National Election predictions

[RecycleMichael]

Fifteen days out...what is your prediction? How many Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in each?

100 Senators and 435 Representatives.

Only a little more than a third of the Senators are up for re-election and all the Representatives are up.

I guess that after this election and swearing in we will have:

In the Senate
51 democrats, 48 republicans and one write-in independent (Alaska) that will caucus with the republicans.
In the House
215 democrats and 220 republicans

[Conan71]

You think Harry Reid will survive this election?  Most people have it as a dead-heat.

[RecycleMichael]

I stick to my Senate prediction of 51 democrats. I don't have Harry Reid in that number. Frankly, he has been a poor leader for the democrats. They will probably be better off without him.

I have reddened my prediction for the house. I now predict 227 republicans and 209 democrats winning tomorrow. That would be a move of 49 to the other side, much less than the 100 seats that republican talk show hosts keep predicting.

It won't bother me much to have the house be republican. I haven't had a democrat congressmen for most of my life and now President Obama will have somebody to blame. 

[Cats Cats Cats]

Well, now that the Democrats have the economy moving towards the right direction.  They will start taking the credit.  But then again, they managed to tank the world economy before.  They will do it again, they just have to find a proper vehicle to do it with.

[Conan71]

Well, now that the Democrats have the economy moving towards the right direction.  They will start taking the credit.  But then again, they managed to tank the world economy before.  They will do it again, they just have to find a proper vehicle to do it with.

The Democrats haven't moved the economy in the right direction.  Free market solutions have done more for what little job growth and growth in sales we are seeing.  Every move they have made has been counter-intuitive to what the majority of business leaders say they need to make great strides on jobs and real economic growth. 

So far:

-Nothing the government nor the FED has done appears to have loosened up credit markets significantly, if anything, new regs are making it harder to get large lines of credit

-Many small businesses are in a holding pattern on hiring until they have some sort of idea what Obamacare will end up costing them

-The threat of not repealing the Bush-era tax cuts

Real or imagined, the true impact as to how tax cuts and Obamacare will play into expansion plans is irrelevant.  What's relevant is the behavior of small business people.  If they say they won't hire until they have tax cuts or that they are afraid to hire new employees not knowing ultimately what the fallout from Obamacare can cost them per employee, guess what?  They won't hire and won't create jobs.  They also won't spend money on new facilities and equipment which bolsters other parts of the economy.

Please point to some policies passed or enacted in the last 22 months which have benefitted small business other than the construction trades and state level government projects.  Consumer incentives like Cash For Clunkers, and the First Time Homebuyer Credit have expired so they are no longer in play.  Those, admittedly, were good incentives to modify consumer behavior and get individuals to pump money back into the economy but they no longer exist.  We seem to be at a stalemate now.

[Cats Cats Cats]

Small Business Jobs Act, more loans, $12 billion in tax cuts.
Plus the $116 billion in reduced income taxes.
Saving the autos saved some jobs, but we will see where that comes out in a few years.

[guido911]

Evan Bayh sees big dem defeat tomorrow.

Isn't it amazing how these talking heads already know who is going to win tomorrow?

The one sure thing tomorrow will bring is an end to the neverending polls, but I guess we can expect hand wringing and blaming to start (by both sides) to be its replacement.

[Conan71]

I'm making a personal pledge to keep the TV and radio off all day tomorrow until 8pm so I can bypass the final round of frantic ads.

[nathanm]

I'm making a personal pledge to start drinking tonight and not let up until Wednesday morning. 

[guido911]

I'm making a personal pledge to start drinking tonight and not let up until Wednesday morning.  

Now that's something I can believe in! Good luck in your quest.

[Conan71]

I'm making a personal pledge to start drinking tonight and not let up until Wednesday morning. 

That's the best bipartisan resolution I've heard yet.  I'll join you on that.  Can we find a DD to drive us to and from the polls? hic...

[we vs us]

D's keep the Senate by a one or two seat margin, and R's take the house with a 20ish seat margin.  It's a wave election, but half a wave, and not a whole wave.   My sense is that the not-quite-ready-for-primetime-players in the Tea Party have had a very double-edge effect on likely voters, and have turned off as many people as they've engaged.  Or rather they've gotten the R base excited again but, despite protestations to the contrary, have alienated the independents.  We'll see, though. 

Another interesting thing to watch will be the accuracy of the polling to date.  A lot of the smaller localities have been polled only once or twice, and using methods that will generate responses from a very specific dataset -- people who own landline phones.  I don't think that means the polls as they stand are trending inaccurately, but I do think that there's a lot of data that isn't being captured.   

[Conan71]

D's keep the Senate by a one or two seat margin, and R's take the house with a 20ish seat margin.  It's a wave election, but half a wave, and not a whole wave.   My sense is that the not-quite-ready-for-primetime-players in the Tea Party have had a very double-edge effect on likely voters, and have turned off as many people as they've engaged.  Or rather they've gotten the R base excited again but, despite protestations to the contrary, have alienated the independents.  We'll see, though. 

Another interesting thing to watch will be the accuracy of the polling to date.  A lot of the smaller localities have been polled only once or twice, and using methods that will generate responses from a very specific dataset -- people who own landline phones.  I don't think that means the polls as they stand are trending inaccurately, but I do think that there's a lot of data that isn't being captured.   

As I always say this time of year: "the only poll that matters will be tabulated after 7pm on election day."

Jamie DuPree, KRMG's DC correspondent, was talking about one Senatorial race where a generally more left polling organization had one Senate race in the hands of the Republican by two points.  A Rasmussen/Fox poll (obviously considered more right leaning) showed the Democrat has a 2 point advantage.

I will be interested to see if President Obama views this correctly as a repudiation of the policies enacted the last two years and general frustration at the slow turn-around in the economy and uses it as an opportunity to moderate as did President Clinton, or will he throw down the gauntlet and simply waste two years making the GOP look like a bunch of obstructionists?

[Gaspar]

House goes to R's by 69-71 seats.

Senate remains D by only a single seat.  GOP takes Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

[Breadburner]

Obama has done more for the GOP than anyone in history......