Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Maybe all hope is not lost.

By

No doubt we’re going to have to work to keep our majorities, but as of today this website has the Democrats hanging on in both chambers, albeit by a thread.  Democrats get 51 Senate seats and 220 House seats.  The front page has the Senate map and you can click a link for House analysis.

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  1. And questionable methodology.

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    p>This site is run by a Democrat and includes more rosy predictions than almost all other commentators.

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    p>The main reason, as far as I can tell, is that this site makes aggressive predictions on the outcome of several House races without any polling data.  Most significantly, it predicts a winner by party in any Congressional District in which the 2008 race was decided by more than 3%.  It also uses looser prediction rules about Open Seats based on the District’s past party voting history.  (See: http://www.electoral-vote.com/… )

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    p>Finally the map you link seamlessly combines both “leaning” and “solid” numbers, so that the greater number of leaning Democratic versus Republican seats is minimized (see e.g the NY Times, http://elections.nytimes.com/2… , hardly a conservative bastion, has “solid” seats listed as 168-168, with 47 “leaning” Democratic and only 19 “leaning” Republican).  The overall numbers reported at the two sites are similar (NYT scores it 215-187-33 versus electoral-votes 220-184-31).  But not reporting on the far greater number of leaning Democratic districts versus Republican leaning districts paints a far more certain picture than the reality.

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    p>The result of all these decision may appear slight but makes a large difference in the overall course of things.  I agree with that the Democrats may hold on to the House in the end (lose fewer than 37 seats) but things are for more dicey and uncertain than this map/methodology suggests.

  2. We have three things in combination:

    • A bad economy which always favors the opposition party.
    • Mid-term elections which always favor the opposition party
    • Terrible messaging by Democrats

    Don’t expect positive trends to continue. Expect to see Boehner as Speaker of the House in 2011.

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    p>Signs of the bad messaging:

    • Democrats should be but aren’t winning on healthcare.
    • The too-small stimulus predictably fell short and yet the Obama Administration is claiming a better economy than actually exists.
    • The Democrats should be able to make the case for short term deficit spending and long-term fiscal solvency. They should be able to show how disastrous the Republicans are on both (short-term austerity and long-term unsustainable tax cuts). They don’t.

     

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