CA-50 Special Election Busby vs. Bilbray

[12th Doctor]

Moral of the story, $11 million is effective at buying a Congressional race.

Yeah... because the Democrats never spent $88 million on the New Jersey Senate race, out spending the Republicans 10/1 and only winning by 3%.

[minionofmidas]

Moral of the story, $11 million is effective at buying a Congressional race.

Yeah... because the Democrats never spent $88 million on the New Jersey Senate race, out spending the Republicans 10/1 and only winning by 3%.

That was ineffective.

Okay, so as New Jersey is 13 times the size of a congressional district... they actually spent less on that worst example you could think of.

[12th Doctor]

Moral of the story, $11 million is effective at buying a Congressional race.

Yeah... because the Democrats never spent $88 million on the New Jersey Senate race, out spending the Republicans 10/1 and only winning by 3%.

That was ineffective.

Okay, so as New Jersey is 13 times the size of a congressional district... they actually spent less on that worst example you could think of.

But not much less.  My point, of course being that the Democrats had to massively outspend their opponents to win a seat that, by all rights, should have been theirs anyway.  And back then, that was the most expensive Seante race in history... by far.

Where as, I think the most expensive House race in history cost about $15 million on one side, so this isn't that big of a deal.

[J. J.]

There are about 18 GOP seats within a 4.5% swing.  At lest one is the open GOP seats and several were open seats in 2004 and should be solid.  Here is the raw count.

U.S. House - District 26 (CA)

U.S. House - District 4 (CO)

U.S. House - District 7 - (CO)

U.S. House - District 2 (CN)

U.S. House - District 4 (CN)

U.S. House - District 6 (IL)*

U.S. House - District 2 (IN)

U.S. House - District 8 (IN)

U.S. House - District 9 (IN)

U.S. House - District 4 (KY)

U.S. House - District 2 (MN)

U.S. House - District 6 (MN)

U.S. House - District 11 (NC)

U.S. House - District 8  (NC)

U.S. House - District 1 (NE)

U.S. House - District 1 (NM)

U.S. House - District 6 (PA)

U.S. House - District 32 (TX)

U.S. House - District 8  (WA)

U.S. House - District 9 (WA)

Two names on that list are Shays and Hyde.  Delay's former seat is also on the list.  My guess will be about 10 seats GOP loss, if the election were held today.  I suspect that those numbers will drop a bit, though I'm predicting a GOP  reduction.  I'm looking at 7-8 seat loss on election day.

Two factors I'm not sure of:

1.  What GOP and Dem seats are open?

2.  What do the demographics of NOLA look like?

[Sam Spade]

TX-32 is held by Pete Sessions and is totally safe.  It was only close last time because of the redistricting and him facing Martin Frost.

The open seats in the House this year are as follows:

GOP

Bush 2004% @ >50% against mean
CO-07
IA-01

Bush 2004% @ 50%-55% against mean
AZ-08
CA-50 (now filled)
NY-24
WI-08
IL-06

Bush 2004% @ 55%-60% against mean
MN-06
NV-02
FL-13 (this one is close, I only have whole numbers here, not percentages)

Bush 2004% @ <60% against mean
CA-22
CO-05
ID-01
NE-03
OH-04
TN-01
TX-22
OK-05

DEM

Bush 2004% @ 45%-50% against mean
OH-06
IL-17

Bush 2004% @ 40%-45% against mean
HI-02
MD-03
OH-13

Bush 2004% @ >40% against mean
MN-05
NY-11
TN-09
NJ-13

Lack Congressional Data
or enough Congressional data to make wild guesses.  Both are Republican open seats.

FL-09 - I think both this and FL-11 were 55-45 CDs in 2004, but I don't have percentages here.
FL-11 - Read FL-11.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Moral of the story, $11 million is effective at buying a Congressional race.

Yeah... because the Democrats never spent $88 million on the New Jersey Senate race, out spending the Republicans 10/1 and only winning by 3%.

That was ineffective.

Okay, so as New Jersey is 13 times the size of a congressional district... they actually spent less on that worst example you could think of.

But not much less.  My point, of course being that the Democrats had to massively outspend their opponents to win a seat that, by all rights, should have been theirs anyway.  And back then, that was the most expensive Seante race in history... by far.

Where as, I think the most expensive House race in history cost about $15 million on one side, so this isn't that big of a deal.

Hey everybody.

While a lack of sufficent funding can cause a candidate to lose, if the competing candidates are adequately funded (and both the Democrat and Republican candidates were in this election) then additional funding is rather ineffective.  In short, most of the money spent by both sides was wasted!

[Gustaf]

Moral of the story, $11 million is effective at buying a Congressional race.

Yeah... because the Democrats never spent $88 million on the New Jersey Senate race, out spending the Republicans 10/1 and only winning by 3%.

That was ineffective.

Okay, so as New Jersey is 13 times the size of a congressional district... they actually spent less on that worst example you could think of.

But not much less.  My point, of course being that the Democrats had to massively outspend their opponents to win a seat that, by all rights, should have been theirs anyway.  And back then, that was the most expensive Seante race in history... by far.

Where as, I think the most expensive House race in history cost about $15 million on one side, so this isn't that big of a deal.

Hey everybody.

While a lack of sufficent funding can cause a candidate to lose, if the competing candidates are adequately funded (and both the Democrat and Republican candidates were in this election) then additional funding is rather ineffective.  In short, most of the money spent by both sides was wasted!

That's what I think too.

[minionofmidas]

Moral of the story, $11 million is effective at buying a Congressional race.

Yeah... because the Democrats never spent $88 million on the New Jersey Senate race, out spending the Republicans 10/1 and only winning by 3%.

That was ineffective.

Okay, so as New Jersey is 13 times the size of a congressional district... they actually spent less on that worst example you could think of.

But not much less.  My point, of course being that the Democrats had to massively outspend their opponents to win a seat that, by all rights, should have been theirs anyway.  And back then, that was the most expensive Seante race in history... by far.

Where as, I think the most expensive House race in history cost about $15 million on one side, so this isn't that big of a deal.

Hey everybody.

While a lack of sufficent funding can cause a candidate to lose, if the competing candidates are adequately funded (and both the Democrat and Republican candidates were in this election) then additional funding is rather ineffective.  In short, most of the money spent by both sides was wasted!

True.