Posted on 10/31/2006 8:13:19 AM PST by ACU Outreach
I still don't see Campbell on your list. :)
OK, be a man. What are the odds they will be a wave that gets the Dems near 40? I think the odds are about 1 in 3 of that happening, and the wave would be more like 30-35 seats. To get to 40 would be a big wave, and now we are down to maybe a 1 in 4.5 chance (that would have more close seats falling as a percentage than fell in 1994).
Pres. Bush won't veto an amnesty bill for illegals. I bet he will proclaim it as a demonstration of bi-partisonship.
He will get his way on amnesty for Illegals if the socialists(dems) take over. - tom
In 1994 CQ Politics had 101 Dem seats rated competitive. In 2006 CQ Politics has 72 GOP seats rated competitive. The GOP picked up 56 Dem-held seats in 1994 and a comparable Dem gain in 2006 would be 40 seats. Meanwhile, in 1994 the Dems picked off 4 of 45 competitive GOP seats and the reverse would be the GOP gaining 1 or 2 of 21 competitive Dem seats in 2006. So, a Dem net gain of 38-40 this year would be directly proportional to the 52 seat GOP gain of 1994, according to equivalent CQ Politics rating.
Meanwhile, if recollection servers, in 1994 Charlie Cook had 92 Dem-held seats rated less than Safe. The 1994 GOP gain of 56 seats would therefore be equivalent to a 40 seat Dem gain from the 66 seats in Cook's latest ratings. Cook also had about 44 or so GOP seats rated so once again we end up with 38-40 as the comparable Dem gain in 2006.
I already noted that I think this year looks as if it will be more anti-GOP than 1994 was anti-Dem. I give the odds of a wave at 2 out of 3 - 66% - and I've already predicted a Dem net gain of 42 seats in the event of a 'wave' election, as opposed to a 'normal' election. This 42 seat figure is not predicated on statistical extrapolation but rather on seat-by-seat analysis factoring in a wave phenomenon (i.e., mininal Dem crossover, depressed GOP turnout, elevated GOP crossover). It just so happens to neatly mesh with the statistical parallels of the conjectured 2006 Dem wave slightly exceeding the 1994 GOP wave.
GOTV has been brought up over and over. In 1994 the Dems had an undisputed edge in turn out operations. We know what good that did them that year.
Time will tell. I think you are rather alone out there, in predicting that the Dems have a 2 out of 3 change of winning 42 seats, but hey, if it happens, think of the glory!
I thought I already told you Campbell would be rated #142. What part of #142 don't you get?? j/k!
Seriously though, based on my targeting matrix spreadsheet of every House district, CA-48 would be ranked as #142 of the GOP-held seats, by taking its default rating and then dropping it behind all the seats with a lower default vulnerability that are actually rated competitive this year.
In other words, even an 1894 level catastrophe for the GOP wouldn't touch Campbell this year, so you can rest easy down there in SoCal. :)
Well, you can tell Stu Rothenberg is aching to predict likewise, but is too much a wimp so far. :p
Whoops! I screwed up CO-06 and MT-AL. That should be (CO-06) Tancredo and (MT-AL) Rehberg, not Winter and Lindeen, who are the Dem challengers. I thought I'd fixed it but I copied the list before I corrected it on my master list.
A few things (these are all "non-wave" observations):
Both Ohio and Pennsylvania should be safe. In fact, I am willing to place a $50 bet to the next person who wants it (don't know how we'd settle it) that DeWine will lose in OH by more than Santorum will in PA.
In fact, I would put all those races in Likely D should be safe (mainly because I tend to tighten my numbers parameter as we get later on into the campaign). Amusingly, the only race I might leave in Likely D is Michigan, mainly because that state has a long history of changing its mind right at the end of the campaign (1990 and 2000 for example).
The Lean D stuff looks right to me, though personally I have reasons for not feeling confident about any placement of any of these races.
In Missouri, Talent does tend to overpoll slightly, since he's not the type of candidate who pulls voters out to the polls with abandon. Second, the GOTV effort of the Republicans in 2002 was simply terrible, awful is not even an apt term to describe it. They say they've fixed it, but of course, how do you know until election day.
I'm familiar w/Virginia's history, it's what cause me last year to predict Kaine +2 as opposed to the Kaine +6 it actually was. You're probably right on the backfire stuff, though Raz and CNN are not the best hats to hang on here.
Personally, I would be loath to predict the 15% rule in a prediction, just because its kind of like the Virginia stuff I talked about above. You really don't know. However, I believe Corker has the slight edge.
