Just because it annoys some of you so much, I’m going to ask everyone who wants to participate for their predictions of who wins the Republican nomination, general election, control of the House, and control of the Senate this fall. And by how much.
I’ll go first:
Romney wins the nomination. In mid-April or so, the thing is over, maybe officially, maybe not, but effectively over.
Obama beats Romney 49.8–47.4, with third-parites of some kind getting the remaining 2.8%. We hear a lot about how Obama didn’t get a majority blah blah blah. No mandate blah blah blah.
Republicans take the Senate by one seat.
Democrats gain in the House but Republicans continue to hold about five seat edge.
Your turn.
Another Steve
Christ, don’t we get enough “doing stuff just because it annoys you so much” shit from conservatives without having to deal with it here?
c u n d gulag
In a saner country, Obama and the Democrats would win in epic landslides.
But with all of the crazies out there, the stupid and ignorant independents, and a lazy, complicit, and compliant, MSM, I don’t have a clue as to f*ck-all will happen.
Benjamin Franklin
More offal for the Circus Maximus? Or is it a giant turkey leg from Renaissance Faire?
Waldo
Can’t argue with any of Doug’s predictions, so I’ll add one more: our government will do nothing — or nothing good — for 2 more years.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
I predict Madonna will make a stunning comeback, and John Boehner passes out in the tanning booth and cooks his own goose.
Cargo
Bookmark this, libs:
Romney wins the nomination by April or May, but barely. After it looks like Santorum’s going to win, Newt drops out and throws his delegates to Mitt, putting him over the top. Ron Paul throws to the Libertarians.
The media does not want Obama to walk away with this, so yes, it’s a close election, as the Village pumps up Mitt and rips Obama for everything he does. Mitt gets a major bump around the convention when he picks Rubio or Christie or some other Village favorite for veep.
But an improving economy and a general apathy among Republicans puts Obama over the top, by 1996-like margins. Obama gets 330+ ev, Mitt gets 200-ish. “not a mandate”, etc. Coattails are short, but Dems pull out a slim House majority and keep a majority in the senate, but not 60 seats, which means filibuster-fest continues.
Americans Select, the Libertarians, and the Greens collectively score a higher percentage than any third parties to date, maybe something like 10%.
And the Great Conservative Freakout will continue. You will wonder how the hell I was able to call this, libs.
Linda Featheringill
“Irritate thy neighbor” should be a commandment if it isn’t already. :-)
But predictions:
I don’t know who the Republican will be, so I’ll ignore that question.
A 2 percentage point win in the popular vote for Obama sounds about right if we work at it. The electoral college may end up with a really big win for the Dems.
Senate? The Dems will probably end up with more than 50 but less than 60 senators.
The house? Oh, Lordy. Dunno. We need to turn over 25 representatives. I think I’ll be optimistic and say that the Dems win a tiny majority of the seats, and then have to fight/negotiate like hell for two years in order to get anything done.
And if it turns out better than I predicted, I will cheerfully submit to public shaming.
Brian R.
Romney wins the nomination.
Obama beats Romney 53-46 in the popular vote, but with an even wider margin in the electoral college.
Democrats lose a little ground in the Senate, but still have a bare minimum of control in a 52-48 edge. They gain ground in the House but fall just short of taking it back.
Shawn in ShowMe
I’ve posted this before but since Doug asked so nicely …
In my state, McCaskill will have to face the winner of the Todd Akin/Sarah Steelman/John Brunner battle, with Akin and Steelman being particularly wingnutty. McCaskill is basically seen as a surrogate for Obama. If unemployment continues trending downward, that helps Claire. We have a very good idea how St. Louis and Kansas City will vote (solid blue) and small-town Missouri will vote (solid red).
Claire’s key contribution will be repackaging the class war meme in a manner acceptable to the big towns like Joplin and Sikeston. If she can do that, she will retain the seat. Considering how the GOP collectively folded their arms when Obama’s FEMA raced to Joplin’s aid, she has a compelling story to tell.
Redistricting effectively eradicates the former 3rd district, which was in Democratic hands, and splits it between districts which each party controls. So we come out a loser there. However I think we have a shot at taking Todd Akin’s District 2 seat, since he’s not running for re-election.
feebog
Obama wins in a landslide, 55 to 45 and it does not matter if the nominee is Man on Dog, Dog on Car or Horndog. Demcracts do not lose the Senate. We pick up seats in MA and NV, lose in NE and ND. Tester and McCaskill eak out wins in MT and MO and the numbers in the Senate remain the same. Dems pick up 32 seats in the House and retake the majority, with far fewer Blue Dogs to worry about.
The Dangerman
Romney wins nomination.
Obama wins re-election. As for how close it is, there are far too many variables to even hazard a guess. $5 gas? (Easy: Yes) Does Israel do Iran? (Also easy: No). Is there a domestic terror incident of consequence (not perpetrated by the Young Republicans)? Right now, Obama gets >50%.
House flips back (welcome again, Speaker Pelosi) and Senate flips to Republicans. Filibuster stays in place. Nothing happens for 2 years.
Schlemizel
I’m just not sure, I think you have the White House almost right except I don’t think either Obama or Willard get quite that many votes & the third party gets closer to Perot numbers (10%) thanks to those people c u n d gulag accurately describes in his comment. I think the Dems hold the Senate (just barely) and pick up almost enough in the House.
This is followed by 2 years of wild thrashing as we sink below the waves for the third time.
But on my bad nights I can easily make the case that Americans Select and the MSM pick a real winner and Willard wins a small popularity (we will see some glorious maps showing how much more of the country voted for Willard than Obama as if a 100 square miles of cactus and coyotes is the same as 1 square mile of Brooklyn). The GOP does take the Senate making the slight gain in the House by Dems inconsequential.
This will be followed by 2 years of the country being held under water until it stops struggling.
So, slow death or fast death, thats why I am Mr. Optimism.
Choicelady
@Waldo: In fact for the last three years huge amounts of good have been done. Failure to know that (and there are easy ways to find out) is part of why the election remains tenuous. Anyone who expected this president to transform the past 36 years overnight is as deluded as the rightwing. Even up against one of the most dysfunctional RW House populations, Obama and the Senate have held the line on critical social programs, cut military spending, moved away from our cold war imperialism, and restored civil liberties. Failure to know THAT is also unforgiveable. If we lose the Senate, it will be very difficult, but the drumbeat of support for working families will continue from the White House, and moves such as the extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment will become normative. If you don’t think THAT is an accomplishment, then you do not understand the enormity of it all to working people.
Brian R.
@Cargo:
Check your math there. Lots of third-party candidates have pulled in more than 10%.
George Wallace got 13.5% in 1968, Bob LaFollette got 16.6% in 1924, Ross Perot got 18.9% in 1996.
And technically, Teddy Roosevelt was a third-party candidate in 1912 and pulled in 27%. He finished second, but the third place finish by Taft was 23%.
Mark S.
What, no one’s predicting Americans Elect winning this thing? Tommy said take it to the bank.
Bruce S
Huge Asshole wins this thing….
WTF
Such a silly pessimist you are. I think you missed your calling as a neurotic campaign strategist, DougJ.
The President will double up or more his 2008 performance in the nationwide popular vote, as well as expand the electoral map in ways never seen before, upending the new national south.
He beats Romney 57-42 in an election that resembles the demolishings of Dukakis and Dole in years past, while not quite rising to the 60-40 beatdowns of guys like Goldwater and Mondale and McGovern (he does that if Santorum is the nominee, which is a distinct possibility I’ll grant). Obama wins AZ, MO, GA, and MT, in addition to his 08 states, and competes damn hard in MS, TX, and the Dakotas. 400+ EC votes.
The House flips Democratic (the GOP voted to end Medicare!) and at best, the GOP picks up a single seat in the senate because of the Conrad and Nelson retirements. The Democrats win seats in MA and AZ, and Kaine wins in Virginia as well. No matter what, the democratic membership in the senate will be the most liberal we’ve ever seen.
