn’t even spell “Poland.”
Stephen Green,
From your lips to God’s ears.
We hope the devastation will be far worse than your numbers for the Dhimmiecrats. I’m hoping the American public will rise up in a vast magnitude and throw all the bums out,,, with Ms. Nancy Pelosi leading the march out of Washington. Make her ride the Greyhound bus back to California, leaving the Air Force jets at home. That woman makes me sick.
Well, then it’s a good thing she “gave” you a health care bill to take care of you. It’s the least she could do, you know.
Ya know,,, I’ve been buying my health care insurance for 40 years, since I was old enough to work for a living,,, all by myself. Nancy and Obama be damned.
Steve:
How about a drunkblogging LIVE BROADCAST on video come election day. Watching you get sloshed and laughing while the Dems burn would be a treat to have up on a monitor. I’ll have you right beside the boob tube with MSNBC’s coverage performed over the curiously indirect yet pervasive background noise of the suicide prevention hotline’s hold music.
Be sure to detail in advance what you’ll be drinking so everyone at home can join the fun. Please give us a shopping list a couple of days in advance (where I live, it is illegal to sell booze on election day. Really.)
Seconded.
I’ll even buy Steve one of the bottles and hand-deliver it to make sure the show is not only hilarious but in exceptionally good taste.
All in favor? “AYE!!!”
The “Aye”s have it. The motion is accepted. I’d pay to see this!
Fabulous breakdown, Steve. It’s looking like ’94 all over again, eh?
Clarification: that’s ‘watching Stephen Green get sloshed and watching Stephen Green laughing at the dems’
NOT ‘laughing at a sloshed Stephen Green’
Sorry for the ambiguous wordage. Everyone knows drunkblogging is a laugh (or cry) *with* never laugh *at* affair.
Thank you for your continuous snark, as it’s wonderful to see a talking head actually say what the rest of us would say, were we quick enough.
I concur. I always break out the good Scotch on election nights – a House race is for 2 years, but it took 18 years to make my beverage. 19 or 20 if you count the growing and distilling before the maturation process. It’s good perspective.
And mighty tasty perspective, too.
Steve, if you do the “drunkvlogging” on November 2nd, I’ll see if I can’t drive up to CO to bring you some of the 18 year myself. Or I’ll at least drink a toast for you.
One thing you might consider is that some seats are considered safe Democrat only because there is no public polling done on them. If you’re interested in a real-world example, Pete Visclosky’s unusually vulnerable because of the PMA scandal but his IN-1 seat is considered so heavily Democrat that nobody who does public polls has bothered. It’s something of a perfect storm because the most populous county in IN-1, has a county-wide race whose Democrat nominee is possibly both a felon and not a resident of Indiana (she was caught claiming residency in Michigan to get out of paying taxes) and the Democrat vote is likely to be unusually depressed.
Got my first pro Rich Iott anti Marcy Kaptur ad today OH9. Paid for by the Ohio Republican Party. She’ll still probably win, but at least this will be competitive.
Please tell me how anyone could vote Democrat after what the economy has done since the Democrats took over in January 2007?
Many people that vote Dem just want their welfare checks to be increased and arrive on time. They don’t really care where the money comes from, or who has to produce it, as long as they are the takers and not the makers. To paraphrase our illustrious President, they are “Typical Democrats”.
@#6 Paul – easy…blame anything bad on Bush and believe Obama when he says things are better than they could have been had Dem’s not been in control. Isn’t it great to be able to make up your own reality? That goes right along with quantifying “jobs saved.”
VP, in VA-5 we have no clue. It’s a toss-up. I volunteer for Robert Hurt during my lunch hours at his HQ here and no one has a clue. There have been no polls worth a damn. There have been SurveyUSA polls showing Hurt up by 23% and Dem polls showing Perriello down by a couple points. No one here believes them. In fact, I can’t even say toss-up. No one has a clue.
If anyone would please send a couple of bucks Hurt’s way or volunteer for Hurt, please do. We need to get rid of Perriello. Hurt is a mild-mannered gentleman and a state senator, and he understands that the budget needs to be cut. Perriello is Nancy Pelosi.
I find it somewhat annoying that RCP isn’t bothering to report on NJ6, where Anna Little has been closing the gap on Dem-incumbant-lifer-poster-child Frank Pallone. I’d love to know where it stands right now.
I would also like to see a poll on the TX 27th. Solomon Ortiz (D) has been an institution in that district for 27 years, it’s way past time to retire him. I wonder if Blake Farenthold has a chance to win that seat for the Republicans. Nahhhh, the district is 85-90% Hispanic and they won’t turn out one of their own for a white man. Of course, some might see a hint of racism there, but we are supposed to turn a blind eye when they do it.
I’d watch AZ7.
It’s on no one’s radar (yet) but Ruth McClung is within 7 points of Raul Grijalva. If she could get a little exposure, (hint, hint) she might just unseat the House Progressive Caucus co-chair. She may anyway. Voters in this district are still pretty upset at his little “boycott my state” stunt. Then he votes to adjourn the House instead of extending the tax cuts…he’s in trouble folks.
Word is, he’s doing fundraisers in SoCal because his base here is apathetic and uninterested in supporting him this year.
Your table is a pleasure to look at.
I’m not just saying that because I’m a conservative.
Its a beautiful use of the stem-and-leaf design.
Edward Tufte would be proud.
Regardless of what Shrum says, I don’t think his plea for “turning out the base” was to save the House (which anyone with a brain can see is gone) but the Senate, where the GOP look to make spectacular gains but fall about one or two seats short of taking control. Keeping the Senate has the advantage of Dems keeping control of the Judicial confirmation hearings, and even now, when they control both Congress and the White House, liberals get most of their work done in the courts, where judges unafraid of elections are free to ignore laws and make rulings on their own whims. I hope the next Congress has more backbone about opposing activist judges than this one showed against Kagan. If anyone begged to be philibustered it was her.