Looking through Nate Silver’s latest rankings (on the right sidebar of this post), when I look at the races in places I know, I’m not buying 50 turnovers. Pomeroy and Herseth are going to hold on in the Dakotas. Hoffman is still going to split some of the Republican vote in NY-23.
It’s going to be fucking ugly, but if I had to bet, I’d bet Speaker Pelosi by an eyelash. I think the prospect of losing the House will push enough unexcited Democrats to the polls, but that’s just a hunch.
me
Part of me hopes the R’s do win the House so we can see how they react to the potential mortgage re-disaster.
Linda Featheringill
I think that after the election, we will be dirty, bruised, and bleeding, but still standing. And our split and bleeding lips will be smililng.
dmsilev
I tend to agree. There’ll be a lot of blood, but I don’t think it’ll be a 1994-esque GOP sweep.
And if that holds, the fun will really begin roughly 30 seconds after the votes are counted. Between the screams of “voter fraud! ACORN!” and the “we would have won if only we had just run a complete slate of *real* conservatives”, FOX News will be able to save a lot of money by just having someone come on set, look at the camera, and give a long guttural scream for 30 minutes straight.
dms
mellowjohn
and on the plus side, i think a lot of the unseated dems will be deadwood blue dogs anyway.
General Stuck
At least Silver admits the genuinely weird and fairly unique dynamics of this election, despite the surface numbers portending disaster. Anyone, imo, that claims to know for sure what will happen is a partisan hack, a fool, or both.
My official prediction logged on my blog a couple of months ago was for 5 lost senate seats to the wingnuts, and 25 House seats. I’m sticking to that with Elmer’s paper glue.
But nobody mention impeachment because it’s way too serious. Double murder suicides are okay though, ha ha.
sometimes divorce takes a while.
Bob L
@mellowjohn: Yes, not to get into purity tests but a lot of Dems needs to be purged. The thing that sucks is the GoPs are such utter loons you don’t dare trust them not to destroy the country again.
Hawes
I feel the same way. I think New Hampshire pulls some races out, Pennsylvania, too.
But I also feel like I’m setting myself up for a despair filled November 3rd.
I like to assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised, but I seem to be doing the opposite these days…
mistermix
@Hawes: Speaking of NH, the polls in NH-1 are deadly. WTF happened in that race?
arguingwithsignposts
@dmsilev:
If we could get O’Reilly, Beck, and Hannity on stage doing that together, I’d tune in, with lots of popcorn. The Three Wingnut Tenors.
Dennis SGMM
That any Republican candidates, let alone nut jobs like Angle, are polling anywhere near the Dems outside of Dixie suggests to me that predicting the outcome of this election is silly.
jwb
I think Nate’s model for the House will turn out about as well as his model for the British Parliament, which, if you recall, was not very accurate, primarily, I think, because the model can only be as good as the polling that goes into it, and the polling is not designed to measure what he is trying to measure. There are just too many lightly polled districts, which means that he’s having to extrapolate, but his method of doing so at this point seems to be introducing some sort of distortion. In fact, I think, his 50 seats is probably best considered as pegging the upper end of plausible scenarios. Thus it’s not 50 +/- 25, but more like 30 +/- 20, or perhaps even 25 +/- 25.
burnspbesq
I am not happy enough with the Dems to write any checks, but I will dutifully show up on 11/2 because Fiorina and Whitman are both too horrible to contemplate. I suspect that my attitude is commonplace all across the country, and that people who feel as i do will save the Dems’ bacon.
JD Rhoades
@me:
If they do take the House, I’m going to be hammering those Randian teabagger neofascist shitheads on my local paper’s website every day with “so when’s the big turnaround? Huh? Huh? What? You don’t have the Presidency or the Senate? Are you making excuses?” I’ve been hearing that shit every fucking day since election day 2008. I maybe can at least get some fucking payback out of this.
arguingwithsignposts
@General Stuck:
But you repeat yourself, general.
