The Big 2012 Elecotral Map - A Stable Picture of a Changed Race, Should Obama Abandon North Carolina and Florida?, Veep Candidates Clash, The Battle for Congress

Days Until the Election: 23
Projected Popular Vote Total: Romney +1.0% (down 0.2% from last week)
Projected Electoral Vote Total: Obama 294, Romney, 244 (Obama up 13 from last week)
Current Betting Odds: Obama 61%, Romney 39% (Romney up 1% since last week)

As the aftermath of the first Presidential debate settles down in the polls, we see the "new normal" for the race beginning to stabilize.  Romney actually lost a little ground this week, with his national polling falling back fractionally and Virginia flipping back to Obama.  But the basic picture is still the same - a pick 'em race nationally with a slight structurally electoral advantage to Obama.

Romney needs to add a minimum of 26 electoral votes from here to win the Presidency.  If he picks up the 3 closest states (New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia), it leaves him just short at 267.  This means that Romney still needs one of the larger states - either Ohio, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, or to pick up those 3 plus Iowa.

The betting odds continue to tighten a little but still show an Obama advantage, largely, I believe, because of this structural electoral advantage that we have been discussing for some time.

Should Obama Bail on North Carolina and Florida?
The Democratic National Convention was held in Charlotte and North Carolina holds a special place on the map for Barack Obama as a state he'd like to have.  Florida obviously holds special significance for Democrats as the site of the epic recounts 12 years ago.

But, as a matter of strategy, if I were advising President Obama, I would urge him to abandon his campaign in North Carolina and Florida in the waning days of the campaign.

Sure, winning one of those two states would seal the deal for a second term.  But they seem to be slipping out of reach and he doesn't need them.

Certainly, I would contest Colorado, which is basically just one media market and still seems very winnable.  Other than that, I'd focus on holding the states with leads.  As I described above, Romney, if he takes Florida and North Carolina, still needs New Hampshire, Nevada, Virginia, Colorado and 1 other state.  Firewall Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania and you win the Presidency.  Make Romney feel heat by rallying Hispanic voters in Colorado and Nevada.  Make the fight take place on your turf and focus resources.

Likewise, if I were advising Romney, I'd be telling him to pour everything into Ohio and Wisconsin.  Those are two big states that appear "gettable".  Michigan looks like too far a reach.  I think Pennsylvania is a long shot.  Nail Ohio and Wisconsin and your paths to the Presidency are many.  Miss them both and it is an almost impossible map.

VP Candidate Debate to an Essential Draw
The VP debate is typically the least significant of the four national debates in terms of moving the polls and that certainly appears to be the case this year - in part because almost everyone is voting based on the top of the ticket and in part because, in my opinion, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan essentially fought to a draw.

Biden was very good on substance - he was quick on his feet, aggressive in countering Ryan's attacks and came across likable, as he virtually always does.  He has received some criticism for smirking and laughing during Ryan's responses, but I don't think in context that those responses will hurt him.

Ryan appeared capable, cool and collected.  He was also aggressive on the attack and showed credibility and understanding on foreign policy. 

In short, I don't expect that the VP debate will do much to change the race.

Tune in next week for the second Presidential debate, where it is essential for Obama's chances that he significantly outperform his first debate performance.  Look for Romney to be aggressive to maintain / support his positive momentum.

The State of the Congressional Races
It's been a while since I've looked at the state of the races.  It appears more likely than not that the Democrats will retain control of the Senate at this point and that Republicans will retain the House.  Here are the latest numbers:

In the Senate, there are 30 Democratic and 37 Republican seats that are not up for election.  Of the balance, here are where things stand:

Safe or Likely Independent Seats - 2
(both likely to caucus with Democrats)
Vermont, Maine

Safe or Likely Democratic Seats - 12
California, Maryland, New York, Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Michigan, New Jersey, Washington, West Virginia, New Mexico

Safe or Likely Republican Seats - 6
Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska

Close Races - Projected 10 Democrats, 3 Republicans
Florida - Nelson (D) +7.6%
Ohio - Brown (D) +5.6%
Missouri - McCaskill (D) +5.2%
Pennsylvania - Case (D) +5.0%
Connecticut - Murphy (D) +4.2%
Wisconsin - Baldwin (D) +3.0%
Indiana - Donnoley (D) +2.0%
Massachusetts - Warren (D) +1.8%
Arizona - Carmona (D) +1.5%
Virginia - Kaine (D) +1.0%
North Dakota - Berg (R) +0.1%
Montana - Rehberg (R) +0.5%
Nevada - Heller (R) +3.0%

Projected: 52 Democrats, 46 Republicans, 2 Independents
(effective control 54-46 Democratic)

So, Democrats have the lead, but also have more close races to defend that they are currently leading.  Republican control of the Senate is not impossible, but looks to have become increasingly unlikely as the races have played out.

On Intrade, the odds of Republicans winning at least 50 Senate seats is currently pegged at 34%, and keep in mind that 50 seats only gives them the majority if they also win the Vice-Presidency, otherwise they would need 51 to get control.

In the House,
Current generic polling has the Democrats at +1.3%.

Based on this, projecting based on the newly redistricted House (which structurally favors the GOP) would give us:
Republicans 220 Seats, Democrats 215 Seats

I don't generally do seat-by-seat analysis of the House, but other sites do, so here is there perspective:
realclearpolitics.com (splitting the toss-ups evenly): GOP 239, DEM 196
electionprojection.com: GOP 240, DEM 195

Republicans have a 90% chance of retaining the House, based on the latest Intrade odds.

Obviously, the seat-by-seat analysis yields a broader spread than the generic polling data would indicate.  This may well be the case because of the candidates in the close races.  But I'm inclined to believe the truth is somewhere in between.  Either way, the GOP appears well-poised to retain the House.

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Scorecarding the MA Senate Race -- How'd I Do?, Did the Whole Game Just Change?

Results Versus Projections
So, the votes are counted, other than a few stray overseas absentee ballot and we have a clear picture of how well I projected the Massachusetts Senate result.

First, the obvious, I got the ultimate outcome right. Unlike many political sites, such as the highly reputed Cook Report, which simply rated the race a "toss-up" going into Tuesday, I always make a projection, regardless of the closeness of the margin. And we were right again. Combine that with getting the end result right in the New Jersey and Virginia Governors races this past November and going 48 for 50 in calling state results in the Presidential race, as well as nailing dead on the popular vote margin in 2008 and I think this site has a track record that rivals any political expert in terms of projecting elections over the past two years.