It's nice for me to at least see some vindication that I said in mid-July that Virginia would be more Democrat than Tennessee. I get one right every once in while. :)
Arizona is where it should be. Nevada could make the move after one poll finally (sort of) validated Rasmussen, but I honestly feel towards Nevada as I do towards the Likely D's. It ain't changin'.
On the governor's races (again no-wave talk):
No real complaints here, although I would still leave Minnesota in Toss-up/Lean Dem. HHH and Star-Tribune are just terrible polling companies and the rest show a 1%-2% Hatch lead, which to me is Toss-up/Lean D.
On Alaska, Raz has it at +1 Palin, Dittman has it at +9 Palin. The other two "recent" polls from Alaska that showed it tied/+1 lead for Knowles are totally garbage polls. One had a sample size of 273, the other is nearly three weeks old (stale), and took eight days to conduct (which is not good in polling).
I think a good case could be made for Toss-up, the first reason is that Alaska polling sucks, but those two polls are not part of that case, because they already are obviously terrible. :)
Other than that, I've put Florida in Likely R because that's what the only polling firm I trust in Florida says so. And Arnie's safe.
Keep up the good work!
I agree with Torie on the assessment of the House, generally.
We all agree, I think, that 20-25 House seats should be the "normal" benchmark of this election.
But I simply don't see the 2/3rds likelihood of the wave, at least not seven days out (and a lot can change before then). I see the odds at about 33% that we have (what in my mind is) a Category 4 wave, with 30-35 seats gone. And I see the Cat 5 wave of 40-45 seats at about 20%.
That doesn't mean you won't be right. Your reasons are solid.
And after all, it would mean fame for a lifetime. Zogby did the exact same thing one election eve in 1996, though I would say that you're generally 100 times more competent that he is/was.
Zogby has Arkansas's Republican gubernatorial candidate up by 3 points and we're doing all we can to make that happen!
That one is curious. Is there a police report on him out there somewhere? The Dems put into his seat all the precincts they didn't want.
Then again, never mind. I just looked it up and this was a 64.7% GWB district in 2004. I did not realize it was that heavily GOP now. The old district was just 58% GOP in 2000 and 52% in 1996. I'm dropping MD-06 off the Watch List altogether.
That one is curious. Is there a police report on him out there somewhere? The Dems put into his seat all the precincts they didn't want.
I live in this district. There is no police report. I will eat the monitor in front of me if he loses here. It's not going to happen -- and I don't wear rose-colored GOP glasses.
No guts no glory!
Seriously though, I don't think it's just rhetorical when election experts say that 'wave elections' tend to exceed all predictions. By my evaluation, there were at least 22 Dem seats that tipped to the GOP in 1994 that would not have done so in a 'normal' election year.
Do you recall what the most extreme prediction was in 1994? It was Morton Kondracke's prediction of a 14 seat GOP majority. The actual outcome was a 25 seat GOP majority. So, I guess we'll just have to see, but unlike Sabato, Rothenberg, and the rest my income doesn't depend on my accuracy, so maybe I'm more daring in my predictions, but I've explained my reasoning, and que sera, sera!
Safe Democratic
Arizona
New Hampshire
New Mexico
New York* (R)
Ohio* (R)
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Wyoming
Likely Democratic
Arkansas* (R)
Colorado* (R)
Illinois
Kansas
Maine
Massachusetts* (R)
Lean Democratic
Iowa*
Michigan
Oregon
Wisconsin
Toss Up
Alaska* (R)
Idaho* (R)
Maryland (R)
Minnesota (R)
Nevada* (R)
Lean Republican
Florida*
Rhode Island
Likely Republican
California
Georgia
South Carolina
Texas
Vermont
Safe Republican
Alabama
Connecticut
Hawaii
Nebraska
South Dakota
Oh, I almost forgot. I've moved Pennsylvania to Safe Dem, for anyone who remembers there's still a 'race' there.. I've also moved Georgia back from Safe R to Likely R due to the prospect that could go to a Dec 5 runoff. However, Governor Perdue will certainly get a majority of the vote on Nov 7 in my view.
I disagree BTW on Florida. That race seems to be tightening, not widening, so I would not rate that Likely GOP. The Mason-Dixon poll that gave Crist an 11% lead with 50% of the total - just barely in Likely R by my criteria - was taken two weeks ago. Since then three of the last four polls have the race in single digits and those same three have it tightening (Rasmussen is the exception, going from Crist +5 to Crist +11). I think it's still a very solid GOP lean however.
BTW, per our previous discussion, yesterday the DCCC dumped $1,106,212 in the NH-02 race, so they obviously think Charlie Bass is on the ropes.
Fair enough on Florida. It's not a big point to me. I just have a rule on distrusting Florida polling in general. :)
I think your other changes are very reasonable and IMHO correct.
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