Sam Spade's 2010 Predictions

[Nym90]

Might as well put all Democratic seats on the watch list now.

lol

I was going to put PA-17 there on the update.  Don't fret.

Rumor has it a new poll in NY-16 shows Jose Serrano down by 20 points to an unnamed "tea party candidate"....

[Nym90]

I know. NY-16 should at least be considered lean Dem.

In all seriousness I do agree on PA-17, though at this point I'd say every district with a PVI of R+5 or greater really should automatically be considered watch list until further evidence proves otherwise.

[Nym90]

Yeah, I don't really see the logic for how the Senate flips but not the House. The "wave" would have to be particularly localized in certain areas.

Simple math shows how unlikely this would be....to flip the Senate, the GOP has to gain 10 seats, but only 2 Dem senate seats are at risk in states that voted for McCain. So the GOP has to win at least 8 Dem senate seats in Obama states, in addition to the 5 they themselves are defending in Obama states.

In contrast, there are 48 (I believe) Dem House seats at risk in McCain districts, so the GOP, at least in theory, could win the House on these seats alone.

So basically for the Senate to fall but not the House, there have to be a lot of Obama voters who switch to GOP Senate candidates, but at the same time a decent number of McCain voters who still vote for Dem House candidates.

Now, maybe the health care bill causes some revolt among suburban Obama voters in "blue" states that costs the Dems a bunch of Senate seats, but it somehow doesn't affect the "reddish" rural Dem districts who realize it's not so bad after all, or some such. But that's about the only way I see that happening.

If anything I see the opposite as being much more likely....a GOP wave in reddish districts flips the House, but the Senate holds relatively firm with fewer losses than expected as voters in fundamentally Dem states return to the Dems.

[Nym90]

Too many Dem incumbents at or below the 50% mark (or upside down in terms of approvals).

True, but I'm sure there are quite a few in the House for whom that is true, as well (there just isn't as much polling).

I agree that the Senate, all things being equal, tends to be more favorable to the GOP than the House, due to the small state bias factor. However, the big problem with taking the Senate is that only 1/3 of it is up for election and the other 2/3 was elected in very favorable years for the Dems (and that 1/3 was elected in a mildly favorable GOP environment), and so it would take a massive wave, and how that massive wave somehow misses the House is the part that I don't really get.

Due to the favorable Senate maps they will be looking at in 2012 and 2014, if I were the GOP I'd rather take the Senate than the House,  even though normally the House majority matters more due to the filibuster, because if GOP does take the Senate this year they have an excellent shot at 60 seats by January 2015.

In fact, you could say it is already highly likely that either 2012 or 2014 will be great years for the GOP (2012 if Obama loses, 2014 if he wins), and thus the odds of the Dems having 59 or 60 Senate seats again anytime in the next decade are pretty slim.