Now, on to the specifics of Massachusetts. Below are the actual (unofficial, but verified) vote percentages from Massachusetts versus my final projections:
Scott Brown: Actual 51.9%, Projected 50.8%, Error = 1.1%
Martha Coakley: Actual 47.1%, Projected 47.1%, Error = 0.0%
Joe Kennedy: Actual 1.0%, Projected 2.1%, Error = 1.1%

Note that the projection was exactly correct on Martha Coakley's vote percentage and that the error on the other two candidates was entirely due to Joe Kennedy receiving less than half of the statistical projection and those votes going to Scott Brown. If you re-read my blogs leading up to the election, I noted that minor independent candidates almost always poll better than they actually do...I even reasoned that Kennedy might lose about half of his support on election day. I also noted that it stood to reason that late departures from the Kennedy camp would favor the Republican over the Democrat. You can't statistically project that type of phenomenon, but I've seen enough of these elections to detect the pattern.

So, all told, I think I did extremely well in projecting an extremely difficult race to call, given all the rapid-moving dynamics and the inherent difficulty in projecting a special election.

I feel much better about these results than I do in the New Jersey and Virginia Governor's races, where the results were correctly projected, but the margin in both was off by just over 3%.

Time to Rethink the Whole Agenda?
While the result in Massachusetts was not unanticipated in most political circles, you could feel the ground shift as the results were called.

Democrats were calling for starting over on health care. Republicans possessed a swagger that they haven't had since early last decade. Centrist commentator Mort Zuckerman, who supported President Obama last November, blasted the President for the lack of openness, the ugly deals cut on health care and the general tone of his administration.

I'm reminded of a frequently used phrase in Washington: elections have consequences. And this election appears to be having broad-reacihng consequences.

Democrats have wisely ruled out ramming a bill through congress before Brown takes office. House Democrats have ruled out passing the Senate bill. This means, effectively, back to the drawing board. Are they even going to try for a bill? If so, what will it take to win over Olympia Snowe? Will they go just far enough to get to 60 or go much smaller and hope to win 70 or 75 Senate votes? What of the rest of the President's agenda? Will the Senate even debate Cap and Trade? Is immigration reform anywhere on the horizon? What of the budget for next year?

The direction of debate will largely be shaped by the President's State of the Union address next week. For a man who rose to power in large measure on the prowess of his powers of communication, this is THE most important speech of his career. Bigger than his 2004 DNC speech. Bigger than his speech on race. This speech will set the course for the next year of his Presidency and beyond.

In that vein, here is my unsolicited advice:
(1) Talk about deficit reduction
I've harped on this for months...the administration has not, as of yet, presented a credible deficit reduction program in any way shape or form. It has been accurately noted that Independents, who Obama won big with in November 2008 but who turned to a little-known State Senator named Scott Brown yesterday, tend to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative. They want stem cell research, abortion rights and don't so much mind gays in the military, but they detest runaway spending and deficits. Also, more than anything, they despise harsh partisan rhetoric and backroom deals.

The President can't solve the deficit in a speech. And the solutions are ugly...raise taxes, reform entitlements, cut social programs, cut the military, etc. But the President CAN support Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) sensible proposal for a non-partisan deficit reduction commission that would come back with a proposal to curb the deficit that Congress would be required to give an up or down vote to, as a whole. This process worked when military bases needed to be closed in the 1980s and 90s, and if you recall that era, there was no more contentious issue then. Giving full visible support to such a proposal would be a big win with independents and would garner bi-partisan support in Congress.

(2) Move quickly on the easy, bipartisan parts of health care. A bill to prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions, allow the purchase of insurance across state lines and to set up exchanges for the uninsured, that allowed reimportation of perscription drugs and that provided some modest tort reform could pass with big GOP support. The President could finally get the bipartisanship that he has been promising but utterly failed to deliver on.

(3) Refocus on jobs and fast. The elements are in place to drop unemployment. The problem is, Mr. President, people don't think you are working on it. Talk about what you are doing. Talk about the green energy economy. Talk about productivity investments. Make people believe that you #1 care and #2 are competent to do something about it.

(4) Advertise a little. Tell people about the 4 million kids who have health insurance that didn't when you administration took office. Talk about the troops coming home from Iraq. Talk about the credit card protections for consumers that you have put into place.

Have we entered a new era of gridlock or the dawning of a new age of bipartisanship?

I fear the former but hold out hope for the later. The President must take the first step, but the GOP will have to be willing to play ball as well.

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President Obama, Meet Senator Scott Brown

It certainly wasn't unexpected if you read my projection yesterday, but Scott Brown has defeated Martha Coakley for the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by the death of incumbent Ted Kennedy.

The latest results have the margin at 5.4%, slightly larger than my final projection. We'll see where the final results come in and then scorecard the projection, but it looks like I was within 2% on the margin.

Congratulations to Scott Brown. He ran a fantastic campaign in a state with uphill demographics at just the right moment in hitory.

The spinning has already begun -- if you asked Republicans, this is the end of the world for the Democrats. If you ask the Democrats, this was a local race with a lousy candidate.

As I said yesterday, the truth is probably somewhere inbetween, but this does feel like a pretty strong repudiation of the Democratic agenda. If Massachusetts votes against giving the Democrats 60 votes in the Senate, and trust me, voters there understand the implications, then who DOES want them to have 60?

So, the $900 billion question is...where does all of this leave health care reform?

We'll have to see the next few weeks play out, but I'll simply say for now -- it doesn't help the DEMs. The options going forward are well documented, but I'll rehash them here with my own assessment:

1. Ramrod a bill through before Brown takes office. It will take approximately 15 days to certify the election, because state law requires waiting 10 days for overseas absentee ballots to come in, followed by 5 days for the cities to validate vote totals. So, the theory goes, for the next 15 days Senator Kirk can still vote in the Senate while Democrats slow-walk the certification.

Odds of this happening: Absolutely zero unless Democrats decide to commit political suicide. Ignoring the vote of the people of Massachusetts to ram through a bill, while it may technically be legal, would toss gasoline on the flames of populist revolt fomenting in this country. Simply put, this scenario will NOT happen.

2. House passes the Senate bill as passed in the Senate. This option averts the need for the Senate to do anything to move the bill forward -- if the House passes an identical bill, the President can simply sign it and be done.