It’s gonna be a great, great year. Unless Iran and Israel and Syria go and fuck it all up for everybody. Stay vigilant.
Cranky Observer
Ah, who is the third party candidate going to be and where is he(/she) going to get the money?
Cranky
Patrick
Romney 272 Obama 266. Republicans hold the House, Democrats barely hold the Senate.
Romney plays the “Liberal Senate” game and folding like the cheap suit of cards they are, Harry Reid comes to an “accommodation” with the President not to use the filibuster.
Neil
Does anyone have a list of what republicans are registered in what states? I’m curious if Santorum is on all the remaining ballots and if not, if he’s got enough chances to get enough delegates to win…
Punchy
Republicans sweep b/c the voter ID reqs are so ridiculously insane that only 27 people nationwide qualify to vote.
Mark B
@Cargo: I can go along with a lot of this prediction, except for the part about the greens and other minor parties. They aren’t going to poll above 3% because they have no organization and a lot of their base is so disaffected that they aren’t going to register or vote.
Many of the people who could be possible targets for the greenies will end up voting for Obama since they logically realize that a Republican win will be more harmful to the country relative to the minor good they can do by getting the green candidate more votes than Lyndon Larouche.
And BTW, what is the dessicated corpse of Lenny Kravitz doing at the race? This is a pretty lifeless performance. I mean, he’s still cashing checks, but this is lame.
Brian R.
@Brian R.:
Sorry, that Perot 18.9% was ’92.
Spaghetti Lee
I’ll be optimistic. Romney is the nominee. Obama beats him something like 56/57-44/43. Romney’s high unfavorable ratings across the country do him in, and his singular unpopularity in the south helps Obama there, flipping a few minority-heavy southern states like Texas and Georgia. The Dems keep the senate, losing seats in NE and ND but gaining them in MA and NV. The house flips back, Dems gaining about 30 seats, especially in areas like New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The Republican party continues to thrash wildly, boot out supposed traitors, and tack further and further to the right.
That’s about the ceiling for how optimistic I can get. Pessimistic? Well, it’s a long, long way down if circumstances conspire that way.
RosiesDad
@Waldo: Our government will do nothing or nothing good for 4 more years.
BBA
The election doesn’t matter, because Mitch McConnell will still be in charge of everything.
Marc
Let’s all work like hell between now and November to make sure these more optimistic predictions come to pass.
gogol's wife
@Choicelady:
Good comment. People who don’t pay attention to all the “little” (not really so little) good things that have been done since 2009, and don’t have the imagination to see all the “little” (not so little) bad things that will be done with a Republican president really don’t deserve to be listened to.
Spaghetti Lee
Also, third parties don’t make an appreciable difference. I tend to think that a thirds party emerging and sweeping the independent vote is a very Friedmanian fantasy that never comes true. Anyone who leans conservative will smell blood in the waer and unite to beat Obama, and liberals will respond in kind.
RosiesDad
@Choicelady: Congress still commands a well-deserved 10% approval rating.
Not to minimize the good Obama has done on a few things (some big and some around the edges), considering some of the HUGE problems we face, the government has generally done little to provide long term solutions. And there is little cause for optimism that this will change in the next 4 years.
Joel
Obama 50-Romney 47-Paul 1
Senate even split
House, Democrats pick up 4 seats.
RosiesDad
@BBA: Sadly true.
patrick II
Adam Winkler at the Daily Beast thinks that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will be the Republican nominee in a brokered convention. Mr Winkler believes that Judge Thomas has “qualities that recommend him to a broad spectrum of voters”.
He goes on to name a few, but I think the real three reasons are 1. See how open minded we are — we can talk about nominating a black guy. 2. Barrack Obama won because of the enormous advantages of being a black candidate, so in the spirit of Michael Steele and Herman Caine, we are going to get our own black guy to exploit that advantage, and 3. Winkler had eight inches of column space to fill and no intelligent way to fill it.
Anyhow, while not my prediction, it is my fondest wish that the Winkler theory works out.
gogol's wife
@RosiesDad:
Sorry, but you are minimizing the good things Obama has done. As well as the enormous difference between him and any possible Republican opponent. I really wish I could say that the left blogosphere deserves what will happen to this country under Romney, but I DON’T DESERVE IT!
MattF
I think there’s a real possibility that Mitt will crash and burn. The recent business of Romney giving a crappy speech to an empty stadium is building up to “If he’s such a great executive, why can’t he find competent people to run his campaign?”– and this will be contrasted with what Obama achieved in ’08. But if this happens, all bets are off.
On the conventional wisdom side, I’m a little more optimistic than Dougj. I agree that Dems will probably lose the Senate, but I think the gender gap will lead to a couple of vote Dem majority in the House. And I think that Obama will win the EV relatively easily with a 50.00001 percent majority of the national electoral vote.
Jay in Oregon
@Punchy:
Oh, it won’t be that bad. All you have to do is present your articles of incorporation at the polling place.
Benjamin Franklin
@RosiesDad:
It’s been my hope that Obama has been waiting, kinda like Lincoln, for a second term before he heats up the stove on the white-collar and war criminals whose scofflawing continues unabated.
RossInDetroit
Prediction:
ACORN stabs America in the back and steals all sorts national, state and local races for evil Democrats. Beleaguered and hard pressed Republicans do the adult thing and settle for hanging on to the House by the skin of their teeth. They vow to roll up their sleeves, fight tirelessly against tyranny, playing fair at all times, and work to restore the Christian GOP to its rightful place permanently in charge of America as God intended it.
gwangung
I would take them more seriously if they could manage a widespread ground game and an ability to ELECT candidates locally.
Brian R.
@Choicelady:
Agreed.
I mean, honestly, what good has Obama accomplished in the last four years, aside from achieving a century-old liberal dream of health care, securing a massive stimulus package, saving the auto industry, working out major reforms of Wall Street and the credit card inustry, ending DADT, securing equal pay for women, ending the war in Iraq, drawing down troop levels in Afghanistan, and putting a fucking bullet in Bin Laden’s skull? Nothing, right? He’s done nothing.
Seriously, you people who insist government can’t do anything might as well write the Koch Brothers to ask for your check. You’re spreading the Republican message beautifully, so you might as well get paid for it.
quannlace
Which will include all the latest ‘theories’ as to why Obama got re-elected. White guilt, voter fraud, ACORN!, hypnosis, secret Muslim conspiracy, liberals are dumb/crazy/hate America, further proof of downfall of the country, let the war on religion begin!
Alex S.
Surprisingly pessimistic predictions…. Romney gets the nomination by winning California. He can’t recover from the primary and Obama beats him 54-45. Dems hold the Senate but lose a seat. Big Obama coattails in the House, but I’m not sure if its enough, it will be close.
Joseph Nobles
The best I can do is predict the GOP ticket (Romney/Rand Paul) and an Obama victory. If you held me down, I’d say the Democrats lose the Senate.
Nylund
Romney will win the nomination. MSM praises Mitt, declares GOP “sane” for not nominating a crazy person and goes back to pretending that the Republicans aren’t a bunch of Christianist loons. After months of praise from the WSJ, David Brooks, etc. The electorate starts to forget why they once hated Mitt so much. Lil’ Tommy Friedman probably drops his American’s Elect fantasies and decides that Romney is the centrist he wet dreams of.
GOP turnout ends up a bit weak, but when push comes to shove, more than expected will turn up just to vote against Obama. Moderates and independents lean slightly towards Mitt, and the firebaggers dampen enthusiasm for Obama. A slew of recent Voter ID laws hurt Democrats. It’ll come down to a few key states. Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc. Mitt just squeaks it out.
House: GOP maintains control, but loses some seats.
Senate: GOP gains seats. This just isn’t a good map for Dems. Missouri, Nebraska, Montana, etc. might go from blue to red. No obvious candidates for states to go from red to blue. It’ll end up pretty darn close to a 50/50 split. GOP might just get up to 51 or 52 if Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota turn red and Scott Brown holds on to MA.
