Decision ‘08

Bowers: A Narrow Democratic Majority In The House

Make no mistake, Chris Bowers is of the left, but he has gone to a lot of trouble to put together a comprehensive forecast page for the 2006 House, and here is his conclusion:

I currently project Democrats to take 15-25 seats, which would give them a narrow majority of between 218-228 seats. I am a little worried that in the final decisions I was too optimistic by a tier in a few races (FL-16, ID-01, IL-06, NY-24, OH-01, OH-02, PA-07, PA-08, TX-17 and WA-08) and too pessimistic by a tier in others (FL-13, IN-02, NY-20 and WV-01). Overall I think it is a very good forecast even if, perhaps, very slightly too optimistic.

What I am not worried about is competition. The sheer amount of information I offer in this forecast easily surpasses anything publicly available anywhere in the nation. In this forecast, I include the following:

The top 60 House races in the nation, grouped by competitiveness tier.

The names of both the Democratic and Republican candidates in all 60 races.

The relative cash on hand in all 60 races

The partisan voting index for all 60 districts

The 2004 margin in all 60 districts

The latest poll, if any, from all 60 districts

Notifications as to whether each district is an open seat, held by a freshman, has a repeat challenger, or has been targeted for ad buys by the DCCC

Mini-commentary on each district

As Bowers says, that’s a lot for free, so bookmark it, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions…

UPDATE 8:28 a.m.: Kos notes the Bowers resource, and sounds a note of pessimism:

…[F]or the record, I still don’t think we’ll win back either chamber. I’ve seen the GOP close the deal too many times before for me to get complacent and cocky. Nah. I think we’ll win 7-14 seats in the House, 3-5 in the Senate.

It’s a toss-up as far as I’m concerned at this point…

8 Responses to “Bowers: A Narrow Democratic Majority In The House”

1 Dennis Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Anyone else find it interesting how Kos has consistently been pessimistic about the Democrats’ prospects this year? It may be his honest gut feeling, and understandable after losing so many times, but I can’t help but think this is something of an expectations game that he’s playing. Quite simply, if he’s out there predicting glorious victory and loses yet again, his little empire might be in grave danger of collapsing from poor morale. If he’d doom and gloom and Democrats do even marginally well, then every additional Congressional seat is gravy.
2 Mark Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Dennis, I’m right there with you…
3 David M. Smith Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 10:44 am
We saw in the Connecticut Primary and the California special election that polls are not very good predictors of outcome even one week before an election, much less two months before an election. Money on hand and historical trends are much better indicators. As the election gets closer, money will flow to where it is needed and where it will make the biggest difference. Kos may be playing the expectations game, but in doing so, he stumbled onto the most likely outcome.
4 David M. Smith Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 10:53 am
Oops, I need to amend my remark. The Democrats picking up 5 Senate seats and 14 House seats is not the most likely outcome, but it is on the extreme edge of possibilities. 3 and 7 are much more realistic; which speaks volumes of the [in]competencies of both Parties.
5 jp Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Howdy, hope all is well. I seem to remember you were pretty harsh on Karl Rove on the Plame leak…With regards to the Rich Armitage “the actual leaker” news, perhaps you owe Mr. Rove a blog apology….

cheers
jp
6 Mark Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
jp, it’s true that I was harsh with Rove, but I don’t think I owe him an apology (unlike Rumsfeld, I never actually called for his resignation, but I tiptoed to the edge). My problem with Rove was that he was sucking too much oxygen out of the room. Here’s what I said on July 2, 2005:

…I love the guy, and I appreciate what he’s done for the party and the administration, but he’s starting to suck a lot of oxygen out of the room, and if he becomes a distraction, and if he’s the super political genius he is rumored to be, he should be the first to realize he needs to get out of the way. Am I suggesting he resign? No, not yet…but if the smoke of the Plame case turns into fire, and he’s playing the role of the gasoline, I’m not going to be in a very forgiving mood…

Have a great one!…
7 jp Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
ok, coulnd’t find your exact phrasing…i’m pretty furious with Powell Tenet and Armitage…its pretty disgusting what they did to cover up for themselves. See Hitchens here: http://www.slate.com/id/2148555
8 Mark Says:
August 29th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Yeah, I saw that, too: I’m gonna blog that Hitchens article a little later…