Odds of this happening: Low to moderate, but not impossible. House Democrats don't like the Senate bill and particularly don't like the thought of having to accept it with no input. But there may be no other way to get a bill and they may decide something is better than nothing.

3. Use Reconciliation. Use the rules of the Senate to pass a bill with 51 votes. The problem is that only budgetary issues are elgibile to use the reconciliation process which leaves out big parts of the legislation such as eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions or creating national health care exchanges.

Odds of this happening: Very Low. You just can't get enough of the bill done this way.

4. Go After Senator Snowe. She voted for the bill in committee. Give in to her demands, whatever those may be and make her vote number 60.

Odds of this happening: Low. Why, after seeing the bloodbath in Massachusetts, would Senator Snowe even consider playing ball? I think she is a woman of principle, but I don't think she is crazy.

5. Scale back. WAY back. Build a bi-partisan consensus.

Odds of this happening: Moderate. Dems may have to swallow hard and pass an incremental bill that does the things the GOP has agreed to. It would be better for them than getting nothing, but not much better.

6. Fail. Pass Nothing.

Odds of this happening: Moderate. This truly would be Waterloo for the Dems, but if you can't make one of the above 5 options, this happens by default.

One thing you can say about American politics, it is never boring.

I think it's safe to say Blanche Lincoln, Arlen Specter and Harry Reid are shaking in their boots tonight. They probably should be. But it is also amazing how much things can change in 10 months. Think of how much they've changed in the past 10.

Thanks for tuning in. Full post-election scorecarding in my next post.

Congratulations again to Scott Brown. As always, I'll take a moment to recognize the wonder that is our republic with peaceful elections and transitions of power. Let's never stop being awe-inspired by what we have in this country. God bless America.

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New Averages with Insider Advantage Poll

I told you I thought there would be at least one more poll release today and it is in. The Insider Advantage poll, with a sample size of 804 gives Republican Scott Brown a 52%-43%-2% (3% undecided) lead over Martha Coakley.

Recasting our non-partisan poll averages from earlier today, we now have:
Sample Weighted Average: Brown +3.7%
Unweighted Average: Brown +3.5%
Median Result: Brown +3.5%

Our New Statistical Projection: Brown 50.8%, Coakley 47.1%, Kennedy 2.1%

In all of the polls, Brown has been between 48% and 52% and Coakley has been between 41% and 49%.

While it is still certainly possible that Coakley could win (my projections have missed by 4 percentage points on occasion, although it is rare, and this is particularly dicey race to call, given the special election circumstances.)

Bettors are reacting to the poll numbers by betting hard on Brown, making him a 7:3 favorite in betting. Honestly, with the bevy of polls released in the past few days and none of them showing Coakley leading, I think these odds are probably over generous to Coakley. I would rate her chances of surviving tomorrow at 15 to 20%.

Honestly, who thought a year ago that the Republican comeback would start in Massachusetts? Certainly not me. A few weeks ago, I was saying that if the GOP could keep the margin under 15, it would be a moral victory.

Assuming Coakley loses, there will be a lot of post-mortem. Democrats will talk about how bad a candidate she was, failing to campaign hard early, showing no personality in the debates, etc. Republicans will call it a referendum on the Obama administration.

The truth is somewhere in between. Coakley HAS been a below-average candidate for Senate. She has inspired not at all, was extremely wooden in the debates and has, frankly, run a nasty, divisive, negative campaign. But, none of this would even matter in an ordinary year. In an ordinary rule those attributes would cause her to win by 15 points instead of 30, not lose.

Nor is distrust of the Obama administration the whole story. Sure Obama's approval is down. But it is still around 60% in Massachusetts, meaning that Brown is getting a fairly good sized chunk of people who actually like what the President is doing.

This is partly a proud American tradition of reigning in one-party rule. We, as a country, frankly don't like it very much when either party gets their way unfettered. And this instinct has proved healthy in most cases.

Of course, there is still a chance Coakley will win. Not much left to do but get out to the polls and count votes.

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Massachusetts Update

A few new pieces of polling data have come in today, so I thought I'd update my projections. The two new polls are as follows:
(1) Research 2000 has conducted a Sample Size 500 poll that shows the race dead even at 48%-48%-3% with 1% undecided.
(2) Management Research Group has conducted a Sample Size 565 poll that shows a solid Brown lead at 51%-41%-2% with 6% undecided.

It is worth noting that Management Research Group has significantly less experience doing political polling than the big firms and universities (Gallup, Rasmussen, Research 2000, Quinnipiac), although that certainly doesn't mean that they are wrong. It is odd that they still show 6% undecideds in a race that is happening tomorrow.

At any rate, the aggregation of all the data now looks as follows for all non-partisan polls:
Sample-Weighted Poll Average: Brown +2.3%
Unweighted Average: Brown +2.9%
Median Poll Margin: Brown +3.0%

Our Statistical Projection: Brown 50.3%, Coakley 47.2%, Kennedy 2.1%

I don't personally believe that in a race this close, that 2.1% of voters will case a protest vote for Kennedy. History shows that independents tend to underperform their polling data, but I have no way to estimate how much, so I'm not going to attempt it. It would seem logical that Kennedy bleed-offs would break disproportionately for Brown.

There are three scenarios that I can envision:
(1) A Coakley squeaker -- all the undecideds break for Coakley, turnout is on the high end and the Kennedy voters stick with the Libertarian rather than reverting to Brown. Margin: Coakley 49.3%, Brown 48.6%, Kennedy 2.1%
(2) Brown wins close -- the numbers fall more or less as we project
(3) Brown rally continues -- the undecideds all break for him and he peels off half the Kennedy voters. Margin: Brown 53.2%, Coakley 45.8%, Kennedy 1.0%

I actually view these three scenarios as fairly equally likely, although obviously I think scenario #2 is the central scenario, which is why I'm projecting it.

The intrade odds on the race have moved from even-money mid-day yesterday to favoring Brown by almost 2:1 odds. This kind of supports my three equally-likely scenarios theory -- in 2 of my 3 scenarios Brown wins, giving him the same 2:1 advantage.

I'm expecting one more poll to be released today and if it is, I will update my projection, but for now, this race remains a Lean GOP Pick-Up, by a slightly better margin than yesterday.

Regrettably, I will be traveling tomorrow night and may not be able to publish a post until later in the evening. It appears unlikely that we will know a winner for several hours after the polls close regardless, unless it turns out to be an unexpected blowout.