In the end, the GOP ends up with the White House, the Senate, and the House, but just barely in all three cases. America wakes up feeling like many liberals did in 2004 wondering, “How the heck could it possibly have turned out like this?”
Half the GOP will be crazy, the rest, a bit nervous about the responsibility of power. Half will push to end gay marriage, ban contraception, abortion, etc. The other half will drag their feet, scared of public reaction. This will lead to some GOP infighting, talk of RINOs etc. Things they will all agree on: tax cuts for the rich, cutting entitlements, deregulation, esp. the EPA, etc.
End result: massive deficits (which the GOP and the media will suddenly not care about), and even more power to the companies that want to poison your water, take your pension, and pay you in peanuts, with some loss of rights to women, minorities, immigrants, etc.
Shawn in ShowMe
One more thing – the GOP/Catholic bishop proposal to keep women barefoot and pregnant is a gift to Dem candidates running in battleground states. If the Republican candidate breaks with the party line, the wingnuts will ostracize him/her for failing the purity test. If he/she continues to parrot the bishops’ talking points, that could swing enough votes to the Dem side to decide the election.
Sly
Obama wins 52% to Romney’s 44%. Mostly right wing and libertarian third party candidates eat up the rest. Ron Paul becomes the most hated man in America on Wednesday, November 7th, 2012, and Ron Paul finally finds a Federal agency he likes in the Secret Service.
Roughly the same number of people vote in 2012 as they did in 2008 because Republican election fraud and voter suppression essentially eats away at any increase in the electorate due to population growth. Larger EV majority, possibly echoing Bill Clinton’s EV majority in 1996.
Senate is 51 Democrats (plus Sanders) and 48 Republicans. The GOP picks up Nebraska and North Dakota. Democrats pick up Massachusetts. We console ourselves with the fact that we won’t have to deal with Kent Conrad or Ben Nelson anymore, and then immediately start complaining about what massive sellouts Jon Tester and Mark Pryor are.
The House remains in GOP custody by a 5-10 seat margin. In January, Boehner either steps down as Speaker or is replaced in a leadership coup by some consensus patsy.
Omnes Omnibus
Obama 54% PV and 350+ EV. Senate +3 D and the House flips.
Jay C
Heh – I see my predictions are smack in the center of the BJ CW: but I’ll
waste timeput them on record anyway….On the best-case scenario for the Republicans, if Mitt Romney is the nominee, with a “reasonable” running-mate, I see the general ending up at Obama 52-48 or so, with a decided Electoral College majority, the Senate with a slim (one-vote?) Dem majority or tied, the House with something like a near-tie, or a slim (4-5 vote?) majority for one side or the other.
BTW, if Santorum DOES get the nom, and/or Mitt saddles the GOP ticket with too wingnutty of a VP pick: Obama’s numbers jump up to FDR/LBJ/Reagan territory, and the Democratic edge in both Houses increases a bit. Though, unfortunately, not enough to be useful.
More agreements from Jay C on the CW: Congressional gridlock is still going to be as big a problem in the 113th Congress as it has been in the past two, regardless of which Party is nominally “in charge” (more so in the Senate). And those “third parties”/”third” candidates? Eh – I don’t think – despite their money-backing – that they will be a significant factor in the election. Unless (and only unless) they can recruit some truly nationally-respected frontperson (and no, celebrities don’t count) to run. Maybe then they’d get to to the 10% level. Maybe.
Cacti
About the same as the 2008 election. Obama wins a bigger popular vote margin from the GOP scaring more single women into the Obama camp with their birth control/forced vaginal probe lunacy, but mostly in safe states.
Obama 54% – Willard 45%
Electoral Votes – Obama 343 – Willard 195, with Willard flipping New Hampshire and Indiana.
Hal
Wow, I’m shocked at the pessimism. Romney’s doing terrible right now. Santorum is a joke, and Newt and Paul are nonstarters, despite Newt’s 2.50 gallon gas and streets lines with gold.
If Romney has to struggle so hard just to get Republicans to vote for him, and his negatives keep going down, how is he going to magically make everyone love him in April when they can’t stand him now?
samara morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: i’ll take Omnes for a benjamin.
House flips by 3 seats, and i agree senate +3.
Brian R.
@Hal:
Amen. The pessimists here are forgetting the salient fact that the more Romney campaigns, the less people like him. By November, he’s going to be radioactive.
Linda Featheringill
@patrick II:
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have very thin skins. Don’t know if they could survive a campaign.
Cacti
Alternative scenario…
Gnewt throws his support to Frothy who wins the GOP nom, and goes on to get crushed in the general.
Obama 55% – Frothy 43%
Electoral – Obama 417 – Frothy 121, with Obama picking off Arizona, Missouri, and Texas
Tom Q
It tells everything about the battered psyches of many Dems that, while GOPers are looking with horror at their Fall prospects, too many Dems here are talking razor-thin margins or outright defeats.
Christ, people. Obama wins this going away — a bigger margin than 2008. He brings Nancy back to the Speaker’s chair, and holds the Senate.
And pundits warn Dems must remember it’s still a center-right nation.
4tehlulz
Assuming the Eurozone and/or China don’t implode, and no general war in the ME:
Obama 54-46,>320 EVs
Senate stays the same
Dems win 221 seats in the House
Waldo
@Choicelady: Thanks for the lecture. My prediction was actually no knock against Obama. Not much he can do with the kooks in charge of the House and less than 60 votes in the Senate. In fact, if the Senate goes to the Republicans, nothing may be the best thing that happens.
gogol's wife
@Brian R.:
I think we’re all wounded by what happened with George W. Bush. To us it was so blatantly obvious that he was deeply, deeply inferior to either Gore or Kerry, but yet he was close enough to Gore to get put into office by the Supreme Court, and he seems to have actually beaten Kerry. So we feel as if the same kind of evil magic may happen to make Romney electable. (And don’t get me started on how it felt when Reagan was elected!)
Omnes Omnibus
@samara morgan: I am not that cheap, but thanks for the offer.
RossInDetroit
@Hal:
I consider the flip side of that just as important. Plenty of people would turn out to vote for a cabbage in a necktie as long as it was a vote against Obama.
Romney’s popularity, such as it is, is more of an issue in pulling turnout that will affect the down-ticket races. The anti-Obama vote is already baked in.
Cacti
@Tom Q:
I see things lining up for a solid Obama win, regardless of the opponent. Who the opponent is will just be the difference between a good thumping and an absolute rout.
Jewish Steel
@Tom Q:
ding ding ding
My only prediction.
PeakVT
Romney, Obama 52-47-1, Democrats 50+1-50, Republicans 225-210. Offer not valid if Israel does something stupid.
Collin
Santorum will win the Republican nomination. A political novice will enter the race as a Democratic contender with an atheist platform. Obama will distinguish himself from these competitors by converting to Judaism.
Yevgraf
Sanatorium is the nominee. In Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, wingnut governors use a combination of poll watchers and puffy, pasty national guard troops to disenfranchise voters. While Obama wins the nationwide popular vote decisively, the suppression tactics result in a squeaker Sanitorium EV victory, aided by a 5-4 SCOTUS decision which validates the vote suppression.
Obama says “fuck it” on closing out his term, and heads for a nice retirement in Australia, so as to be away from the coming shitstorm. Biden winds everything out, handing the keys to President Sanitorium on inauguration day.
In his first hour in office, Sanitorium proclaims abortion and contraception illegal by executive order, ordering the Army to seize contraceptive devices and medications, and to secure abortion records for prosecution as crimes against humanity. On day two, he orders a nuclear attack on Iran. A combined British-French task force nukes Washington and announces a UN mandate over the US, kind of like China in the 19th and early 20th century.
different-church-lady
@patrick II:
That’s just what he wants us to believe…
Brian R.
@Linda Featheringill:
True. And how would Thomas make an acceptance speech? He’d have to ask Scalia to give one, and then release a slip of paper noting his concurrence.
MattF
@Collin: I like that. Changes his name to Baruch Obama.
