Posted on 10/07/2010 7:32:38 AM PDT by ChrisBoundsTX
There are only 25 days left until Americans head to the polls and push the button for their candidates of choice. It was a rough, but interesting primary cycle leading up to this moment. One of which resulted in many establishment candidates from both parties either dropping out of the race or getting booted out by their constituents. If the primaries have any indication on how November 2nd will go, it will be a very interesting and entertaining night!
I am not big on polls. At their best they are snapshots in time and at their worst they serve as propaganda to sway opinion in the direction of the pollster. That being said, good pollsters today can be pretty accurate.
Real Clear Politics is one of my favorite political websites during election season. In my opinion, it is the best website out there for polling data. What makes RCP unique is that they do not rely on a single source of polling data. Instead they gather polling data from many different sources and use it to create an average. Then they do an excellent job laying out the data on various races in a simple, easy to read way. Poll numbers typically do not change much during the last few weeks before elections, so let’s take a look at the election outlook as RCP breaks it down:
Battle for the Senate: 37 Seats up for grabs.
Democrats currently control the Senate with 59 seats, while the Republicans hold 41 seats.
RCP shows that including the seats not up for election, Democrats have 49 safe or likely seats and Republicans have 46 safe or likely seats. That leaves 5 toss-ups: Bennet (D- CO), Reid (D-NV), Murray (D-WA), and an open seat in Illinois and West Virginia. RCP predicts that with toss-up seats given to the side they are leaning toward, Democrats will end up with 51 seats and Republicans with 49 seats. That leaves the GOP with an 8 seat win, but 2 seats short of a majority.
Battle for the House: 435 seats up for grabs.
Democrats currently control the House by a wide margin of 255 seats to the 178 Republican seats. There are 2 vacancies.
According to RCP, there are 188 safe or leaning Democrat seats and 210 safe or leaning Republican seats. That leaves 37 seats that are considered toss-ups, which means the Republicans a great advantage right now. RCP does not have a not have a no toss-up prediction in for the House, but they do list that 35 of the toss-up seats are currently held by Democrats. One of the two toss-up seats on the Republican side is an Illinois open seat.
RCP has a graph showing the Republican and Democrat trend lines in the House race, which indicates that each week that passes by Democrats fall further behind Republicans. Republicans only need to win 8 of the 37 toss-up seats in addition to their safe and leaning seats to take back the House. If the trend continues Republicans may end up pulling that off.
Battle for the States: 37 seats up for grabs.
Democrats control the States with 26 governors to the Republicans 23 governors. Governor of Florida Charlie Crist made the 24th Republican governor until he decided to drop the Republican name for Independent after a failed Senate primary run against Marco Rubio.
Currently, there are 14 safe or leaning Democrat seats and 27 safe or leaning Republican seats for state governor. Of the 9 toss-up seats left, 6 of them are open. With toss-ups given to the side they are leaning toward, Democrats will end up with 19 seats and Republicans will hold 31 seats. That leaves Republicans with 7 additional governors on their side, giving them the majority of states.
Summary
I do not pretend to be a polling expert like Karl Rove or other political pundits you see on the news networks. Quite frankly I do not pay too much attention to polls until elections get close. However, being less than a month away I appreciate the great job RCP does compiling data and posting it in an easy to read format. If their information pans out over the next few weeks Republicans will have a lot to celebrate for on November 2nd.
Taking back the House and gaining the majority of state governors is absolutely within reach for Republicans and seems likely. It is still unclear if they can pull off enough wins to take back the Senate, but they are poised to close the gap to one or two seats. Regardless of the results, it will be the job of We The People to hold all of their elected officials accountable. We have come a long way to get politicians to understand that they work for us under the guidelines detailed in the Constitution. It is up to us to make sure they never forget that, after November 2nd and forevermore!
“It is up to us to make sure they never forget that, after November 2nd and forevermore!”
That’s it.
Rather than a battle between Reps and Dems, I see this as a battle between good and evil. If America loses, it is because she has fallen away from Godly ways with loose morals, sloth, the wanton murder of innocent babies,stupidity, self absorption, and lack of respect for the truth! God has every right to be angry with America! Unless we turn back to His principles, we deserve what we get.
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