Midterm elections prediction thread

[KDawg]

one thing that should be noted that any poll that has a +/- margin of error over 2.5 is generally invalid and shouldn't be paid attention to. When you see a margin of error of almost 4, then they haven't polled enough people.

Polls are generally meaningless as its hard to actually gauge what is really going on because of who actually answers the phone or takes the time to fill out a poll.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

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I do expect that the GOTV operations will slightly favor the GOP in high-profile races like Missouri and Tennessee, which is why the Democrats face an uphill battle in taking the Senate. On the other hand, I expect the opposite dynamic to hold in the hundreds of House races across the country, which may not have been subject to heavy advertising and exposure.

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I could see this. Everything is so murky to me, including the extent of the murkiness. Iowa Electronic Markets and Tradesports only have the House at 70/30? But the media experts make it sound like near 100% Democratic takeover. I don't quite understand where the difference is coming from.

On the other hand, I have no clue how someone can conduct an accurate poll nowadays when everybody uses their cell phone, and if you don't it clearly says something about the way you vote. I guess you can model and stuff, but I'm not sure if that would be called a poll, so I don't quite know what they're doing and how they come up with these numbers.

Finally, I see a lot of people on 2+2 that have changed their party, but I only know a couple in real life. Maybe that's significant, I dunno.

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I think the markets are a little bit skittish precisely because of the skpeticism about polls, in connection with the Republicans' reputation for getting out the vote, and possibly some concerns about the voting process itself (e.g. suppressed votes or miscounts).

The way that I look at it, there's probably a 3-5% swing possible to either party based on exactly how the turnout plays, which is something that it's going to be impossible to predict before election day. However, the Democrats have built up enough of a lead in the House that they could probably withstand a 3% turnout shift to the GOP. And if the turnout shift goes the other way, with the Democrats picking up 3% on top of their poll numbers, we could see something like 45 or even 50 seats shifting parties.

Anyway, I think Republicans' chances of holding on to the House are probably about half of the 26% that Tradesports currently predicts. Maybe as low as 5-10% if there's no news that breaks before election day. On the other hand, I think the Senate number (68% for the GOP) is probably about right.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

Just to confirm what I wrote above, I looked at the data on House races on electoral-vote.com, taking the average of all polls taken within the past ten days. If no poll was taken during this time frame, I used the most recent poll, or the 2004 election results if no polling has been done in the district.

If the polls are exactly right as listed, then the Democrats would wind up with 239 seats, for a net shift of +36 from the previous alignment. However, even if you give the Republicans a 3-point bump in all races, the Democrats would enjoy a 17-seat majority. It's only when you give Repulicans a 5-point bump in all races that they retain control of the House, and then only by one seat. Conversely, a 5-point shift to the Democrats would give them a 53-seat pickup and a huge majority.

In other words, even in the very worst case for Democrats, they're still even money to pick up the house. In any case but the worse case, they'll win going away.

+5 points for GOP
DEMS 217, GOP 218 (+14)

+4 points for GOP
DEMS 221, GOP 214 (+18)

+3 points for GOP
DEMS 226, GOP 209 (+23)

+2 points for GOP
DEMS 235, GOP 200 (+32)

+1 points for GOP
DEMS 236, GOP 199 (+33)

No turnout shift:
DEMS 239, GOP 196 (+36)

+1 point to DEMS
DEMS 240, GOP 195 (+37)

+2 points to DEMS
DEMS 245, GOP 190 (+42)

+3 points to DEMS
DEMS 247, GOP 188 (+44)

+4 points to DEMS
DEMS 251, GOP 184 (+48)

+5 points to DEMS
DEMS 256, GOP 179 (+53)

[Jeff Oneye]

I agree with the point regarding the validity of polling. Yes, they overrepresent certain types of people and underrepresent others. As previously noted, certain people tend to be home at the time pollsters call. Furthermore, certain types of people will hang up the phone on the pollster. And then we have the proliferation of cell phones. Also, some voters who say they will vote will stay home if they are inconvenienced by bad weather. For these reasons and a litany of others, there is reason to be cautious when interpreting poll results.