CarolDuhart2
I think this will be the Wylie Coyote Election for the Republicans.
If you take a second look, Mitt Romney is an even worse candidate than John McCain, who at least had the cachet of being a war hero and Sarah Palin. Mitt has simply nothing to inspire the imagination or excitement or even confidence in his own base. That would be bad enough, but the Mormon thing dogs him terribly in the South. He will be forced to take Santorum on as a running mate, as everyone else with prospects decide that waiting until 2016 is a better bet.
After that, everything backfires-the voter suppression suppresses the “wrong” people and is elsewhere ineffective against a Republican base that refuses to turn out for Romney, Democrats who are terrified of Santorum being only a heartbeat away, and an economy that despite higher gas prices, street battles in Europe, and saberratting in the Middle East, refuses to sink.
Obama, 55-42, we will lose Nebraska and Dorgan’s seat, will hold Missouri and give coat-tails to Claire McCaskill and flip Massachusetts back again. We hold Senate by a thin margin, and flip the House.
Americans Select will have to settle for a last-minute candidate, and gets about a million votes, all too scattered to affect anything.
The Wyle Coyote part for voting is that the elderly who are more likely to vote Republican stay home due to lack of id issues, while a massive campaign in the minority community gets everybody an id in the meanwhile. So Republicans really lose the Senior vote that they need, and some folks squeak through.
Pessimists who think about Baby Bush forget that the Democratic Party in 2000 and 2004 was a mess-underfunded, disorganized, and lacking a real ground game.
Both Kerry and Gore were woefully underfunded because they took matching funds, leaving the massive funds raised in the primary on the table. They relied on unions and independent groups to get out the vote, meaning there was no coordinated get-out-the-vote that could have meant the difference. There was no Election Protection to help people kept away from the polls.
Those things would have made the difference back in 2004 and 2008. Victory in 2008 was because of those hard lessons.
And remember Shrub just barely won both times under dubious circumstances and left with one of the lowest approval ratings in Presidential history.
eemom
You’re an idiot.
Jennifer
Pod people from the planet Kolob infilitrate; Romney wins.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@eemom:
I wrote this post to troll you and a few others, you know. I even said so in the post. And still you bite.
tjmn
@Yevgraf:
I hope the Mayans are right.
cmorenc
@Brian R.:
I’ll agree that this outcome is the most likely out of the possibilities. Nevertheless, the range of plausibly possible outcomes is quite wide, though the majority of them favor Obama winning; the probability curve is more like a skewed bell-curve distribution shifted so that 75% of the possible outcomes at this point result in an Obama win.
different-church-lady
@Yevgraf:
cmorenc
@Sly:
Nor do we have to deal with the biggest asshole pain in the butt of them all, Joe Lieberman.
Mnemosyne
@patrick II:
Given that it was this kind of “brilliant” thinking that gave us Obama vs. Alan Keyes in 2004 and launched the crazification factor, now I’m really really hoping that’s what would happen.
different-church-lady
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: You said asking for predictions was the annoying part. You didn’t say you were going to be disingenuous about it.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@different-church-lady:
Those are my real predictions, actually. Writing predictions at all was to troll the people who hate horse races.
different-church-lady
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: Then perhaps you actually are an idiot.
Opinions differ.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: My prediction was that your trolling would work. I wasn’t quick enough to post in in order to demonstrate how clever I am.
different-church-lady
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I knew you were going to say that.
Wannabe Speechwriter
Republicans keep making racist remarks toward Latinos. All the people who keep saying things like “Latinos will become ‘white'” (ie. Yglesias, Jonathan Bernstein) are forced to eat their own words.
ruemara
How boring. Who cares? It’s still not someone to vote for.
Cain
Romney wins the nomination, and wins the general election. Democrats lose both the house and the senate, and the press will have enough stories to make $$$ for the next 4 years as they are able to get a lot of eyeballs on the TV.
The winner is the washington press corp.
Cain
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
We are talking about a blog whose commentators engage trolls even though they know they are getting trolled but can’t seem to help themselves. :-)
CarolDuhart2
Part of me thinks this will go past the Convention in some way. Mitt may eke out a nomination, but at least one candidate refuses to take their ball and go home and may have to be chased off the field as they encourage some sort of write-in campaign.
Obama will raise $800 million, and thanks to the cluster-blank of the Republican race, end up with a surplus after it’s all over.
Wylie Coyote again: SuperPacs try to help, but forget that in a world of 900 channels, people can escape the barrage by watching DVDs. Obama, who has an army of in-person door knockers, undercut the noise through house parties, flyers, meetings and DVD handouts.
The Moar You Know
Obama ruins Romney, but that’s the only good news. Dems reap the rewards of their purity purges by losing the Senate. House picks up a few Dem seats but not enough to matter.
The GOP will claim victory, and immediately launch an impeachment trial of Obama, which will be successful. A stunning outburst of apathy is the only reaction from numb Americans who are sick to death of partisan politics. Obama is removed from office in late 2013.
There are no elections in 2016.
jackmac
I’m an optimist.
Mitt’s the nominee and continues to say stupid things. When he does it in the debates, where attention is magnified, the race is essentially over. Obama 58-42 and big EV win.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
I still expect this to be an extremely close election, and I don’t think Obama or Democrats should assume anything at this point. That’s not pessimism or fallout from the Bush years, it’s just being realistic.
Here’s how I believe the American electorate breaks down: 30% Conservative, 20% Liberal, and 50%….duhhhhhhhhhhhh. The largest bloc of voters are the ones who never pay attention, and never care. They are only barely aware of the existence of this thing called “government,” but they have no idea what it does or how it works. And they don’t care.
The conservative bloc, which is really the Confederacy (let’s be honest), is stable at 27%-30%. They’re not going away. Any fantasies that a massive defeat at the polls will inspire the GOP to reform or return to the good ol’ days of Eisenhower, or even Nixon, is a childish fantasy. The GOP is fused to the Confederate South and Christian fundamentalism. It’s been that way since Nixon’s Southern Strategy and Jerry Falwell’s takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, and is more firmly entrenched than ever. It’s probably going to take a generation to loosen that grip.
It’s fun to laugh at the 27% crowd, but in a nation where most people never pay attention and never show up, that minority can win elections. I don’t take anything for granted at this point.
Right now, Obama is looking pretty good, but that’s just now. Most Americans have no idea that the primaries even happened, so all this melodrama will be entirely lost. Even those who perked their heads up over Virginia’s ultrasound bill will go back to ignoring politics, and by summer they will have probably forgotten the episode ever happened. $100M of advertising by industry lobbyists will have the rubes believing anything.
Any unexpected shock will completely break the election wide open either way. Euro meltdown, environmental disaster, Israeli attack on Iran…Heck, five dollar gas could turn this election. Anything goes at this point.
Mnemosyne
@Wannabe Speechwriter:
I think it’s inevitable that Latinos will be absorbed into the white borg like every other “inferior” ethnic group has been, but given that my half-Italian aunts still have vivid memories of being called “wops,” I think it will take longer than Yglesias et al think.
eemom
Of course, and I was quite flattered to be personally trolled. Still, you COULD have used predictions that are less irritating to me.
ETA: Oh, I just saw where you said these are your real predictions. I will therefore concur with different church lady.
Spaghetti Lee
@Yevgraf:
@The Moar You Know:
I’m going to agree with the “Jesus Christ, why are you people so depressed right now?” crowd, unless there’s some snark here that I’m missing. Maybe pondering the apocalypse over your afternoon brunch is just something everyone except me does.
Yes, anything can, conceivably happen, but I think everything except possibly gas prices and the Middle East situation is pointing in Obama’s direction. The economy’s getting better, the Republicans are caught in a civil war, and their leading two candidates are loathed by the general electorate. I’m not saying it’s an automatic win for Obama, if the economy, oil prices, and Israel all work against him at once. But if unemployment is in the 7% neighborhood and gas prices aren’t outrageously high in November, hold on to your butts, because it’s going to be the bluest map you’ve ever seen.