General Stuck
@arguingwithsignposts:
Ha! I do believe you’re correct.
Pancake
LMAO
Dream on. The NYT has a story this week suggesting that Nate’s range of 50 with a plus or minus of 25, should probably be closer to 50 assured pickups with a further upside of as many as 25-35′ the downside from 50 was assessed as nil.
MikeJ
@dmsilev:
I don’t think the right or the media will admit it didn’t happen. If the Democrats fail to pick up 150 seats Fox will be on the air five minutes after the polls close saying this proves Real Americans have refudiated the Kenyan usurper.
The fix is in. We have been told there will be a massive GOP sweep, and no matter what happens at the polls, that is what they will tell us has happened.
General Stuck
@Pancake:
Shorter Pancake – “I want my tanning bed”
arguingwithsignposts
@General Stuck:
Even shorter Pancake: “Bookmark it, libs.”
Kryptik
It’s kinda remarkable how right-wingers have now fallen in love with Nate now that he predicts total gloom and doom for Democrats and no longer seems free to editorialize.
cat48
Well Halperin has informed us that Obama is not performing well enough for “white liberal elites” and they have turned on the president and he will lose at least 60 seats.
Then his “liberal” friend, Ezra said on MJ he thought it would be more like 80 seats.
Then today, a black NYT columnist said he’s not so sure…..
mai naem
I have no idea whats going to happen. I have to wonder at the number of people on this blog who are doing wishful thinking. I personally feel I read too many liberal blogs, talk to liberals etc. so I just don’t feel I am objective. Nate Silver is no Charlie Cook or Larry Sabato so I am a little worried about Nov. My rep is Harry Mitchell who is one of the endangered ones, but who I think will pull it out. His opponent BTW has put “Supports Obamacare” and “Union Owned” signs which are the exact same colors as Mitchell’s signs and higher than Mitchell’s signs so that they fit right above Mitchell’s signs like a perfectly matching pair. It’s really sleazy. I personally want to do the same thing to his opponent and put something like “Corporate Whore” on the sign.
Edmund in Tokyo
@jwb: The problem with Silver’s model of the British parliament wasn’t so much that the polling was wrong – it was that he didn’t know much about the British parliament.
His model for translating votes to seats was a variation on a theme that has been tried over and over for decades, and failed every time. At the end of the day he just didn’t know enough about the subject to model it properly.
When it comes to US politics, on the other hand, I think he knows what he’s doing.
Bella Q
It’s certainly the oddest election in my experience. But I think it’s going to surprise some folks on the right, because many of us here are, by definition, political junkies, so we’ve been paying attention longer than the “average” voter. Many of whom are just now starting to focus on the races.
I was talking to an old friend who’s originally from Pineville KY about the KY Senate race. Her view is that once the regular folks in KY actually take a look at Baby Doc, they are going to think, “that’s kind of a strange boy,” but in no way will they vote for him with the numbers the polls have suggested. Not even the Rs, because his getting on the ballot is an artifact of the intramural split in the KY R party, rather than a reflection of how crazy KY Rs have become. It was an interesting view.
arguingwithsignposts
@mai naem:
I do believe as long as you don’t coordinate with the candidate, you are well within your rights to do so. :)
eemom
I’m no statistician, but Nate Silver’s once endearing brand of geekery totally lost its charm after he sold it to the emmessemm. Nice to know that bean counters can be whores too.
MikeJ
@eemom: I really liked his first album.
eemom
@cat48:
yeah, as someone noted yesterday, Ezra seems to have moved from the “leaning” into the “solid” column on the Concern Troll side of the spectrum. Fuck him, also too.
Kirk Spencer
@mai naem:
First, what Nate is saying is that there are 50 truly competitive races and no real sweet spot for a prediction. Second…
You’re right that Nate’s no Charlie Cook, but go look at what he says his model for the House is.
