Analysis of House Races- 2004

[minionofmidas]

Yeah I like Crystal ball about the best.  seems fair.  

Not sure about "like" or "fair", but Fairvote.org have been predicting every house race since 1996 (inclusive) and have got it wrong exactly once. They have a too close to call option, which makes that easier...
They also have expected minimum margins, which usually include only a small handful of errors.
You'd have to look through a lot of talk on election reform that you might not like though...As that is their main aim.

[minionofmidas]

Correction on Fairvote.org
Problem is, I used that site a lot in 2002 and hadn't come back since. They posted a preliminary prediction for 2004 in December 2002. Their predictions are based purely on a mathematical model, so that's possible. However, predictions would have to change wherever
- an incumbent resigns, dies, retires, is defeated in a primary
- the contender also has a record of running for the house from that district
- and of course, when a state gets re-gerrymandered.
They said they'd update the prediction as these things happen. They haven't got started doing it yet...They'll probably do well in time before the election, but as of the moments their predictions are in a number of cases worthless.

[minionofmidas]

said heavily republican district, so safe seat right?

I suppose that means in terms of registration. We're talking the rich eastern edge of the Seattle-Tacoma area here. Traditional Republican territory, but voted for Al Gore in 2000. Not exactly a safe seat then. Not a certain Dem pickup either, though. It should depend on who runs for the Republicans.

[minionofmidas]

The dcpoliticalreport predictions seem to be a little bit biased towards the Dems (which is not to say that these are Dem-made predictions, I don't know about that). They also predict no change in the senate.
In the House, they predict that the Dems will keep all 5 TX districts that are getting seriously fought over, giving the state a 17-15 Rep delegation. This is possible but in my opinion unlikely - as is the Reps gaining all five of 'em.
If it came to pass it would be highly ironic - all the TX gerrymander would have achieved is disillusioning a few people about politics, punishing the city of Austin for being so friggin liberal and gaining one seat. Oh yeah, and finally getting Ralph Hall to acknowledging he's republican.

[minionofmidas]

Sachs' is a Democrat but the site is quite balanced and the only time any bias appears is when a race is a 50-50 tossup.
Unlike most stuff on the internet...

I'm not letting anyone say anything nasty about him as he represented miners with silicosis in several court cases.

That's good.
I didn't mean as compared to typical partisan spinster stuff. Of course it's way more balanced than that. It's just that I considered his predictions as slightly overoptimistic (or overpessimistic, had he been a Republican)