California Conservative

My friends at Polipundit have run several analyses of next year’s congressional and senate races, with the Republicans gaining 1-3 seats in the Senate, staying about even in the House and losing 1 or 2 gubernatorial seats. They close every one of those articles by saying “Remember this when the MediaCrats start talking next September and October about the Democrats retaking the House or Senate.”

The only thing flawed with their analysis is that it didn’t take until “next September and October” before they started babbling about that scenario. That wait ended with this NYTimes article that’s as delusional as Howard Fineman’s ‘analysis’ of the crumbling GOP base. Here’s a glimpse into the article:

Suddenly, Democrats see a possibility in 2006 they have long dreamed of: a sweeping midterm election framed around what they describe as the simple choice of change with the Democrats or more of an unpopular status quo with the Republican majority. That sense of political opportunity has Democratic operatives scrambling to recruit more candidates in Congressional districts that look newly favorable for Democratic gains, to overcome internal divisions and produce an agenda they can carry into 2006, and to raise the money to compete across a broader field. In short, the Democrats are trying to be ready if, in fact, an anti-incumbent, 1994-style political wave hits.

The political reality is that, nationwide, there’s just too many safe House seats to even be competitive. The best chance of picking up a seat are open seats. That’s a conditional statement because it depends on which presidential candidate won that district and by how much. Speaking theoretically, let’s say there’s an open seat being vacated by a Republican and both parties recruit decent candidates. Most would say that that race is a tossup. Let’s factor in, though, that President Bush carried that district 63-37%. Still think it’s a tossup? Michael Barone, Alex McClure and Patrick Ruffini would say that that open seat is solidly Republican.

Another factor to consider is the demographics of the district. Wherever a district has alot of smaller towns and lots of people living just outside the suburbs, commonly refered to as the exurbs, that favors Republicans because they’re strong in those districts nationwide. In districts that are largely urban, then that district is more reliably Democratic.

Everyone’s seen the red state/blue state electoral map that shows which states were won by President Bush or John Kerry. Fewer people have seen Patrick Ruffini’s red county/blue county map. Even in heavily Democratic states, President Bush carried far more counties than did Kerry. That’s why I’m bullish on Republicans keeping control of the House and Senate, with Republicans likely strengthening their hold in the Senate.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released Wednesday night, showed that 13 months before the midterm election, 48 percent said they wanted a Democratic-led Congress, compared to 39 percent who preferred Republican control.

This type of poll doesn’t have a bit of credibility. It can’t tell me how each congressional district sees things and is therefore useless. I also assume that they overpolled Democrats, further invalidating the polling. Finally, that type of polling assumes that Democrats and Republicans will both field good candidates in each district. Those numbers change dramatically when the polling is done between a flawed Democratic candidate and a Republican incumbent with plenty of cash on hand.

To recapture the House, Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats. That is a difficult feat if, as some predict, the number of competitive seats is fewer than three dozen, thanks largely to redistrictings. To recapture the Senate, Democrats need to pick up six seats, also an extremely high bar given the seats up this year. And while the current political climate is bleak for Republicans, no one knows what it will be a year from now. Moreover, while the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had an edge over its Republican counterpart in the last fund-raising reports, Republicans as a whole had a substantial financial advantage.

To give you an idea of the challenge here, it’d take a near-perfect night by the Dems to retake the House. They’d have to win all the close races where their incumbent candidates are running in districts that President Bush won heavily and they’d have to win a bunch of ‘Bush districts’ with a Republican incumbent. Anyone wanting to bet on that should email me and bet me any amount you want. Let’s just say that I can never have enough money and leave it at that, ok?

Charles Cook, the influential nonpartisan analyst of Congressional elections, said: “Right now, if I had to bet would the Democrats take the House and Senate back, I’d say no. But are the odds a heck of a lot better than they were three months ago or six months ago? Heck, yes.”

Of course their odds would seem better now than six months ago. Back then, it looked like they’d lose seats bigtime. Now they’re likely only losing a handful of House seats. That’s alot of improvement, isn’t it?

Cross-posted at BoxerWatch

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 13th, 2005 at 9:38 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, DNC, Election 2008, RNC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.