Massachusetts Preliminary Projection

It's two days before the election, therefore I no longer afford myself the luxury of calling the Massachusetts Senate special election a "toss-up". Let's analyze the data we have.

Polling and Statistical Data
We have three polls available to us that were:
(1) Taken in the past week
(2) Non-partisan in nature

These polls break down as follows:
Polling Firm Sample Size Coakley Brown
ARG 600 45% 48%
Suffolk 500 46% 50%
Rasmussen 1,000 49% 47%

So, here are the averages:
Sample-Weighted Average: Brown +0.9%
Pure Average: Brown +1.7%
Median: Brown +3.0%
Average of Averages: 1.9%

Statistical Projection: Lean GOP Pick-Up, Brown +1.9%

It is worth noting that Coakley's range is 45% to 49%, with an average of averages of 46.6%, while Browns range is from 47% to 50% with an average of averages of 48.5%. Since neither candidate appears to be over the 50% threshold, this election could very much be decided in the last two days as undecideds (estimated in this average at 4.9% of the vote) break one way or another. If these statistical projections are correct, Coakley would need 70% of the remaining undecideds.

It is also worth noting that there is a third-party Libertarian candidate in the race. It seems highly unlikely, despite the fact that he has an unrelated "Kennedy" last name, that he will garner a significant number of votes in such a close race, but different polls have treated his candidacy differently (some listing his name among the possible candidates in the poll, some not.) As we frequently see (most recently in New Jersey), third party candidates tend to underperform their polling on election day. And one would have to consider that Kennedy voters would largely swing to Brown. On the flip side, purely undecided voters, one would suspect, might break more than 50% for Coakley, given the state demographics.

So, all in all, I believe that this polling indicates, based on the data available today, that Scott Brown has a 70% chance of winning on Tuesday.

Of course, lots of variables will be important, from the impact of final-weekend spending, to the impact of President Obama (who is still popular in Massachusetts) stumping for Coakley, to, most importantly, the turnout on Tuesday (less is good for Brown, more is good for Coakley), especially relative to the polling assumptions.

I will update this statistical projection tomorrow, if, as I suspect, at least some new polling data are available.

The Betting Public
Intrade betting odds peg the race (as of this moment) at even odds. This reflects the close polls and also some disbelief that Massachusetts will actually elect a Republican. We'll see if that skepticism is warranted.

The Buzz in Washington
The inside buzz in Washington is that Brown is going to win. The GOP is already prepping a celebration dance, the DEMs already pitching talking points about how this is a unique race, not a vote on the Democratic agenda. When you start hearing these points, you know who they think is going to win. There are also several inside reports that internal polling by the Democrats shows Coakley in big trouble.

What to Make of It All
My overall conclusion: this is an extremely close race that is extremely hard to project, not only because of the closeness of the polling, but also because of the dynamics of a special election and the difficulty in estimating turnout.

Brown appears, at least at this point, to be more likely ahead than not. But he is not far ahead, if he is ahead.

So, if you live in Massachusetts, whether you support Coakley or Brown, you should make sure to vote. This may be the closest statewide race in the state for some time and voting in this type of election is far more critical than in a Presidential race (where the state is typically a slam-dunk for the DEMs.) So, get out and vote. And we'll all stay tuned Tuesday to see how you did.

I will publish an update on Monday if there is any new information to report on.

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Complete Latest Senate Rundown, The Jobs Deficit and John Edward's 2 Americas, Closing in on 1 Year

2010 -- Plenty of Reasons for the DEMs to Be Getting More Scared
The Pro-GOP or at the very least, anti-Democratic trend appears to continue to build. President Obama's numbers are stable, at least for now, around the +3% to +5% range...this is better than being negative, but puts him in a similar position to where President Clinton was leading into the year that saw Newt Gingrich's revolution that led to a GOP-controlled House and Senate. It isn't that bad yet, so let's take a look at where the races are tracking, with our new updates from this week:

Safe DEM Hold (6)
Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Connecticut

Likely DEM Hold (5)
California, Indiana, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Massachusetts*

* Special Election January 19th

Lean Democratic Hold (2)
New York (Gillebrand), Illinois

Lean Democratic Pick-Up (1)
Missouri

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

Lean GOP Pick-up (4)
Colorado, Nevada, North Dakota, Arkansas

Lean GOP Hold (5)
New Hampshire, Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona

Likely GOP Hold (5)
Georgia, Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana, Florida

Safe GOP Hold (7)
Iowa, South Dakota, Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah

Total Projection: GOP Pick-up of 3 to 5 Seats


Best Case GOP (all leaners go to GOP): GOP +8 Seats

Best Case DEM (all leaners go to DEM): DEM +6 Seats

It certainly seems, given the national mood, that the Best Case GOP scenario is a heck of a lot more plausible than the Best Case DEM scenario at this point. This is because of all the states that fall in the "lean" category currently, the GOP is winning all but 3 of them. It does show, however, the vast impact a 5 point swing in the national mood can have on how races shape up.

The other things worth noting are that we do not have particularly recent polling in Missouri and Pennsylvania. One could surmise from the trend in other swing states that there is a reasonable probability that they will tip red when we do get such polling. This would push the GOP closer to their "best case" scenario.

Having said all this, I don't see a path to 51 for the GOP. In addition to picking up Missouri and Pennsylvania, they would have to win Illinois to get to +8, which is certainly possible, but probably no better than 50/50. On TOP of that, they would have to beat Gillebrand in New York (possible only if Pataki runs against her, and no sure thing even then), AND win at least 2 out of 5 in California (where they have a good candidate but are trailing), Indiana (where they don't even have a candidate yet against a well-liked moderate in Evan Bayh), Wisconsin (against Russ Feingold, seems like a no-hope race), Hawaii (when was the last time Hawaii sent a GOPer to the Senate?) and Massachusetts (closing fast at -9%, but still a long shot.)

So, the most realistic scenario to get there for the GOP would be to pull off the upset in Massachusetts, then win all the ones they are leading. Win the two toss-ups -- Delaware with Mike Castle and Pennsylvania with Pat Toomey. Win Missouri with Rep. Roy Blunt, New York's 2nd seat via convincing George Pataki to run. Finally, pull off the big upset with Carly Fiorna in California (hey -- they love tech celebrities there.) And you have 51 seats.

