[Knockwurst]

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The senate will be hard since uneducated people in Wyoming, Idaho, etc vote against their own interests.

If you believe this is true, then the onus lies on democrats to be better educators and campaigners.

Also, paging Copernicus to this thread. Paging Copernicus to this thread. We need responses to some rebuttals.

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There have been no rebuttals to my statement, only dismissals of the relevance of the history of 6th year administrations, erroneous claims that winning the House and not the Senate is "huge", and guesses at the outcome of the election that appear to be based on week old polls.

When a supposedly equal or superior team is spotted 21 points in a game, winning by 10 is nothing to gloat about.

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You're wrong, but thanks for playing.

From Kevin Drum's site Washinton Monthly:

Having essentially conceded defeat, the latest conservative game is to pretend that even if the Democrats pick up 20 or 30 House seats on Tuesday, it's no big deal. Charles Krauthammer: "Since the end of World War II, the average loss for a second-term presidency in its sixth year has been 29 House seats." Ann Coulter: "The average sixth-year midterm election, like this year, is much worse for the president's party, which typically loses 34 seats in the House."

Nice try, guys, but here's the reality. Up through the 70s, big swings in House elections were common, but in the last 20 years there's only been a single year with a big swing (1994). Aside from that, the average change has been less than five seats. You can see the same thing if you look only at sixth-year midterms:


1958: 49 seats
1966: 47 seats
1974: 49 seats
1986: 5 seats
1998: 5 seats


See the trend? In the two sixth-year midterms since 1980, only five seats changed hands. There are plenty of reasons for this, including improved gerrymandering, huge money imbalances, and increased self-segregation.