A big weighting – at one time almost half – was the opinion of Cook and a couple of others. He’s also giving large weight to cash on hand. So we’ve got thumbs on the scale and money at a point where any not used is pretty much wasted. Yeah, wasted — at 2 weeks out the only thing left unspent should be an emergency/opportunity reserve.
I went through Nate’s list, and I discovered that a very large number of the Dems are leading in the recent polls. Not much, usually; just three or four points.
And then I went through Nate’s article on polling, and noticed that something like 20 to 30% of high-D voters are cellphone only, and nobody’s yet solved that equation. You go look at LV models and you see that the pollsters are tweaking based on 50% R and 25% D (exaggerated for effect).
Bottom line is that I think it’s going to be a “Democratic upset”, and Pelosi will keep her seat. Oh, it’ll be close and I could be wrong — I’m not a pro and I don’t get paid, while these other folk are and do. But I’m cautiously optimistic nonetheless.
arguingwithsignposts
@Kirk Spencer:
I assume you mean her position as Speaker? I had no idea her house seat was in jeopardy.
Oscar Leroy
@JD Rhoades:
Or your could hammer your elected representatives to pass laws that will help our country. Your call.
Rhoda
I’ve always felt that at the end of the day we’re likely to keep the house because we’re likely to keep the senate. There’s a lot of angst out there but voters don’t want the Republicans they’re just pissed as fuck over the democrats.
So I think we lose 30 seats in the house and end up with 54 senators and then the mortgage thing blows up (if it doesn’t before Nov. 2) and we’ve got another crisis to face before the New Year.
My big thing is: (1) the tax issue for these 501(c)4 were apparently they may have to pay a gift tax since they’re not disclosing their donors and (2) the fallout of the money spent and the Democrats hanging on. Does the business community double down; or write obscene checks to turn the Democrats into whores? (I’m going for the later scenario.)
The Democrats have always had a path to win and it’s always been about turnout: getting black, latino and young voters to the polls was their backstop. I read somewhere that 20 house races and several senate and governors races could be saved just by a strong black vote. The Republicans know this; hence the backup voter suppression games they’ve got prepared.
Will
I hate to say it, but I don’t see much upside to the Dems holding on to both Houses. They’ll be diminished, and with a majority in name only. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING will move through either body, yet the American Public will be constantly reminded that the Democrats “have a majority” for the next 2 years. That’s 2 years for the media to gang up on Obama for “not accomplishing anything”, 2 years of easily constructed filibusters, 2 years of Blue Dog betrayal, etc. And not once will the Dems be able to point to the GOP and convincingly blame them for any of it. As true as it is, the “don’t you get it–they’re filibustering!” argument is an almost impossible argument to lead with.
Ideally, the Dems need to lose one House to have a bogeyman to point to.
Sly
If Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown can join forces, anything is possible.
General Stuck
The reason I am sticking to my earlier prediction is because despite the likely voter preference on the repub side, the internals of these polls still show voters trust dems over wingers to fix our problems.
JGabriel
mistermix:
I’m hoping that the prospect of any branch of gov’t going back to the same idiots who crashed the economy in the first place will push Dems to the polls.
.
JGabriel
@Pancake:
Right.
I’ll take Nate’s analysis over the unknown author of your unlinked and possibly non-existent NYT story.
.
Eric Lindholm
Sheer fantasy: The Real Clear Politics projection says that the GOP needs to win only six of 39 toss-ups to win the House. I’m guessing they’ll win 30.
Linda Featheringill
@mai naem:
Yes. Sometimes I wonder if I have succumbed to wishful thinking. Still . . .
The complete and total agreement in the MSM that the Republicans will stage the Greatest Comeback Since The Children Of Israel Crossed The Red Sea feels like propaganda. Honest news reporting and honest analysis would show more divergence of facts and/or opinions.
The really huge sums of money that the fatcats are pouring into the election must be a reaction to something. Would they be spending that much cash if they had a sure thing?