A long, long, shot, for sure. But for the first time I can actually construct a scenario where it could happen. First key, of course, is the Massachusetts special election a week from Tuesday, which I expect them to lose. But if they win that one, all bets are off.

In the House,
Democrats could be in huge trouble. Now, it's hard to tell, because we continue to be plagued by drastically different polls numbers (Rasmussen has it at GOP +9%, Gallup has it at DEM +3%), driven largely not by the fact that pollsters are asking the questions somehow differently, but more by the fact that they are making dramatically different modeling assumptions about who is actually going to vote in the mid-term. And the quagmire is real...after a massive turnout in 2008, clearly we all expect it to fall off for the mid-terms, but will it revert back to the normal for an off-year election? Will any of the newly registered voters in 2008 show up to vote for congress in 2010? We don't really know.

At any rate, my philosophy has always been that by building a larger sample poll, as well as looking at means and medians, we can mitigate the sample or weighting errors of any one given pollster. An our methodology produces a current projection of GOP +3.6%.

This leads to a House projection of: GOP +43 Seats

So, for the second projection in a row, I'm projecting a GOP takeover of the House. The margin is still slim, although it is 2 seats wider than it was last week. It could change obviously, with circumstances. But for now, the House Republicans are looking pretty darn strong. I doubt we'll see anything like Health Care reform moving through that chamber come 2011.

The Jobs Deficit -- John Edwards Was Right
I wrote about this some months ago, but I was struck recently by a personal experience. The company that I work for, which is a Fortune 500 company, was in the process of hiring entry-level engineers for a number of our factories, a process that I was involved in. We were recruiting principally for those who graduate this spring and conducted interviews over November and December, made offers in mid-December to 5 candidates and....were rejected 4 out of 5 times. Every single one of the 5 young engineers we were trying to recruit had multiple offers from multiple great companies. These are kids who are extremely intelligent, but let's face it, haven't actually DONE anything yet. And this punctuated my point -- the economy looks a lot different if you are a high school dropout who has been working at a factory in Michigan than it does if you are an Electrical Engineer from the University of Michigan.

The latest employment report, released yesterday, showed the unemployment rate remained flat at 10.0%, just a tick below the peak of 10.1% from two months ago. But the important numbers were even wore than that, with actually jobs declining by 85,000 and the unemployment rate only holding constant by virtue of people giving up on looking for work and dropping out of the work force, with this number rising to 929,000, it's largest level since 1985. So, with "normal" unemployment being in the 5% range, we have a gap of 7.6 million jobs, 8.5 million adding in the discouraged workers.

How does this relate to my story? Let's look at the unemployment rate by educational attainment one more time:
High School Dropout -- 15.3%
High School Graduate -- 10.5%
Some College or Trade School Graduate -- 9.0%
College Graduate with Bachelor's Degree or Higher -- 5.0%

The economy IS normal if you are a college graduate. Sure it isn't the heady days of the late 90s or the mid-00s when you could name your price, your location and your work hours. But you CAN find work if you have a degree and skills that are in demand. If you are a factory worker, however, your prospects are dim.

Which brings me to my point...we have focused so much on just creating jobs that we have neglected the other half of the equation...how do we raise the skill level of the unemployed to make them more productive and more attractive to potential employers? College tuitions continue to surge and achievement gaps between rich and poor school districts have sustained. How do we give the kid from Compton, rural Tennessee, Detroit or Mississippi a shot at being in the tier of people who are in demand? We have had zero political discussion in the past year about higher education and lifetime learning. And that's a crime.

In terms of what we have been discussing politically, we have the stimulus bill and we have the "jobs" bill creeping it's way through congress. The bill, which has been blasted by the GOP as "Son of Stimulus", would largely do more of the same that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act did...that is the threefold approach of transfer payments to states to stabilize state governments (to "save" jobs), infrastructure projects (to "create" jobs) and temporary extensions / expansions of various social programs to provide money for the unemployed and needy (to generate consumer demand.)

The approach has its merits as a short-term buffer to an economy still dealing with the aftershocks of a massive financial crisis. My criticism is that the way the original stimulus was laid out, we haven't really had a chance to see how that program, which was designed as a 3-year reshaping of the economy, will really play out.

Here are the latest stats on the first stimulus bill:
Tax Cuts -- $92.8 billion out of $288 billion paid out (32.2%)
Spending -- $164.2 billion out of $499 billion paid out (32.9%)
Total -- $257.0 billion out of $787 billion paid out (32.7%)

With more than two thirds of the first stimulus bill left to spend, why craft another measure?

The answer simply is political reality. Congressional Democrats want people to see they are doing SOMETHING, even if the best course might be to simply let the tools that are already out there work. Liberal economist Paul Krugman, who never believed the first bill was nearly large enough, has been leading the charge for a second stimulus for some time. And it appears likely that SOME sort of jobs bills will pass in the new congress.

But the reality is that we will all have to wait and see whether what they did the first run around will actually work.

Almost 1 Year of Obama
The President of the United States will cross the 1 year in office threshold, 25% of his term, right as voters in Massachusetts are picking a Senator that will potentially represent the 60th vote in the Senate for final passage of health care legislation. It's almost time to break out the red pens and grade the President's year. Given the amazingly high bar he set for himself with his early speech to congress, I suspect when I sit down to write his review, he will have some significant short-comings. The President's inner-circle is fond of talking about him taking the "long view". But you do have to produce results at some point.

So, next up, our 1 year report card on President Obama. We'll look at my assessment of grades against his key initiatives. We'll look at his public opinion polls and the American people's grades of his performance. And we'll tap our old friends at Politifact to look at how well he is keeping his promises. Stay tuned.

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What the Departure of Senators Dodd and Dorgan Means in November, GOP in Striking Distance in Massachusetts?, Other Senate Updates

Lots of news in the world of 2010 Senate races the past few days. Let me break it down.

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT)'s Retirement
Chris Dodd has represented Connecticut in the Senate for the past 30 years and has frequently won re-election easily, winning by 34% in his most recent re-election in 2004. But it was to be a massive uphill climb for the man who was the Senate's top watchdog over the financial services industry (oops!) and was exposed sneaking a change into the stimulus bill that allowed AIG to pay out massive bonuses after huge TARP fund injections (bigger oops!)

He was trailing prospective GOP opponents by as much as 13% in recent polls and had a huge PR problem. In fact, at the time of his announcement, his seat was the strongest projected change in the entire array of Senate races, being rated a "likely GOP pick-up."