Basilisc
Romney gets the nomination, but becomes a figure of derision and never gets off the ground. Obama wins by maybe 52-46. Dems lose a seat in the Senate (they lose ND and NE, gain MA, the rest stay the same) but gain a 5 seat majority in the House.
Because of the lost Senate seat, the media decide it’s a “mixed” victory, ie bad news for Democrats. The blue dogs control the agenda in the House and the filibuster continues to paralyze the Senate, so nothing gets done (luckily, bec of Dem control of the House, Republican calls for impeachment go nowhere, but you know they’re coming). The 2014 midterms become a race between a totally radicalized, but exhausted Republican party and a squabbling, exhausted Democratic party, and nothing much changes. Then nothing at all happens in the leadup to 2016.
Gee, I started this post kind of happy because I think Dems will regain the House, and finished it kind of depressed.
redshirt
In the days of heat, under a crescent moon, a KING shall win a double reign while beset by vipers and asses. Also too, he shall have a coat of glorious coat tails.
wrb
The convention is deadlocked. Romney offers the VP slot to Paul in exchange for his delegates. Paul demands a return to the gold standard, the return of our freedom to own slaves and punish sodomites, and free pot for all. Mitt declares that he always supported those policies.
They win of course.
Skippy the Wondermule
Romney wins the nomination and the GOP establishment concludes they cannot win the general election.
The movie “God Bless America” comes out and inspires someone to kill Obama, if Koch hasn’t done it already. (22 billion dollars makes people literally insane folks, Koch is obsessed, isn’t it obvious?)
More politicians (and hopefully Koch as well) are killed and martial law is declared in September. There are no elections in November.
I know it’s paranoid, if I didn’t, I would be suffering from paranoia.
The Moar You Know
@Spaghetti Lee: C’mon. I said Obama would win. There is no way, barring some enormous game-changing event, that he wouldn’t.
It’s what happens afterwards that concerns me. An impeachment is coming as certain as sunrise with an Obama victory; NOBODY can deny that. The success of that attempt hinges on who takes the Senate (I do not see a path for us to regain the House). I think our party has a history of self-sabotaging behavior that, in this election, will lead to the GOP claiming the Senate. I’m glad people disagree with me and hope that they are right.
Obama is winning this. How helpful that will actually be remains to be seen.
Davis X. Machina
Republicans get both Houses, and kill the filibuster.
Doesn’t matter who’s in the White House at that point. No actual legislation passes — the Congress’ agenda is all veto-baiting ALEC-style gestural bills — despite the death of the filibuster. A hundred vetoes before the mid-terms.
No executive-branch nominations pass. None. Obama’s attempt to keep a barely functioning government functioning via the recess-appointment process leads to impeachment by the House, and an acquittal by the Senate, by less than ten votes. Five Democratic senators vote to impeach. One Republican Senator votes to acquit.
Spaghetti Lee
@The Moar You Know:
I think the House will actually be the easier task. In the Senate we’re running around playing defense in 23 seats or so, in states like Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, etc., with a margin of error of 4 seats. If we keep the Senate, I’d say we’ve already beaten the odds. The House, we’re down 25. If we reclaim suburban Philly and Chicago and upstate New York like we did in 2008, we’re halfway there. Then it’s just picking off a few weak or controversial Tea Party freshmen or going after districts like MN-8 or WI-7 that traditionally vote Dem and just lapsed last year.
One thing I will say about the house is that the door has probably been shut on certain Southern and Western districts held by long-time Dems before 2010. E.g. in the 111th congress, the Dems held a majority of seats in Tennessee, Virginia, and Arizona. I just can’t see that happening again, barring an Obama victory beyond my wildest expectations, and I’d say the ceiling on Democratic majorities in the house is pretty low, maybe +10 or +15, as a result.
RosiesDad
@The Moar You Know:
True. Although it will be more helpful than if any of the GOP wankers win it including Romney who is probably closer philosophically to Obama than to any of his GOP primary opponents.
Spaghetti Lee
re: impeachment, I’ll say the same thing that Stuck has about certain unthinkable outcomes. If the Republicans actually do manage to impeach Obama on trumped-up nonsense, then we were probably doomed beyond our ability to do anything. I don’t like thinking about it and doubt it will actually happen, but if it does, I predict blood in the streets.
Mr Stagger Lee
I think the Cleveland Browns will finally have the breakout season, they needed. Tim Tebow announces he will come out and declare he is an Atheist after the best performance in his career is marred by an interception in the endzone is returned for TD by a lowly Oakland Raider DB and they lose the final spot for the playoffs.
different-church-lady
@Spaghetti Lee:
You do realize these are democrats we’re talking about, yah?
PeakVT
@Spaghetti Lee: The House can impeach Obama all it wants; the Senate is never going to convict.
Nutella
@CarolDuhart2:
Heh. Considering who his opponents are, you could be right. I could see Santorum, Gingrich, and/or Paul refusing to go away.
But even so, we shouldn’t get complacent about the R shitshow leading to D victory. It is hugely important to get the D vote out to work on the House races.
Mr Stagger Lee
@PeakVT: And the conservative talkers will be just as crazy why isn’t that Kenyan Solshulist was thrown out. Blood in the water sharks going crazy time in the GOP. Worse President Obama is in the 60+ approval rating going up to 70 when he leaves.
Gustopher
Massive firestorm of negative ads from Republican aligned SuperPACs, each funded by a different billionaire.
Between that and the Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democratic voters, Obama loses, the Republicans get the Senate by 2, kill the filibuster, and keep the House with gains because of gerrymandering.
The next 4 years are unpleasant. The next 8 worse. The American experiment ends in roughly 2025 when Washington and Oregon vote to secede kicking off the second civil war. The secessionist lose.
Emerald
Obama wins handily. He is the reverse-Reagan, but won’t take 49 states because he is melanin challenged.
Dems take the House and keep the Senate because disillusioned and/or purist Rs stay home in droves.
However, Obama cannot confirm any SCOTUS appointees, leaving us with a five- or seven-seat SCOTUS firmly in conservative hands. They then overturn Roe v. Wade, the Voting Rights Act, Obamacare and the Lily Ledbetter Act, reinstate Plessy vs. Ferguson and outlaw contraception, labor unions, Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. Just before November 2014 they reinstate the poll tax at $10,000 per vote, because the Constitution says what they darned well say it says.
And then the British and French nuke D.C.
SW
Obama over Willard. 49-45 with the rest spread between some surprisingly strong nut job candidates. Democrats keep the Senate by two. Republicans the House by seven.
Wes G
1st Scenario (what my brain tells me)
Romney wins nomination
Obama wins 52% popular vote and like, 40 states
Senate stays the same
House swings to Democrats but just barely
2nd Scenario (what my gut tells me)
Santorum wins nomination (yes!!!)
Obama wins 55% or more popular vote
D’s win 4 seats in Senate
House becomes even.
Spaghetti Lee
@Gustopher:
Are we talking political predictions or trying to help Harry Turtledove with the plot of his next novel?
But hey, I can play this game. Due to corporate spending/gerrymandering/dark sorcery, Obama shockingly loses to Mitt Romney and a photograph of Salvador Allende, 79-21. Michele Bachmann then storms the Oval Office the day after the election, rips his head off with her teeth, and tosses it to the waiting crowds outside the White House. Anyone who voted for Obama is captured and lined up to be forcibly sodomized by Joe Arpaio. Ayn Rand returns from the dead and is confirmed as the Supreme Court chief justice, promptly instituting a program of slavery for 99.99% of the country to protect the freedom of billionaires. Also, sharks evolve legs and invade California.
jl
GOP convention deadlocked. Occupy protestors flee the convention center ‘free speech area’ out of fear of rioting teabaggers. Horrifying film of elderly Occupy protesters being mowed down by Medicare scooters shocks the nation.
Tunch provides documents proving he is 35 years old in cat years, and somehow shows up at convention. Cole quits writing frantic posts about the lost Tunch, and pleads that there is nothing he can do.
After that it gets ugly.
