2010 Projection Updates

It is 352 days until mid-term election 2010. That's both a lifetime in politics (think about how much has happened politically in the past year) and shorter than you think (the Massachusetts special election takes place in January, primaries start in Illinois in February.)

Let's take a look at the state of the races:

The Senate


Two changes since our last projection, both favoring the GOP.

In North Carolina, 3 different polls show Burr with anywhere from a 7% to 12% lead against prospective challengers. It is a close call, as I had sort of informally set the bar between "lean" and "likely" at around 10%, but having three different polling firms find the same result is enough for me to shift this from Lean GOP Hold to Likely GOP Hold.

In Ohio, Portman is up by 3-4% against two possible Democratic opponents in a new Quinnipiac poll. This validates an earlier Rasmussen poll that showed him leading by 2% a few weeks ago, and causes me to shift this from a Toss-up to a Lean GOP Hold.

All of which leaves us with:
Safe DEM Hold (7)
Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin

Likely DEM Hold (4)
California, Indiana, North Dakota, Massachusetts*

* Special election in January

Lean DEM Hold (2)
Arkansas, New York (Gillebrand)

Lean DEM Pick-up (1)
Missouri

Toss-up -- DEM Controlled (2)
Illinois, Pennsylvania

Toss-up -- GOP Controlled (1)
New Hampshire

Lean GOP Pick-Up (4)
Colorado, Delaware, Connecticut, Nevada

Lean GOP Hold (3)
Kentucky, Georgia, Ohio

Likely GOP Hold (7)
North Carolina, Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana

Safe GOP Hold (6)
Florida, Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah

This projects:
GOP Pick-up of 2 to 5 seats, central projection of GOP +3 seats


The House
Democrats stand at +2.1% in our aggregated polling data, although the poll range is still extremely wide (from +7% for the DEMs to +5% for the GOP.)

This would imply:
GOP Pick-up of 16-20 seats, Central Projection GOP +17 Seats


So, the GOP still isn't in a position to retake either House, but they are slowly, steadily, eating into swing districts. The Democrats need an economic turnaround or they could be in big trouble.

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