Decision ‘08

My House Prediction

First, some preliminaries to build the tension. Charlie Cook is still calling a wave, with six days to go:

In the House, it would take a miracle for the GOP to hold onto their majority. The losses look very likely to exceed 20 seats, and a 20- to 35-seat loss is most likely, but we would not be surprised for it to exceed 35 seats. The vulnerable GOP seats are there, the wave is there, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t.

Jay Cost thinks Cook may have jumped the shark:

Just yesterday, Charlie Cook updated his race rankings. I have to say, I think he might have jumped the shark.

Reading Cook has felt to me like watching one of my favorite sitcoms. Maybe a bit like Seinfeld: his trajectory this electoral season has seemed like that show. I was with him in the Spring. Good points, well argued. I liked it. Read him every week. Disagreed often (very often!), but the disagreements always got me a-thinkin’, which is something I truly enjoy. I checked his site every day. But, slowly but surely, I started to move away from him. He just wasn’t “clicking” for me. His recent mentions of Terri Schaivo (Terri Schaivo?!) felt a lot like a few of the Seinfeld episodes in Season 7 — e.g. “The Calzone” or “The Bottle Deposit” — that just had weak premises. And now - I think he has finally jumped the shark. Call it his “Bizarro Jerry” moment.

I join Cost in wondering what the hell Terri Schaivo is doing in a piece of analysis on the 2006 election, but I note that even Jay says the most likely scenario is “a slight, but non-functional, Democratic majority”.

And so it is. In coming up with my prediction, I did not crunch the numbers and look at the latest polling data district by district. I don’t have the time - if this was my full-time job, maybe, but since no one has seen fit to offer me $75k a year to blog from home - curses, life! Thou art cruel, indeed - but wait, where was I?….

Oh, yes, the House. Well, okay then, you’ve been warned. There’s nothing remotely scientific about this - it’s just my much-maligned gut. I hope I’m wrong (God, I hope I’m wrong!)…but the official Decision ‘08 prediction for the House is…

Dems +19…

Comments as to what a genuis or what an idiot I am are welcome, as always…

16 Responses to “My House Prediction”

1 mtl Says:
November 1st, 2006 at 10:56 pm
dems +14, with three seats contested in court.

and they think iraq is in a state of chaos.

actually my cynical side says 6-10, until I see something, no exit polls please, I’m not a believer. I remember tales of the rock the vote teen turnout in 04, which was completely wrong. Nobody can predict turnout. The conventional wisdom was that in 04 it would be between 112-115 mil, with anything greater favoring kerry heavily. 122 million voted, and they favored bush.

No one knows the turnout, but rove has been pretty good at getting it for the past three cycles.
2 mtl Says:
November 1st, 2006 at 11:08 pm
I’d lay odds that the gop retains either foley’s or delay’s seat at 50-50. The GA seat will also be a sleeper.
3 km Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:06 am
I’m with you on the blog from home deal, but I’ll need a little higher salary. Anyone? Hello?

I guess not.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Congressional Quarterly had the House at at 215 safe or leaning R, 206 safe or leaning D. I went through the tossups and based on history and Bush 2004 margin, decided the R’s would come out of it with 220 seats. Since then the CQ situation has deteriorated quite a bit, but I don’t have the time or heart to revise my prediction. So I’ll stick by it and apologize in advance for my stupidity.

Or should I say, I apologize to anyone who might have been offended by a misinterpretation of my prediction.
4 mtl Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 1:13 am
km-what’s your number/range?
5 jwest Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:24 am
Charlie Cook truly is in Bizzaro land.

As I’ve been saying, how can anyone believe that people in districts that have reliably voted republican for decades and went for Bush two years ago by 10 to 20 point margins will now suddenly switch parties?

The pollsters are locked into a mistaken model that traditionally overestimates democrats, coupled with poor methodology for congressional district sampling. However, with this election, a form of irrational exuberance has gripped the media which influences the pollsters turnout projections.

Logic has gone by the wayside, as Jay Cost is arguing, just as when in the late ‘90s people thought the stock of “Tube Socks dot com” justified a larger market cap than Exxon. There are a good deal of career mistakes being made in the polling industry now that will change who has credibility in the future.
6 jwest Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:49 am
For the actual numbers:

House - Dems gain 6 seats

Senate - Republicans gain 2 seats
7 Mark Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:15 am
jwest, that’s the most optimistic prediction I’ve seen yet, I’ll give you that much - mtl, you’ve been dethroned!…
8 jwest Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:18 am
Mark,

If I’m correct, I’ll expect you to rename the blog after me.
9 Mark Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:28 am
Decision jwest? I don’t know, it just doesn’t have the same ring…
10 Andy Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:42 am
jwest, there you said it. “Irrational exuberance!”

Pity is that if there really was a bubble that burst, we’d be hard pressed to note it as sKerry will get the blame. And the KosKids will go on believing that they only MISSED it by that much!!! [Maxwell Smart Handsign]

Slight digression: anyone noticing a trend here? Will sKerry become the next DNC chairman?

But since sKerry is hard-left, they’ll have to take their lumps and tow the line instead of driving it.

In a way [putting on Rove’s thinking cap] that could be very interesting come ‘08 and the accompanying MSM/lunatic fringe irrational exuberance hyping the cHillary pantsuit-tail.

If this line of thinking is correct, then the country could well be in a ‘anybody but a dem or Bush’ mood. If so, the independents had better carpe diem
11 jwest Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:55 am
“Decision jwest”

I don’t know, sounds pretty snappy to me.

Back on topic, the remarkable thing about the ’06 midterm elections is that they will be so unremarkable.

The patterns for turnout and percentages allocated to each party will be almost indistinguishable from ’02. Of course, there will be some anomalies such as Maryland, but that is attributable to Steele being black and Cardin being so damn white. New Jersey would hold for dems if anyone but Menendez had been appointed to the seat. Michigan will be a shocker for the media, but Bouchard’s win is a given for anybody who lives in the state.

Santorum’s win will touch off cries of Diebold fraud and “disenfranchisement”, but his record of come-from-behind victories will temper the left wing outrage. Even Rendell showed a double-digit deficit prior to his win in Pennsylvania.

Other than those mentioned, when the results are analyzed the numbers will be a mirror image of the last midterm. Some things change, but most things stay the same.
12 Chris J. Breisch Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:21 pm
I have Dems +19 also. I’ve been waffling between Dems +3 and +5 in the Senate all week. +4 originally, then up to +5 before I realized what an idiot Kerry was being. I still haven’t convinced myself that he’ll change votes back to Republicans, but he certainly killed the momentum for the Dems and whatever chance of a “wave” they had.

I have to look at some more Indiana data tonight. Sodrel has been closing on Hill, and I still call for Dickerson to upset Carson. I may drop my numbers to +18 or even +17 by tomorrow.
13 Chris J. Breisch Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Mark, speaking of the name of the site, do you own Decision12.net too? Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do after ‘08? Hang it up and go back to your real life?
14 Mark Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:10 pm
Chris, I’m still trying to figure that out, myself…but the Decision2012 (my preferred formulation) and for that matter Decision12 urls are long gone…I didn’t plan that far ahead when I started this one!…(though I do have decision2012.blogspot.com)…
15 km Says:
November 2nd, 2006 at 11:01 pm
My range? Why, it’s a GE Profile. Oh, I’ve some nice gas ranges in the past, but I do like the black glass cooktop.
16 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » The RCP Predictions… Says:
November 7th, 2006 at 8:14 am
[…] …+19 Dems House, +4 Dems Senate…sounds familiar… […]