I were you, I would start thinking now how to position yourself to get a cushy job on a catnip plantation, otherwise, you’ll end up in the tuna mines, slaving away for that short interval before being worked to death.
Jeffro
Obama/Romney (yes, he will get the nom) PV %s: 51.5/47.8
Obama/Romney EVs: 318/220
Senate: 53 Dems
House: Rs will hold a 5 seat majority
Jay C
Umm, what have you been smoking/huffing, man? And can you spare some?
The GOP blew its wad on the “impeachment” move back in ’98 – and failed. And even then, after years of bogus BS witch-hunt “investigations”, they only finally got Bill Clinton on a semi-bogus “perjury” rap which left the Senate only half-impressed, and the public disgusted with the whole circus.
And this was a President with a longtime reputation as a notorious horndog – you really think even the most rabid teabaggers in the House are going to be able to dig up anything even remotely similar on Barack Obama? Mister Family Man? And political stuff? What, Solyndra? Sorry, dude: the SS Impeachment has not only already sailed, but hit some rocks, sank, and rusted away….
Spaghetti Lee
@jl:
I for one welcome our feli-Oh, fuck it all.
Mnemosyne
@Spaghetti Lee:
… candygram …
EvilleMike
@Cargo: I’m thinkin’ both Perot and TR got way more than 10%.
askew
Wow, it seems people are really too pessimistic right now. Obama is the best campaigner in a generation and Romney makes John Kerry look like Bill Clinton.
Obama will cruise to an easy win against Romney. Indiana and New Hampshire flip Republican, while Obama picks up Arizona and Missouri.
In the Senate, we stay even. We lose Nebraska and North Dakota while picking up Massachusetts and Nevada. However, losing Nelson, Conrad, Webb and Lieberman and picking up Berkeley, Warren and Murphy, and Kaine moves the Senate Dems to the left slightly which is a huge win.
We re-gain the House by 2 or 3 seats and then proceed to lose any momentum by having a huge fight between Pelosi and Hoyer for Speaker. Pelosi wins out.
In a perfect world, the Senate Dems will have had enough and they change the cloture rules and place time limits on Senate holds for nominations so McConnell doesn’t control the entire government.
mtboy
Pope Gregory the Great will miraculously appear on August 15, 2012 in Tampa and accept the Republican nomination. His Holiness will win the election by sweeping all 538 Electoral votes in an inexplicable transfiguration of the vote count the day after the election. Congress will hold its first session in Vatican City after a new “original” amendment to the US Constitution is discovered mandating that venue be used. Bibi will reveal himself to have been a secret RC cardinal. Then, Santorum’s wife wake him up.
mtboy
Correction: THen, Santorum’s wife will wake him up.
Mnemosyne
Also, am I the only one who remembers that the Blue Dogs were frickin’ decimated in the House in 2010? They now have about 1/3rd of the caucus members of the Progressive Caucus, and most of the ones who are left are only slightly doggish, like my rep Adam Schiff.
Unless we’re picturing a whole new generation of them being elected in 2012, I think the Blue Dogs are basically done as a power in the House, though they’ll continue to be a problem in the Senate.
SamR
Obama over Romney 54-45. Romney humiliated by losing by an even larger margin than McCain did. McCain secretly amused.
Democrats lose the Senate and, remarkably, lose seats in the House as well.
“The West Wing”‘s ‘lonely landslide’ episode happening in real life.
jl
@Spaghetti Lee:
” Also, sharks evolve legs and invade California. ”
Been there, done that. Called the California GOP.
baldheadeddork
I’ll be surprised if Obama wins by less than ten, and I think there is a very good opportunity to make big gains in Congress.
Everyone can imagine what would happen if Santorum gets the nomination. But I don’t think it will be that much different if Romney wins. The Tea Party isn’t going to stop holding the Republican party hostage when the primaries are over.
The Tea Party/GOP base dislikes and distrusts Romney immensely. They will revolt in a minute if he tries to pull back to the middle and this year they may have someplace to go. Palin doesn’t have a prayer in hell of winning the election as an independent, but just refusing to rule out a run as an independent would keep her relevant for another cycle and lay the wood to the GOP establishment.
Either Romney stays committed to every 35% approval idea he’s had to endorse during the campaign, or he gets an independent challenge from the right.
But wait, the problems for Romney don’t end there. Let’s not forget what a lousy candidate he is and how spectacularly incompetent his campaign is. Obama is very good a rope-a-dope, against Romney he’s going to have an opponent who has a glass jaw and ties himself in knots if the wind blows.
Citizen’s United isn’t helping, either. The R’s may not have a problem raising hundreds of millions in Super PAC money but that’s come at the expense of campaign fundraising. The Republican bundler network created by Rove and DeLay has evaporated. The millionaires and billionaires who used to leverage their networks to raise campaign donations for the Republicans have switched to funding Super PAC’s and they’re not networking. That’s problematic on three fronts. You can’t run a campaign on Super PAC money (right now it’s likely Romney will have to take public funding), it makes the Super PAC’s dependent on a small number of donors, and it makes it that much easier to paint Romney as a candidate of, by and for the 1%.
There are indications that the shift to Super PAC’s is also affecting Congressional fundraising, too. As of last month the DCCC and DSCC are outraising the NRCC and NRSC and the Dems have more cash on hand. In 2006 and 2010, the party that won those wave elections also won fundraising throughout the year.
Also, the issues in the Presidential race will set the tone in the House and Senate races, too. If Romney or Santorum are fielding questions about birth control and raising taxes on millionaires, those will be as much of a factor in the undercard contests and it won’t help the R’s.
ReflectedSky
Playing the good news/bad news game:
Romney wins the nomination, but just barely. Obama beats him cleanly, although some of the states with aggressive anti-voting laws are either razor thin or flip due the suppression.
Democrats technically hold the Senate, regain the House.
That’s the good news. The bad news? It isn’t all at clear to me that anything good happens at this point. Obama could go right back to being his Liberal Republican self, press Reid to keep honoring the 60 vote requirement on everything, and continue to put people like Kagan on the court. He uses the Senate situation to push for his “Grand Bargain” to please Pete Peterson and eviscerate the safety net. I think that’s the most likely scenario, to be honest. However, in honor of Oscar Sunday, I’m going for the improbable happy ending: having learned his lesson listening to Summers, Emmanuel, et al., Obama decides his legacy is more important than getting that juicy big corporate speech money (or, to be more accurate, he figures out there will be plenty of cash thrown at him even if he governs from the left if he saves the country), so he starts listening to the people who were actually proved right in the meltdown, moves a tiny bit to the left, works with Nancy Smash and gets enough meaningful legislation passed that the air slows starts to seep out of the oligarchical corruption tires…
Davis X. Machina
@Jay C: It’s not important that impeachment is a joke. The whole point is to make a joke out of it.
Who last faced impeachment, or should have? Nixon. A Republican. Reagan. A Republican. Bush #1, a Republican. (Iran-Contra, the pair of them) Bush #2 (a whole salad bar….)
It’s important to have the impeachment process viewed as a joke, or a partisan tool. Because the next Republican president will need to be impeached, and we won’t be able to, because….. the impeachment process is a joke, or a partisan tool.
Inoculation. Unorganized crime takes your wallet. Organized crime suborns your accountant, and takes your business. Really organized crime removes ‘larceny’ from the statute books.
wrb
@mtboy:
Don’t think Gregory the Great was really their kind of guy.
Gregory IX was more their style: the Papal Inquisition, the doctrine of the perpetual servitude of the Jews, and The Vilification of Cats (which may have led to the black death, due to the resulting rat population explosion).
But otherwise your prediction sounds reasonable.
stevestory
Based on demographics and the trend of the last 40 years, I’m guessing Mitt wins the GOP nom, then loses to Obama 52-45.
Bill Arnold
BObama wins by 3 percent in the general vs Romney, 5 percent vs Santorum. Romney is my bet. Senate stays Democratic, barely. (House I won’t predict; have a bad track record. Feeling it will be a close flip or non-flip.)