The “wellmeaning advice” that known Republican are giving the Democrats and especially the President sounds to like they are protecting something. If there was no threat, why bother to put up protection?
Keep on keeping on.
arguingwithsignposts
@Eric Lindholm:
Whew, guess we’re lucky there’s only one poll that fucking counts.
Some days I swear I hate pollsters with the heat of a thousand suns. They are a direct contributor to the masturbatory horse race shit that passes for political journalism at this time of year.
ETA: and I include Nate Silver in that as well.
Kirk Spencer
@arguingwithsignposts: If the R’s take the majority, an R (probably Boehner) will almost certainly get the gavel.
At the beginning of each session, the Clerk of the previous session oversees the election of the new speaker. The democratic and republican caucus leaders are asked for their nominees, then a voice roll call vote is conducted. If the Republicans have the majority, then unless a number vote for the ‘other side’ the Republican will get the seat.
[edited to add] Gah. OK, just reread your question and yes, I meant office of speaker and not actual house seat. mea culpa.
arguingwithsignposts
@Kirk Spencer:
That’s what I thought. But usually, when people are referring to “seats” they’re talking about the actual House seat the person is serving in (IL-15 or whatever). That’s what got me confused.
ETA: thanks for the clarification. :)
General Stuck
@arguingwithsignposts:
The wingnuts put me in mind of folks giddy about leading a race for president of their local cellblock. No platform other than fewer prison guards.
edit – and of course tax cuts
joe from Lowell
This is starting to look like an Obama/Hillary primary, with the Democrats as Obama.
Hillary started out way ahead two months before the election, and then Obama began to close, and the only question was how much ground he would make up over the remaining time.
Mnemosyne
@Eric Lindholm:
I’m confused by your numbers, because the Republicans are currently 40 seats away from holding a 1-seat majority. That means that, in order to win the House, they have to hold onto every single seat they have right now plus win 40 additional seats.
If they win 30 seats, they’ll come up 10 seats short of a majority.
uloborus
@burnspbesq:
That is why I think the polls are deceptive. Wingnut loons overreport their enthusiasm. Dems underreport. Argue we might, but when Nov 2 comes we will be in the polls trying to stop the Tea Bag nightmare.
Donut
@ Will – agreed. The thought has occurred to me recently that our current preznit is also shrewd, calculating and bright enough to almost prefer this outcome, or at least not be bothered by it terribly. Obama’s chances of re-election increase with an R-controlled House, imo. Having a Republican House to run against in 2012 is hardly the worst thing that could happen to the man.
Plus, whoever said upthread that seeing what the Republicans will have to do as the foreclosure mess continues to grow into a black hole will be highly entertaining. It’s not hard to imagine that Wall St. and the too big banks will be holding out their hands for another bailout pretty soon. Those newly minted members who got all those bought and paid for ads are going to have a hard time saying no to their new overlords. Even the massive cognitive dissonance of the average ‘bagger will (finally) be punctured by this turn of events, should it come to pass.
Linda Featheringill
@eemom:
I think that Nate has gone over to the Dark Side.
I sent him an email a while back, asking whether him whether the NYT had compromising photos of him or something. He didn’t answer.
Eric Lindholm
The RCP projection has already put certain races into the “pickup” category and others into the “tossup”. They’re already projecting 212 seats for the GOP and 39 seats are too close to make a call. So the Republicans need six of those tossups.
Also, given the enthusiasm gap, it’s insane to think the over/under will trend under 50 seats. What happened to the Reality-based Community?
General Stuck
@Eric Lindholm:
The thing about the enthusiasm gap is that votes for the enthused count the same and those unenthused. And it’s only two years since you geniuses fucked everything up.
