MT and RI-These races appear to be moving to the right at the last minute but I'm not sure if its too little to late. They remain Dem pickups but both are leaners now. This could change in the next day or so though.

MO and VA-The opposite is happening here. These ones are leaning left. After two ties, McCaskill has squeaked out the lead in 5 polls since then. In VA Webb suddenly burst over 50% in two polls and then led in 2 and tied in 1 in the subsequent 4 polls. After being behind for the entire race, this sudden move up is a dramatic shift to the left in the final days of the campaign.

MD-One recent poll has this one as a tie and while it is a close race it has been for the entire campaign. And Cardin has held the lead for the entire campaign. It'll be close but judging by history I still think this is safe Dem territory.

NJ-No longer in play in any real sense as far as I'm concerned. NJ voters are accustomed to corruption and this left leaning state isn't going to vote on corruption over Iraq and Bush.

The winners are already decided elsewhere.

Here's my house prediction based heavily on the analysis at RCP and CQ Politics. All districts listed are either in the RCP's top 50 and/or rated as highly competive by CQP.

Guaranteed Democratic gains: AZ-8, CO-7, FL-16, IN-8, OH-18, PA-10, PA-7, TX-22 (Dems hold IA-3, VT-AL, GA-8).

Likely Dem Gains: IA-1, NC-11, NM-1, NY-24, (Dems hold IL-8 and GA-12)

Lean Dem/tossup: CT-4, CT-5, FL-13, FL-22, IN-2, IN-9, NH-2, NY-20, OH-15, PA-6, WI-8

Lean Rep/tossup: AZ-1, AZ-5, CA-11, CT-2, ID-1, IL-6, KY-3, NY-19, NY-26, NY-29, OH-1, OH-2, PA-8, WA-8

Likely Rep. Holds: CA-4, CO-4, KY-4, MN-1, MN-6, NV-2, NV-3, NY-25, WY-AL

Garanteed Rep. Holds: CA-50, NE-1, NE-3, NJ-7, VA-2, PA-4

Final result: D-226 R-209

 By: padfoot714 (D-OH) - 2006-12-05 @ 06:06:50

Well my house predicting skills aren't quite as good as I thought I guess. My final tally was off by at least three (pending legal action in FL-13 and a runoff in TX-23) but I'm actually pretty proud of that prediction. Its within 5 seats of the final result which is damn close in my opinion. However, I miss-called at least 12 races (FL-13 not included) and didn't even mention at least 3 that ended up switching: IA-2, KS-2, and NH-1 (I didn't mention TX-23 either if it ends up switching). Here's a breakdown of all my missed calls: AZ-5: Kinda surprising to me. Although the West is trending Dem Arizona is moving slower than NV, NM, and CO so I thought Giffords would be the only Dem takeover. I think my lean Rep prediction was good though. CA-11: I underestimated the environmentalist nature of the 11th's voters here. Shoulda had this one in the lean Dem column. CT 2 and CT-4: Got these two switched. I was figuring on CT-2 being the more conservative district. Shoulda gone with a Dem sweep of New England given the strong anti-war sentiment there. FL-13: The voting irregularities here lead me to beleive Jennings actually won this race and my call was correct so I'm not counting this one as a real miss-call. It looks like FL is going to crown the wrong victor yet again though. This only increases my loathing of the whole stupid state. IA-2: This is one I missed entirely in my ratings. I think I was distracted by the other two close races here and meejer's insistance that the Reps would be winning big in Iowa. KS-2: Another unmentioned takeover. I shoulda added it when I heard about the Dem's last minute blitz here. KY-3: I said it was only a leaner/tossup so I'm not really disappointed in losing this one. MN-1: Kinda surprising. The other talked about races in MN were moving to the right so I assumed it was statewide. I'm unhappy about my prediction here. NH-1: Going back to my CT comments, I should have gone for the Dem sweep in the Northeast. I at least should have mentioned this district somewhere between likely Rep and Lean Dem. NM-1: This was a nailbiter and extremely hard to call so no fault here. NY-19: This one was close so I'm not as disappointed in my bad prediction but it was another example of anti-war underestimation in New England. OH-15: I can say that this one was close so I'm excused for being wrong but that would be sorta a lie. I let my own preference block out Pryce's popularity and moderate record. I also overestimated Kilroy's vote potential in the urban/suburban areas and underestimated the number of total voters in general in the rural portions of the district. In my defence, Brown and Strickland trounced DeWine and Blackwell. However, OH-15 contains one of only 16 counties (out of a total 88 in Ohio) that voted for Balckwell. Also, both "rural" counties in the 15th voted for DeWine. Basically I totally screwed up on my own district which I kinda knew I was doing. PA-4: I was caught of gaurd by this one. I'm not sure what happened here. PA-6 and PA-8: I should have just gone with all Dem takeover's in the Philly area and been right 2 times instead of just once. Well that about sums it up. One last comment about OH-15, even though I voted for Kilroy (which I basically admitted above) at this point I'm glad Pryce won. She has publicly admitted that in her leadership post led her away from the views of the district and now that she has given up that post she will be able to spend more time here and better represent us. Also, she is one of the few remaining GOP moderates and the party will need people like her if they hope to win back their mahjority in the House.

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