The Republican candidate is likely to be pretty weak, once BObama actually starts campaigning.
Really hinges on the economy in the fall; there are several obvious possible negative exogenous events, related to (a) Europe recession or financial crisis and (b) disruptions of oil supplies, e.g. war in the middle east or one or more disruptive large hurricanes in the gulf of Mexico. Upside surprise on the economy is also possible.
Other disruptive possibilities, some sort of sci-fi-ish and unlikely, include:
(1) charismatic 3d party presidential candidate
(2) major terrorist attack against US homeland
(3) damaging large X-class solar flare/CME
(4) massive malicious internet disruptions (just feeling paranoid here.)
(5) pandemic (probability of engineered pandemic low but increasing).
(6) use of nuclear weapons somewhere. (e.g. Israelis say all options are on the table.)
(7) HFT-fueled collapse of the global markets (just feeling paranoid here.)
mai naem
I am bookmarking this thread to recheck in a year or so. I don’t see how the Dems keep the Senate. You got Dorgan,Conrad,Kohl, and Ben Nelson retiring. You have Tester, McCaskill and the W Va and Va seats up. I might be wrong about this but this is what I remember hearing about retirements. You have anti gay referendums in quite a few states so thats going to push up the repub wingnut votes.
btom89
@mai naem:
The annoying thing is that Dorgan and Conrad in ND are and were great senators, considering, and the tea party representative, Rick Berg who waltzed in on the wave of 2010, and has yet to introduce any legislation of any kind or contribute anything helpful to society, is running to replace the vacating seat in the senate. And I haven’t heard of any good democratic candidate opposing him. Not even two full years in Congress and he’s going for the Senate? WIth no record at all? UGH! There has to be something else other than voting for anyone else than him I can do. I’m probably going to vote full ticket Democratic but I don’t know what else i can do in ND. It’s too bad I don’t live another mile to the east, because then I’d be in Minnesota. That district formerly had a good democratic representative, Mark Dayton, who is now the governor of Minnesota.
Jeff
Ok, I’ll bite.
Romney underwhelms his opposition on the way to a thoroughly uninspired convention. The economy while not gangbusters by any means continues its revival with unemployment down to 7.8% by November. Paul threatens third party but stays put, and sits on his hands for the election, as do Gingrich and Santorum. Obama trounces Romney in the general election 53%to
46% with scattered Paulites voting for him any way. The senate is 50/50 with Dems holding Michigan, Washington, and Virginia, but losing Montana and Missouri, The house narrowly flips back to Democratic control, and Nancy Pelosi is Speaker again.
PeakVT
@btom89: You can let the ND Democratic Party know that they absolutely must run somebody. One can never tell who or what will pop out of the closets of today’s Republicans.
TenguPhule
Democrats hold the Senate, pick up just enough of the House to take over by 1 vote.
Obama wins.
David Koch
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: It works every time. She can’t lay off the breaking ball in the dirt.
https://balloon-juice.com/2012/02/25/how-long-til-the-point-of-no-return-2/#comment-3071746
IM
-Romney wins the nomination clearly, but needs another month to wrap it up.
– Obama wins 49.5 to 48.5 Romney.
– narrow win for dems in the house
– narrow win for reps in the senate
danimal
I’ll read the comments in a minute. First, I’ll make my predictions. Obama wins with the electoral map virtually the same except he loses NH and IN. The Senate ends in a tie and the Dems pick up just enough seats (25) to claim majority in the House. Joe Manchin becomes the most powerful senator in the chamber now that Holy Joe and Ben the Prick are out. Cole goes apoplectic when Manchin wavers on supporting Reid for Majority Leader. Pelosi has an ungovernable mess in the House, but somehow makes do.
danimal
@danimal: Oh, and I’ve been a broken record about Obama’s opponent in the general. To repeat, GOP 2012: Dated ’em all, married Mitt.
NobodySpecial
Obama wins 1980 style.
Senate 51-49 Dems.
House flips.
Roseanne Riddick
I think that Rommey will get the nomination. I don’t think that the republican voters are all that crazy about him so unless Obama really does something insane between now and the election Obama should win. I think it may be 52 to 48.
AA+ Bonds
Democrats win White House and Senate and House
That’s how everyone should respond here in Democrat Land
guckertgannon
Freaked-out big boys and business interests see looming Repub disaster, pour money into Democratic candidates’ coffers beginning late July.
Obama wins handily, 53 – 46% popular vote, 300 – 310 electoral college.
Dems take House by 3 – 5 seats.
Dems hold Senate, at least with VP’s tie-breaking vote.
realnrh
All right, here goes my extended take on it…
Romney can’t get any traction among culturally-Southern and Appalachian areas; the South goes for Gingrich and Appalachia and the midwest lean Santorum. Romney wins unimpressively in Mormon country and blue states, but comes up slightly short of enough delegates on his own, but Republican superdelegates put him over the top. Gingrich refuses to endorse Romney, but Santorum does in exchange for the VP slot and a pretense of a party unity ticket. Paul refuses to endorse him and instead supports Gary Johnson on the Libertarian ticket.
Oil companies jack up prices in a deliberate attempt to influence the public mood, right up until in a surprise move Obama orders a full-scale public RICO investigation of the major oil companies, at which point prices mysteriously decline and sweating oil executives say “See? It was oil speculators, not us.” Romney sides with the executives.
Iran continues to threaten and bluster, but does not take action, aware that their actual military position is not strong and that ‘defeating Iran’ would make an excellent election-year issue in the US.
Obama’s win is never in serious doubt, as he holds leads of at least 5% in states commanding over 270 electoral votes all the way through, including PA, OH, CO, VA, and NC. Dissatisfied conservatives convinced that the race is lost stay home in droves to protest, exacerbated by Romney’s frantic lurch toward the center immediately after getting the official nomination. Romney is unable to come close to matching Obama’s campaign resources, as his high-dollar donors are tapped out and the small-dollar donors don’t trust him. Obama beats his 2008 margin, adding Arizona and Georgia to the ranks of blue.
It’s not so lopsided further down the ticket. Warren easily beats Brown in Massachusetts, and Berkley takes out Heller. Kaine wins Virginia (boosted by a solid Obama win there) and Keitkamp beats Berg in South Dakota. Tommy Thompson loses the Wisconsin primary and so Tammy Baldwin holds Wisconsin. McCaskill loses a slowly-reddening Missouri, however, as does Obama, and Nebraska is long gone, while Arizona turns out to be disappointingly far from competitive in the Senate race. Net is zero in the Senate, swapping Nebraska and Massachusetts back to their more ideologically compatible parties and Nevada and Missouri trading places.
The filibuster continues to be an infuriating problem, as Democrats look to the unfavorable 2014 calendar and worry about the possibility of losing the chamber (though they’d have strong odds of retaking it in 2016). Democrats do reclaim the House, recapturing almost all of the New York seats they lost, both New Hampshire seats, several in Pennsylvania, and a bunch across the midwest that were 2010 flukes (untenable Republican holds even with gerrymandering). A few Southern seats come back, but not many, mostly in competitive urban or suburban areas rather than ancestral-Democrat seats. The margin is narrow, though, under ten, leading to the infuriating ongoing relevance of the Blue Dogs. It doesn’t matter anyhow because the filibuster in the Senate prevents any useful work from getting done.
Republicans determine that Romney’s problem was Insufficient Conservatism, and that a contested election is not in the best interests of the party, so they rapidly settle on Santorum as their nominee, letting him immediately begin running for the next four years on the grounds of being Next In Line. Thanks to the unfavorable 2014 calendar and the narrow Democratic hold on the House, Santorum takes credit for Republicans taking a microscopic 51-49 edge in the Senate and a House majority of under 10 seats (which is nonetheless more active than the Democratic majority thanks to higher party unity). Republicans immediately abolish the filibuster, and Obama’s veto pen gets hundreds of uses in his last two years, with confirmations few and far between.