But you may end up being right. Then what?
morzer
I suspect a net gain of 35 House seats and 5 Senate seats for the “foam at the mouth for Jeebus” party. Not pleasant, although the castration of the Blue Dogs would have its enjoyable side. Still, I think the GOP have blown their shot at the Senate by picking jackass candidates, and people forget that we have a solid chance at winning back some House seats – Joseph Cao and Charles Djou look like good candidates for oblivion, and Ann McLane Kuster seems promising in NH-02.
joe from Lowell
Early voting numbers don’t seem to support this theory.
Are Democrats letting out a melancholy sigh when putting the stamp on their mail-in ballots? Who cares?
morzer
@Eric Lindholm:
You haven’t noticed that RCP leans rather obviously to the right?
Joey Maloney
@JGabriel:
This is one of the things that bother me. A substantial number of people out there actually, seriously believe that the Dems crashed the economy. I just read some nimrod in my FB feed argue in all seriousness that the “spending spree” started in 2006 when the Dems took back Congress.
You can’t argue with a RDF that powerful.
My guess is, in an honest count, the Dems pull out a bunch of races by an eyelash. My fear is there won’t be an honest count. What happened to all the agitation against no-paper-trail electronic voting machines?
Will
@Donut:
Exactly.
hal
Wasn’t there an enthusiam gap in Kentucky, where more Dems showed up to vote in the primaries for Attorney General than Repubs who showed up to vote in the Senate Primary that got all the coverage?
I’m hoping that Dems keep both houses for obvious reasons of sanity and lack of love for Armageddon, but also because I think the MSM needs it’s teeth kicked in for cowtowing to Conservatives just to appear fair and balanced.
Linda Featheringill
@hal:
Heh. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? The idea fills me with such sweet fantasies.
Comrade Javamanphil
No he’s not. He pulled out of the race and now Owens (the democrat) is running right as fast as he can with an ad toting he voted with Boehner 63% of the time.
jaleh
I am not enthusiastic about Michael Bennett in CO. But I am volunteering for him to get the Dems out. I hope many others who are not enthusiastic do the same.
I have talked to a couple of right wingers on the phone. One was a liar (he was a day trader at the same time that had a couple of job openings?! ). The other one didn’t like anyone and thought the whole economy was going bust and was not sure who he was going to vote for. The Dems I talk to are not very excited but they will vote for Bennett since Buck scares the hell out of them.
joe from Lowell
Hoffman’s name is still on the ballot, though, so there will still be some % that vote for him, and it won’t be Democrats or Dem-leaning independents who do so.
mistermix
@Comrade Javamanphil: He pulled out but he’s still on the ballot, and the last poll I saw still had some Hoffman voters on it. He just needs to pull a few points.
Mark
@Edmund in Tokyo: Nate spends a lot of time figuring out which pollsters are accurate and building models that are way too complex. Unfortunately, if you ignore all this and just average five polls, you get the same results.
Nate’s brilliance, from my perspective, was using a Monte Carlo model for the presidential race. Everything else is just him overfitting his model.
GregB
I still think there is a lot of hinkiness going on with the polls and that it won’t be a wipeout.
There are also a few R’s in jeopardy. Cao in Louisiana is toast and Djou in Hawaii will lose. The Dem’s are going to pick up California’s governorship as well as RI. Vermont may go back to the Dems as will Florida.
Murray will hold Washington. Alaska may be a toss-up. The Senate seat in Delware is a Dem strong hold and that was one of the big seats in the predictions early on. Plus the Dems pick up Castle’s old seat.
A lot of the Dem Gov losses will be in the reddest of red states. No surprise there.
I also predict the GOP will hold Judd Gregg’s old seat and NH will see a historical all female Congressional delegation as the two female Dem’s hold the two congressional seats.
I’ll second the 5/25 pick-up prediction.
Nick
@jaleh:
I don’t why liberals need to be like girls outside a Jonas Brothers concert when they go to vote. I’ve never been excited about anybody I’ve ever voted for. I’ve just voted for the person I think can do the best job, and help make the most progress on issues I care about.
I mean if you’re looking to be brought to orgasm by your candidates, you’re always going to be mighty disappointed when they’re elected. They’re just politicians looking to represent a public where everyone else thinks different than you.
