2008 Election Prediction

I guess I will try my hand at guessing the election again. I do think that Barak Obama will win, but I do not think it will be by the landslide that most predict. In fact, I think at the end of the day the Republicans will have done much better than most pollsters and TV guys will admit. Obama will win because he will flip Iowa and Virginia and maybe Colorado. That is more than enough. However some people are predicting Obama getting 350 electoral votes, and even Rasmussen thinks Obama will pull in 300. I think that is silly. Don’t forget Obama always polled higher in the primaries than he preformed and the polls are all weighted for a heavy democratic turn out. I think the Republicans will turn out more than the polls say they will. I will admit that I am rooting for a 269 to 269 tie. How often does that happen? Then it will be interesting to see what the House does. Will they stick with their parties or their states? The best thing that could happen for Republicans is for the House to stick with their parties. Democrats have majorities in states that will go for McCain such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina. Fun for everyone.

Why then will it still be a decent night for the Republicans? Because I am not sure they are going to get blown out of the other races where people think they might. I do not think the Dems will reach 60 in the Senate and the House will be very interesting. That is what I will be watching on election night. To reach 60 the Democrats need to beat Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina and that is going to be tough. She is gaining and they are basically tied. Turn out on the East Coast will be high for the Republicans. The Dems need to beat Gordon Smith in Oregon who is one point ahead, but the West Coast may have a lower turnout for Republicans as the doom and gloom sets in. So let us just give both of those to the Dems for the fun of it. They will not win in Texas or either one in Mississippi nor will they pull of the upset in Kentucky keeping the Dems at 59 at best. To get to 59 they need not only Dole and Smith, but they need to defeat Coleman. Now Coleman is down in the polls by about 4 to Franken, but if you look at the local polls you see that Al Franken only gets 41% of the vote while an independent gets 17%. That number needs to hold for Franken to beat Coleman. If people desert the independent, Coleman has a chance to win as it seems more likely for Republicans to leave the independent than the Democrats who are anti-Franken voters.

The House is going to be fun because this is where Obama hurts the Democrats the most. He is running on a message of change, so incumbant Democrats might fall victim. Add to that the huge sums of money going to Obama, which is at the expense of giving to the DNCC and local House candidates, and that could spell trouble. Even giants like John Murtha are barely outraising no name Republican opponents. Don’t forget to mention that Murtha just called his district “racist” in the paper, and that race could be interesting. But the Dems have high hopes because of the large number of open seats. Republicans retired in large numbers this year. AL-02, AZ-01, CA-04, FL-15, IL-11, MN-03, NJ-03, NJ-07, NM-01, NY-03, NY-25, NY-26, OH-15, OH-16, and VA-11 (OR-05 and AL-05 are also open but were held by Democrats). Add to that list close races in 2006 like Chris Shays in CT-04 and Musgrave in CO-04 as well as Gerlach in PA-06. This makes a lot of Democrats hopeful of a really big landslide. Add in a few coattail victories they think they can have a large majority in the House.

However, 2006 was really a rebuke for many Democrats. They should have picked up more ground in Ohio in 2006 and they won lots of seats that will be hard to defend this year. FL-16 where Mark Foley, the homosexual intern predator was defeated, but the district remain mainly Republican. Add to that the Democrat Mahoney got caught having sex with employees of his own and the Republicans ought to take back this seat. TX-22 was the Delay district and the Republican lost in 2006 because the courts made Delay keep his name on the ballot. Lampson will lose a seat for the Dems here. OH-22 was the Bob Ney district and Congressman Space who benefited from that will probably lose this time as well. Lesser known scandals such as the one where the Republican Sweeney in NY-20 beat his wife and Congressman Sheerwood beat his mistress in PA-10, which cost them the election, should also be reversed. Plus, Republicans can hope to defeat Childers in MS-01. Childers won a special election in May over the same opponent, but Republican excitement is up a great deal since then and the turn out at the polls will be larger. There are plenty of rematches from 2006 as well that Republicans might could pick up since the anti-war sentiment is not as big. Plus the Republicans will put money into AZ-05 and AZ-08 which they did not in 2006 because the Republican candidates were against Bush’s immigration bill. The Dems are not going to sweep through those open seats like they would hope. Not to mention they need to defend some of their southern seats that are trending Republican. Seats like GA-08, GA-12, KS-02, LA-06, and TX-23.
It should make for an entertaining night of election coverage, and hopefully this will lead to a real conservative revolution. Either way, my hope is in nothing less than Jesus Christ’s righteousness.