Santorum runs in 2016 and is decisively trounced, Goldwater-esque, as the playing field no longer is winnable with any combination of red and purple states; over 270 electoral votes are into territory of ‘leans D’ or higher and any Republican nominee will have to be able to win over blue states. Democrats reclaim the now-filibusterless Senate and retake the House. Insurance companies are bailing on health coverage, moving more and more Americans into the state and federal pools, but most red states have refused to implement their own (trying to defeat the increasingly-popular Obamacare) so there’s basically the blue state pools and the federal pool; the federal pool is more expensive because the healthier populations of blue states aren’t in it. Medicare For All is finally enacted in recognition of the fact that it’s the de-facto situation anyhow. By the 2020 elections, Republicans are indignantly proclaiming themselves the ‘true champions of Americare’ and claiming that it denies their contributions to continue calling it ‘Obamacare.’
Andrew J. Lazarus
Obama wins his 2008 states, minus IN, NC, and NH; but he wins AZ. The Dems hold the Senate (net -1) and win at least 35 House seats.
mdblanche
The Republican race continues all the way to Tampa where stunningly Ronald Reagan rises from the grave and as a last minute entry is the unanimous choice of a brokered convention.
Initial Republican enthusiasm soon gives way to despair, however, as Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess use their super PACs to launch a series of ads attacking Zombie Reagan for supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants, cutting and running from Lebanon, negotiating with America’s enemies to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles, past support for raising taxes, opposition to efforts to outlaw homosexual teachers, appointing liberal activist judges like Anthony Kennedy, as well as ties to organized labor and Hollywood.
Finally realizing everything they ever believed to be a lie, Republicans commit mass suicide. Barack Obama is re-elected unopposed after Zombie Reagan is ruled ineligible to run under the 22nd amendment, and Democrats pick up every seat in Congress due to their opponents’ suicides.
With the Republicans out of the way, the Democrats finally achieve the one goal that they have all long dreamed of: consequence-free infighting.
Carl Nyberg
Obama wins with over 70% of Electoral College. He wins all states from 2008 (perhaps minus Indiana and Omaha) and adds to the list with a few of the following: Georgia, Dakotas, Arizona, Missouri, West Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alaska and Kansas.
Dems gain one (maybe two) seats in U.S. Senate
Dems take control of U.S. House, say 225-230 seats
Romney and Santorum combine delegates and give themselves the nomination with Santorum getting the VP spot.
I agree that Ron Paul has made it pretty clear he’s not going to support the GOP unless the Republicans nominate him. And Ron Paul’s supporters are pretty OK with this.
matthew frederick
Romney grinds it out and secures, for all practical purposes, the nomination in April. Throughout March and April Romney still has major enthusiasm and turnout problems from suburban Republican voters, so the Romney campaign grinds out the wins by undermining “out-state” conservative enthusiasm for Santorum (or Gingrich) through negative messaging.
As the GOP convention approaches, the Romney campaign sees insufficient enthusiasm for Romney not only among the “very conservative” “out-state” base, but continued dampened enthusiasm for Romney from suburban GOP voters. The Romney campaign picks a conservative firebrand running-mate. (I don’t see this running-mate being Santorum, but I have no idea who else would fit the bill). The selection of Romney’s running mate and the GOP convention boost Romney in the polls past Obama. The media (as it did with the Palin selection) puts forth a narrative that Team Romney has “turned it around.” Eventually, however, Romney’s polling numbers come back to earth as Romney continues to be dogged by a lack of sufficient enthusiasm for his candidacy across the board among GOP voters.
Ron Paul does not run in the general as a third-party candidate.
On Election Day 2012, Team Obama’s national field operation (which has actually been a continuing operation since the Fall of 2007) turns out the Obama vote at levels quite similar to that of 2008. Meanwhile, a lack of sufficient enthusiasm especially among the more moderate and suburban segment of the GOP electorate leads to a level of turnout for Romney similar to that of McCain.
Obama wins roughly 68 million votes nationally (52.5%)
Romney wins roughly 60 million votes nationally. (46.3%)
Third parties (mostly libertarian) win 1.5 million votes nationally (1.2%)
The electoral college map is basically the same as it was in 2008. Obama ekes out a win in New Hampshire over Romney. Obama loses Indiana, but gains Missouri. Arizona is close, but goes for Romney.
The Senate stays Democratic, and the Democrats gain ground in the House, either barely taking the majority there or barely missing it.
RadioOne
Nobody actually wins the GOP nomination outright. At a brokered convention in Tampa, Ron Paul proves his shrewd “picking up caucus delegates” strategy was successful, but only after having his delegates commit ritual suicide en mass when the majority of the delegates rejects a platform of reinstating the Gold Standard and eliminating the Federal Reserve. Thus leaving no candidate with an outright majority.
I think the 2012 GOP convention ends with Newt Gingrich barking at the podium, screaming “Burn Tampa! Burn Florida, burn the fucking Kennedy Space Center! You are all fucking fools!”
The GOP will then nominate either Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, whichever is more favorable by the media this summer, and either will probably win the general election.
fuckwit
I am going to wait to see what Nate Silver says, because whatever he says is what’s actually going to happen.
Then, I’ll invent a time machine and go back to 2009, when any action that could possibly effect this election would need to have been taken.
Deep bench of progressive candidates trained, seasoned, and ready to run. Ground organization built and running (well, OFA actually may have done this already, but based on what I saw campaigning with them in 2010, um, no, they didn’t).
Then I travel back in time 20 years to start the hard work that’ll be needed to retrain America that Congress– not the President– makes the laws, and that the only way to change the direction of the country is to change the Congress.
What drives me absolutely crazy about American politics is the idiotic short-term futility of people’s thinking, and the whole instant-gratification and short-attention-span model. You CANNOT change the outcome of an election nationwide from 6 months before the election. It takes a few years at least, sometimes decades. If you want to pick up 30 seats you have to have a hundred or so of really good candidates running. For Senate seats, it really does take decades to flip these seats. And if you want government to work, you have to have a functioning Congress.
So, it’s late and I’m ranting. I actually should find my local OFA office and ask “ok, what help do you need now?” instead of feeling helpless reading about it.
bob h
Obama beats Romney by the same margin he beat McCain:6-7 points. Dems retain Senate, nearly retake House.
toujoursdan
Obama wins 52-46, Dems lose the Senate but flip the House. “Party of No” realizes they’ve been too reasonable and moderate and doubles down, but rhetoric is lost as fewer people watch broadcast TV and Fox News – getting their news from the internet.
Overall economy improves but $5-7/gal gas prices become the new normal in his second term. Iran goes to the brink but no one has the stomach for a fight. Europe trudges through their crisis. China growth rate decreases to match western economies due to a rapidly aging population.
Martin O’Malley emerges as the new Dem rising star. Runs against a Santorum-like Republican. 2016 is the year when big business starts to abandon the GOP for Dems as the economic policies are bad for business and the candidates are too embarrassing. GOP becomes a white Christian party that unleashes small-scale civil unrest (bombings, riots) in their death throes. Dems split into conservative and progressive parties.
MomSense
First of all, it is not Obama wins or Dems pick up this or that.
This will be Obama and Dems ground game (ie. very devoted people) vs. Big/Huge/Enormous/Obscene SuperPac money. Every sane loving Dem leaning person needs to calculate for her/him self how many calls and doors and human beings you must talk to one on one to counter the media dump that is to come. We can’t rely on our media to be good faith arbiters in this election.
I really don’t know how effective the SuperPac onslaught will be because as horrid as 2010 was in terms of ads, it was just a trial run for them.
The most committed will win.
Ron E.
Romney wins the nomination although it takes a while longer thanks to Citizens United propping up the should already be dead campaigns of Newt and Rick. Obama beats Romney 47-43 with whatever conservadem or RINO who wins the Americans Elect ticket getting most of the rest. The electoral college is the same except Obama loses Indiana and the one EV in Nebraska. The GOP takes a one or two vote majority in the Senate (with the new 60 vote Senate, will we even notice the difference?). The Democrats take a small majority in the House and do well at the state and local levels.