Wile E. Quixote
@General Stuck:
Stuck, how does someone as stupid as you are stay alive? How do you even keep breathing? Mentioning impeachment isn’t too serious, jacking off over possible scenarios with what can best be described as sick, morbid and almost anticipatory glee, which is what you and everyone else was doing, isn’t any sort of serious discussion, or black or gallows humor, it’s just seriously fucked up. You sounded like a bunch of teabaggers eagerly awaiting the day that that uppity soⅽⅰaⅠⅰst, Kenyan, Muslim finally gets whats coming to him. If you want to masturbate on the internet then go over to Chatroulette.
Here’s my question, and it’s hypothetical and probably just a fantasy (although not a sick and fucked up one like masturbating over various impeachment scenarios). What if the Democrats keep the House and gain seats in the Senate? What if the clusterfuck in Alaska results in Scott McAdams winning Lisa Murkowski’s seat, Rand Paul loses in Kentucky, Boxer and Murray keep their seats in Washington and California and the Blue Dogs narrowly survive? What’s the media narrative then? What if the Republican triumphalism the media has been harping on since the first day of the Obama administration turns out to be as empty as Nikita Kruschev’s shoe banging or the Thousand Year Reich?
I know that it’s too much to hope for a Dewey Defeats Truman moment here but that scenario is appealing to me because not only would the teabaggers lose, and thus some vestige of sanity would be preserved in America, but also because I want to see the mediocracy in this country being forced to eat it’s own shit. It’s not that I think that the experience would improve them in any way, that it would cause them to examine their behavior, mend their ways and stop treating every single issue as if it were a horse race while giving a free pass to conservatards. That’s sort of thing only happens in A Christmas Carol, real life doesn’t work that way. No, I want to see the mediocracy suffer and I want more people to realize that Fox, CNN and for the most part MSNBC, as well as the NYT and the Kaplan Times, are every bit as full of lies and nonsense as wereVölkischer Beobachter, Pravda or Baghdad Bob were.
I have no doubt that Broder, BoBo and Chunky BoBo already have columns prepared proving that a Democratic victory in the 2010 midterms just proved that America is a center-right nation and that President Obama is overreaching, or that they could produce such columns at the drop of a hat. The Ministry of Information is nothing if not efficient at quickly spinning away inconvenient facts. I don’t care about them. I just want to see the mediocracy revealed as the farce that it is and see the percentage of people who listen to them be pushed down to the crazy twenty-seven percenters. Maybe then it will be small enough that it could be drowned in a bathtub.
OK, enough ranting. I have to get my fat ass to the gym.
Alice Blue
I agree that there are some hinky pollls around. My WTF moment came when I read about a CNN poll showing Angle in the lead that did not include any respondents under 35.
My experience as a poll worker is that Republicans are always rarin’ to vote about anything and they ALWAYS think they’re going to kick butt.
General Stuck
@Wile E. Quixote:
I see the meth hasn’t worn off yet, but since you’ve designated yourself my personal insane troll, at least while Mclaren is off the grid, why don’t you get Cole to chronicle your greatest hits of wishing death and disease and dismemberment to those you don’t approve of, and explain to us all why musing on the non violent political act of impeachment bunches up your panties so. That ought to be a hoot.
You stole that from corner stone, not very sporting of you june bug. Nor original. And it is Saturday Night, so treat yourself to some small animals to torture you crazy motherfucking sumbitch. It’ll make you feel better.
You are now my #1 Huckleberry.
General Stuck
I often pray to earth mother for a cure to Balloon Juice. So far nothin”, but tomorrow is another day.
General Stuck
And a further note. Those who have and still do laugh at the sorry jokes of this violent minded piece of shit, condone it, own it, and perpetuate it. A spoof gets banned for spoofing, and the fantasies of this budding serial killer get broadcasted all day every day. Some kind of blog.