I remember back in 2000 when most of the pollsters (Zogby being a notable exception, who called it dead on) had Bush winning by about three or four percentage points. Then in the last election cycle it appeared the Republicans wouldn't fare as well as they did. So the pollsters usually don't get it quite right. They do a good job at identifying runaway winners but are practically useless in close races.

There does seem to be a 'built in advantage' favoring Republicans. Thus, it probably makes sense to add a percentage point or two to the Republican candidate. Republicans tend to be more motivated to vote then Democrats. Their partisan identification is stronger and they rarely defect.

I would speculate this advantage might not be as pronounced in the upcoming election. The Republicans have alienated their base with unyielding support for an unpopular war and an unwillingness to curtail growth in government. Blaming Democrats doesn't work as well when the Republicans control the House, Senate and the Presidency.

The recent blunder by John Kerry might have some negative impact, reinforcing the perception of Democrats as elitist and anti-military. However, it might also redirect attention to the war in Iraq. And previous Republican scandals (notably Foley) will help mitigate its impact.

My basic impression is that there is a general sense of dissatisfaction with the Iraq War, even amongst my Republican friends and colleagues. They gave Bush and Congress a pass during the last election cycle. However, the rhetoric hasn't matched the reality. This might have the effect of putting Democrats on more of a level playing field by eroding Republican partisan zeal. However, I don't think that means mass defections or droves of cynical republicans staying home. The incumbents will still have their inherent advantage as well. My prediction is that the Republicans will lose about ten seats in the House and a couple in the Senate.

Jeffrey

[Moneyline]

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There does seem to be a 'built in advantage' favoring Republicans

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I would guess that at least part of this advatage has to do with the fact that Republicans have more money. If this is true, then it may not be as big a factor this year as it has been in the past. The Republican financial advantage is smaller than it typically is, and moreover, some political analysts have stated that Republican ads (which frequently focus on terrorism) are not as effective in today's political climate.

[ncboiler]

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ill call up dan dorfmann and make my guess.

seriously though if you could provide a link to a good projection site it might be useful for people to bet off this baseline as opposed to randomly guessing.


i follow fairly closely but dont really feel qualified to guess. i would vote dems beat the consensus but id like to see what the consensus is.

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Barrons had an article last week in which they projected the overall outcome of the races in both the House and Senate. Their projections are based on the size of each candidates "War Chest" suggesting that the size of the war chest demonstrates the size of the grass roots support each candidate possesses. This method predicts the winner of each race at a success rate of 93% but most recently candidates with the biggest war chest win at a rate of 98%. The final prediction;

The House stays in the GOP's hands by a margin of 8 seats with a worst case scenario being a GOP margin of 1 seat.

In the Senate the process predicts the GOP will have 52 seats.

We will see how accurate it this year.

[reddog12]

With 90% of the country now using electronic voting, the Dems have no chance to win the House. The machines have already been programmed to flip enough key races to the Republicans to hold the House. Why do you think Rove says he's not worried? There also are no more independent exit polls to point out discrepancies, and no way to verify vote totals. In essence, we no longer have a democracy.

If anyone has a chance, watch "Hacking Democracy" on tonite and I think all week on HBO at 9pm. It might open your eyes to what has happened with our electoral process.

[KDawg]

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There does seem to be a 'built in advantage' favoring Republicans

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I would guess that at least part of this advatage has to do with the fact that Republicans have more money.

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actually, it has more to do with them being better able to rally their voters then the dems

[WichitaDM]

I am mostly shocked by the fact that ford is going to lose in tennesee. He seems to be a very moderate level headed democrat. Maybe he is just in the wrong state where race and other factors(ie incredibly hateful and borderline racist commercials) play too big of a role but he seems like a no brainer.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

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I am mostly shocked by the fact that ford is going to lose in tennesee. He seems to be a very moderate level headed democrat. Maybe he is just in the wrong state where race and other factors(ie incredibly hateful and borderline racist commercials) play too big of a role but he seems like a no brainer.

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He might not lose. The Republicans got two pieces of terrible news today, and some polls are still showing the race as a toss-up. But Tennessee is a red state, and Corker has managed to portray Ford as a little bit amateurish and immature, although Ford did much of the damage himself by trying to crash one of Corker's press conferences.