With Dodd gone, this helps the DEMs. They are free to run a candidate in a deep blue state that has not so deeply offended the voting public. Attorney General Mike Blumenthal has announced his candidacy and he is highly popular in the state.

How much more popular than Dodd?

Dodd was trailing prospective GOP candidates by 6 to 13%. Blumenthal, in a just-released Rasmussen poll (validated by a Democratic-afilliated Public Policy Polling poll which showed even wider margins) leads these same candidates by 23 to 24%.

This race is effectively over. The Dems hold the seat.

Move Connecticut almost all the way across the spectrum: it goes from a Likely GOP Pick-up to a Safe Democratic Hold

Senator Byron Dorgan Retires

A different story entirely in North Dakota. Senator Dorgan was in trouble, to be sure. A red-leaning state is a bad place to be in a year that is shaping up to be on the red side to begin with. Couple that with the probably candidacy of a popular Republican Governor, John Hoeven, and you have a "lean GOP pick-up".

Take Dorgan out of the equation and you have....still a lean GOP pick-up. Dorgan wasn't the problem the way Dodd was, the dynamics of North Dakota, the quality of the opposition and the national mood are the key factors in play.

North Dakota remains a Lean GOP Pick-Up.

Could Coakley Actually Lose?
Losing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in a state among the deepest blue would be a disaster of epic proportions for the Democrats and an ominous sign for November.

Could it actually happen? I doubt that it will. But it has moved from the realm of pure Republican fantasy to the realm of mere improbability. In a stunning closing of the race, a Rasmussen poll released this week shows Coakley with merely a 9 point lead over GOPer Scott Brown. This is a dramatic drop from November polls, which had the margin pegged at 30 or more points.

Make no mistake about it, I expect Coakley to prevail and avoid an outright disaster for the DEMs. But a single-digit win is still an embarrassment in what should be a walk for the DEMs.

Massachusetts moves from a Safe Democratic Hold to a Likely Democratic Hold with a week and a half to go until the special election.

Other Moves
The first New Hampshire senate poll in several months was released this week, conducted by ARG, shows Republican Kelly Ayotte leading Rep. Paul Hodes by 7 points. In the absence of other recent polling, the margin is sufficient enough for me to move this from a Lean Democratic Pick-up to a Lean Republican Hold.

In Arkansas, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D) may have made a very real choice to put her job on the line by supporting health care reform. A Rasmussen poll against 4 potential GOP challengers shows her trailing them all by margins of 8 to 12% after leading by single digits in late November and early December. This race moves from a Lean Democratic Hold to a Lean GOP Pick-up.

I suspect that there are other states that may move to the right as new polling data comes in (Missouri and Pennsylvania jump out, just to point out two), but we'll take the polls as they come in.

Complete rundown soon.

Scouring the World for Rare Senate Polls, Terrorism in the Air, Obama Approval Holds In Its New Range

If They Are Out There, I Will Find Them....2010 Senate Updates

A break from the House and the Senate gave me a much-needed chance to search far and wide for polling data on the upcoming Senate races. If you have never attempted to assemble polling data, it's a bit like a treasure hunt. Some of the data, the stuff that I rely on the most, is easy to find. The big polling houses: Gallup, Rasmussen, Research 2000, Quinnipiac, they all make their polls very easy to locate and this is sufficient for 80% of the races. Come November of next year they will probably all be polling all of the competitive races. But the far harder finds are the Des Moines Register and WHAS polls that I present today. It isn't that it is hard to find a poll from WHAS...it's that who knew to look for it -- I had no idea WHAS did polling. This also presents some risk around the quality of the poll performed, as I have no idea what the credentials of the pollster who conducted these polls is, but in the absence of other data, you go with with you've got.

All of this background explained, I'm going to first go through every race for which I could not locate ANY polling. In almost every case this appears to be due to the fact that the race is not expected to be competitive:
Oregon, Vermont and Washington -- rated "Safe Democratic Holds"
Indiana -- rated "Likely Democratic Hold"
(not rated safe due to the redish purple battlefield in Indiana)
Georgia -- moved from "Lean Republican Hold" to "Likely Republican Hold" -- no serious opposition has been mounted against Isakson.
Kansas -- Likely Republican Hold
(this is not categorized as "Safe" because the seat is open)
South Dakota -- moved from "Likely Republican Hold" to "Safe Republican Hold" -- Republican state, Republican incumbent, likely Republican year = Republican victory
Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah -- all rated Safe Republican Holds

Now, we'll run through all the states that DID have at least some polling data. I'll give you the rating, if it's a change and the most recent poll or two:
Safe Democratic Holds (6)
Massachusetts - moved from LIkely Democratic Hold to Safe Democratic Hold for the January special election to replace Ted Kennedy. Democrat Coakley is up by 30 points in the latest poll from Suffolk.
Maryland -- Incumbent Barbara Mikulski is up by 36 points against a generic opponent in a September Gonzalez Research poll.
New York (Schumer) -- popular incumbent Chuck Schumer leads by a whopping 76 points in a November Sienna poll. Not likely to be a real competitive race.
(Oregon, Vermont and Wisconsin listed above)

Likely Democratic Holds (4)

Wisconsin -- moves down from Safe Democratic Hold to Likely Democratic Hold as a Public Policy Polling report shows ex-Governor Tommy Thompson within 9 points of Feingold in a hypothetical match-up. No word on if Thompson is running.
Hawaii -- moves down from Safe Democratic Hold to Likely Democratic Hold as a December 17th Research 2000 poll shows longtime incumbent Daniel Inoyue's lead at only 11%.
California -- latest Rasmussen poll from November shows incumbent Barbara Boxer with a 9 point lead.
(Indiana listed above)

Lean Democratic Holds (3)
Illinois -- moved from a Toss-up to a Lean Democratic Hold as December 11th Rasmussen poll shows Giannoulis up by 3 points. You have to go all the way back to April to get an earlier poll, which showed the race a tie.
New York (Gillebrand) -- latest match-up vs. Pataki shows Gillebrand at +5 points (Mason Dixon -- November). She trailed Guliani, who has declared he is not running and is up by 30 points or so on Rep. Peter King.
Arkansas -- a series of just-released Rasmussen polls show incumbent Blanche Lincoln anywhere from down 7 points to up 16 points against a whole host of potential opponents. I'll need more clarity around the field before feeling good about rating this race, but keeping it at a Lean Democratic Hold feels like it makes the most sense for now.

