The Examiner blog board, of which I am a part, has election predictions up from a bunch of great bloggers.
I didn't participate in the predicting mostly because I'm really superstitious about these things and always feel like I'm jinxing us unless I say I think we're holding absolutely everything and then some. I'm gonna have to get over that, but not this year!
I do love me some Geraghty at election time, though, and he's feeling none too shabby:
As the New Republic editors noted, the poll showed a particularly surprising drop in the Democratic generic ballot advantage in the Northeast, from a 26 point margin to a 9 point one. Where are the House seats the Democrats want to pick up? Yes, some in Indiana and Kentucky, but quite a few are in Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania (and, apparently at one point, New Hampshire).
[Jim’s observation/question: If the bottom fell out for Democrats in blue states like these, how likely is it that their candidates are holding their ground in red states like Indiana and Kentucky?]
If a professional pollster like Kohut looked at the numbers, concluded the GOP had a good chance to hold the House, but didn’t quite want to trash his earlier numbers, wouldn’t one write something like this? Something cautious, like the latest result “raises questions about whether the party will win a large enough share of the popular vote to recapture control of the House of Representatives”? As much as we mock pollsters, these people are professionals – well, okay, there’s Zogby – and they want reputations for accuracy. No one wants to be the one who runs the headline, Dewey Defeats Truman.
Read the whole Obi Wan report. That's the good stuff. (If you're unfamiliar with Obi Wan, he's an anonymous friend of Geraghty's and long-time Republican operative who is a constant source of wisdom at trying times such as these.)
Allah takes the opposite approach-- avoiding jinxing by making this bold prediction:
Any sports fan, especially a Sox fan like Dean, knows or should know: the surest way to jinx your team is to expect them to win.
Which is why I’m now predicting an 85-seat pickup for the Democrats in the House.
My dad, whose gut feeling is generally dead-on when it comes to these things, is sure that Republicans are coming home, baby! More from Obi Wan to support that feeling, in addition to the three generic ballot polls from this weekend:
1) Kathryn’s posting that Democratic governor Ed Rendell’s internal polls have Santorum within 5. [Jim thought: Again, if the wave is affecting races from Rhode Island to Maryland to Ohio to Montana to Arizona, why wouldn’t it sooner or later show up in the numbers in Pennsylvania?]
2) The pollster for the Detroit Free Press who put Bouchard within 4 in Michigan and gubernatorial candidate DeVos within 2. Rove said on Hewitt’s program:
And then there’s something odd going on in Michigan. There has been, over the last week, a strong push for the Republicans in Michigan. There’s a pollster named Steve Mitchell, who does polling almost exclusively in Michigan, the Epic Poll, and he called the 2000 Presidential race on the button, he called the 2002 gubernatorial race on the button. He called the 2004 Presidential race on the button. And he’s shown in the last week a dramatic close by the Republican candidates for both governor and Senator. Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos is down only two, and Michael Bouchard down, as I believe, three points in the Senatorial race, which are dramatic cuts in the Democrat lead.
3) Democracy Corps - Carville, Greenberg – polling completed Sunday night shows a 5 point margin in the generic ballot.
As for me, I've got a little bit of that old '04 feeling, but I'm not gonna put too much stock in it. The President is looking good on the trail and the crowds are loving him. When he gets out there, the fact is, despite everything, a lot of regular people like this good man who has worked hard to do what he thinks is right to protect us. I have a hard time seeing a lot of them defect to the Party of Condescension and Questionable Fortitude.
We shall see. Frankly, I'll be with a bunch of sorta angry liberal bloggers tonight, so it's probably better for me if the Republicans don't keep both houses, because I just bought a new dress, and I don't need a bunch of drinks splashed on it during the weeping and wailing. But that's just a short-term concern. I'll trade the dress for a Republican win and national security. Get out there, folks!
Update: On the other hand, and I quote, "Democrats have nothing to combat this!" Hee.
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