Lean Democratic Pick-up (2)

Missouri -- A December 17th Rasmussen poll shows Carnahan up by 2 points. Two other recent polls have shown 1 points and 3 points respectively as the margin.
New Hampshire -- really old data here...the most recent poll I could find from July 15th (a Research 2000 poll) shows Hodes up by 5 points. Two other polls around that time showed similar margins, but a heck of a lot has changed in 5 months, so I'd like some new numbers to feel good about projecting this race.

Toss-ups (2 -- both Democratically controlled)

Delaware -- Biden leads Castle by 5 points in a November 11th Susquehana poll. Other polls around the same time, most notably the Rasmussen poll, showed Castle with a modest lead (2 points.) Feels like a toss-up to me.
Pennsylvania -- still far too close to call between Specter and Toomey, in a rematch of the Republican primary from 5 years ago. The latest poll, a December 18th Quinnipiac survey, showed it dead even.

Lean GOP Pick-Up (3)

Colorado -- A December 11th Rasmussen poll shows possible challengers to Sen. Bennett leading him by margins ranging from 4 to 9 points, confirming early polls that show him trailing in the low to mid single digits.
Nevada -- more trouble for Majority Leader Harry Reid as he trails two possible opponents by 6 points in a December 12th Rasmussen poll.
North Dakota -- the shocking move of the week as this falls all the way from a Likely Democratic Hold to a Lean GOP Pick-up and if the poll I saw is right, it probably should move further. A December 21st Rasmussen poll shows Hoeven leading Dorgan by a stunning 22 points. Byron Dorgan may be among the most at-risk Democrats this year, in an utter surprise given his long service.

Lean GOP Hold (4)

Kentucky -- GOP candidates lead Democratic candidates by 2 to 7 points in a series of possible match-ups to replace embattled Sen. Bunning, according to an August 19th WHAS poll.
Ohio -- Portman leads by 2 to 7 points against possible Democrats in a December 10th Rasmussen poll.
North Carolina -- This goes from a Likely GOP Hold to a Lean GOP Hold. Burr leads in his bid for re-election by 5 to 7 points against possible challengers in December 17th polls from Public Policy Polling and Citivas. Both are partisan polling houses, which I normally ignore, but since I have PPP (a Democratic house) and Citivas (a Republican house) saying almost exactly the same thing, it stands to reason that they are fairly accurate.
Arizona -- This also moves down from Likely GOP Hold to Lean GOP Hold. McCain leads in his re-election bid by 2 points in a
November 20th Rasmussen poll. There are several polls that show him trailing by double digits to Janet Napolitano, but it is highly unlikely that she will run, given her gig at Homeland Security.

Likely GOP HOld (5)

Alaska -- Lisa Murkowski leads by anywhere from 8 to 29 points according to a December 18th Research 2000 poll. Actual opponent will determine if this race is competitive, but she will likely win either way.
Louisiana -- incumbent Vitter leads by 10 points in an October 7th Rasmussen poll.
Florida -- Crist leads by 6 and Rubio leads by 14 in a December 17th Rasmussen poll. It is amazing how as Rubio has attacked Crist, Crist's numbers have fallen not only against Rubio in the primary but by some 20 points in the general election.
(Georgia and Kansas mentioned above)

Likely GOP Pick-Up (1)

Connecticut -- Dodd trails by 6 to 13 points against likely opponents in a December 10th Rasmussen poll, confirming earlier polls.

Safe GOP Hold (7)

Iowa -- moves from a LIkely Hold to a Safe Hold as Charles Grassley leads by 27 points in his re-election bid, according to a November 16th Des Moines Register poll.
(South Dakota, Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah mentioned above)

So with all of this movement, what is left when we sort all this out?

Projection: GOP +2 to 4 Seats
GOP Best Case (Win All Leaners): GOP +9 Seats
DEM Best Case (Win All Leaners): DEM +2 Seats

Same old story, even with all those movements -- no path to 51 votes yet for the GOP (this would require a pick-up of 11 seats)

In the House, still projecting a near even split. No significant new polls since my last update -- my next update, I'll relook at the projecting, but for now it is still GOP +41 seats, or a 218-217 majority for the GOP.

Obama Not Dropping Anymore

President Obama's approval polls seem to have leveled out at an approve minus disapprove of 3 to 5 points. The latest couple weeks of tracking is below.


Similarly, his monthly number for December has stabilized in the mid-4's. Much has been made of how his numbers are among the worst of Post-World War II Presidents...and they are. Only Clinton and Reagan had comparably bad numbers at this point in their Presidencies. It's worth noting that all 3 (Obama, Clinton and Reagan) came into office during recessions. It's also worth noting that Clinton and Reagan's parties got whacked in the mid-term elections, but that the Presidents then both went on to easy re-election. We'll see if history repeats itself.



Next Up -- 2009 Year in Review.

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On To The Conference, Happy Holidays!

Senate Wraps Up, Conference Debate Likely in New Year

The Senate today wrapped up what seemed like an endless string of procedural votes, including filibuster ending votes and points of order with a 60-39 vote on final passage of health reform legislation. This has become the familiar party-line margin by which all of the recent significant votes have occurred.

Congress is now headed to recess for the next couple of weeks (until approximately January 12th) and the President is headed to Hawaii for vacation, so the political news is going to get fairly scarce the next couple of weeks.

When everyone returns, the painful work of reconciling the House and Senate bills will begin. It appears that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ruled out my recommendation that the House simply adopt the Senate bill as is to avoid another fight for 60 in the Senate as liberal Democrats in the House want a chance to fight for some of the House provisions (the public options, the high-end income tax and the more liberal rules for joining Medicaid.) Social conservatives in the House, led by Bart Stupak, also want an opportunity to fight to include the more conservative House language which totally precludes abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans versus the somewhat more liberal Senate provision which allows the plans to contain abortion coverage, provided the abortion coverage is paid for with individual premiums and not the federal subsidy.

In the end, other than on the abortion issue, the final bill is going to HAVE to look a lot like the Senate bill. The public option has zero chance of survival in the Senate, with Senators Nelson and Lieberman clearly on record opposed. The House bill is also far more expensive, a fact that would potentially scare off additional moderates such as Lincoln and Webb.

The Democrats are talking about the goal of getting a bill to President Obama for signature prior to the State of the Union, which will take place either the last week in January or the first week in February. This seems optimistic, but it all depends on how quickly and how much liberals will be willing to give.

Health care is not done, but a sense of momentum is certainly on the Democrats' side at this point.

Happy Holidays

It's Christmas Eve and hopefully all of you, regardless of you religious or political stripes have time to spend with your families, appreciating what is really important.

As always, I want to thank all of those who will work over the holidays so that the rest of us can enjoy our holiday. Thank you to all our soldiers, police officers and movie theater workers.

I've been digging up hard to find polls on some of the Senate races and I'll update my projections over the holidays.

Thanks for reading and have a great holiday.

As Partisan As They Come in the Senate, 2010 Updates

60-40 to Proceed

It is actually extremely rare that a vote in either house of Congress falls completely along party lines. In my last post, you saw that there hasn't been a single piece of legislation this year that passed strictly along party lines. Even the most contentious bill to date, the stimulus bill, garnered 3 GOP Senators voting in the affirmative, as well as some Democrats in the House voting negative.

But a straight-up, party line vote is what happened last night on the motion to bring the Reid "Manager's Amendment" to the floor. 60-40. All Democrats voting aye, all Republicans voting no (Independents Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman, also voted aye, Sanders being a Democrat in everything but name and Joe Lieberman being, well, Joe Lieberman.) And expect those vote totals at least 4 more times between now and Christmas. The remaining steps for the DEM's to move this forward are:
(1) Motion to Invoke Cloture to END Debate on the Reid Amendment (60 votes required)
(2) Adoption of the Reid Amendment (51 votes required)
(3) Motion to Invoke Cloture on the BIll (60 votes required)
(4) Passage of the BIll (51 votes required)

Expect 60-40 votes to abound.

2010 -- More Confirmation of the Same Story Line

Actually a fair amount of polling the last 3 weeks, but very little movement in the key races. Only one change.

In Florida -- Rubio has pulled even with Crist in the primary. If Rubio wins the primary, this is a pick 'em race. Crist holds a double digit lead in the general if he wins. This race moves from Safe GOP Hold down to Likely GOP Hold.

Other races with polls of note but no changes:
Connecticut -- Dodd is down by 13% in the latest poll, his worst margin yet. This one remains a Likely GOP Pick-up.
Illinois -- Giannoulis leads by 3% in the single new poll available I leave this one a Toss-Up for now, but another poll in that range would tilt it back into the blue column.
Pennsylvania -- after months of conflict polling data, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows this one, you guessed it, a dead heat. Specter appears now to be comfortable ahead in the Democratic primary. We'll keep it a Toss-Up.
Delaware -- polls are still split in the likely race between Rep. Mike Castle and Beau Biden, with the latest poll showing Castle with a 2 point lead. We leave it a toss-up.
Missouri -- Carnahan has a 2 point lead in the latest poll. This is the sixth straight poll in this race that shows the Dems with a 1 to 3 point lead. It isn't much, but it is consistent enough to keep this a Lean DEM Pick-up.
Ohio -- a pair of Rasmussen polls shows Republican Portman still ahead in the narrow single digits against both possible Democratic challengers. This remains a Lean GOP Hold.

Also of note:
The Kentucky and Georgia races are still categorized as Lean GOP Holds. This is primarily because of polling last year that showed them up for grabs and no new data since then. Given the general direction of polling in the past year (towards the GOP, away from the DEMs) and the fact that Sen. Bunning is not in the Kentucky race (his massive unpopularity was certainly dragging on the GOP in this race), these seem like races that could be more safely in the GOP column than I have them now. I hope that there will be some kind of polling to give me some direction on these races, but for now, in the absence of new data, I'm leaving them where they are.

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

LIkely DEM Hold (4)
California, Indiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts*

* Special election in January

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

Lean DEM Pick-up (2)
Missouri, New Hampshire

Toss-up -- DEM Controlled (3)
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Delaware

Lean GOP PIck-up (2)
Colorado, Nevada

Likely GOP Pick-Up (1)
Connecticut

Lean GOP Hold (3)
Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia

Likely GOP Hold (8)
North Carolina, Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana, Florida

Safe GOP Hold (5)
Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah

Projection: GOP +1 to 4 Seats
GOP Gets All Leaners: GOP +10 Seats
DEM Gets All Leaners: DEM +4 Seats

The GOP would need to gain 11 seats to win control of the Senate, assuming that Independents Bernie Sanders (VT) and Joe Lieberman (CT) continue to vote for the Democratic leadership. If the GOP were to win 10 seats, the Senate would be split 50/50 and Vice-President Joe Biden would cast the deciding 51st vote for the DEMs.

In the House,
The latest generic polling puts our averages of averages at GOP +3.0%. The span is still wide, with polls varying anywhere from DEM +3% to GOP +7%. At the 3.0% level this would project:

GOP Pick-up of 41 Seats


This would be just enough to put the GOP in the narrowest possible control of the House. This is worth noting as it is the first time that I have projected a 2010 GOP takeover of the House, albeit this one is very close. Time will tell whether this is a trend or just an outlier in the data, but it is certainly good news for the GOP. With control of the House, they could effectively block any Democratic legislation from passage and because tax and spending bills must originate in the House, they could prevent such bills from even being discussed in the Senate.

Now, a 218-217 majority is hardly ironclad control. The reality is that it would throw control of Congress to the most moderate members of the House. And that might not be such a bad thing. But it is proof positive that if President Obama wants to get Health Care Reform and Cap and Trade done, it has to happen with this congress.

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2010 Election Updates -- Democrats Still Holding On, At Least for Now

Below are the latest updates for the 2010 election. Let me qualify them by saying that generally speaking, my projections are going to be a lagging indicator, at least until we get heavy into the election season. This is because, while we have a number of tracking polls that release new polling data on President Obama's approval rating every day (Gallup, Rasmussen, etc.), 2010 Senate polls and generic House ballot polls are a little harder to come by. What that means is that to the extent that President Obama's sliding approval ratings impact Senate and House races, we may not see the full effect in these projections for a couple of weeks. As I always do, I want to use real polling data to project results, not a projection on top of a projection. Plus, it is difficult to tell from national Presidential polls what the impact on state-level races will be.

With all of those qualifiers, despite the headwinds the Democrats face, they are actually faring reasonably well, at least in the Senate. Of course, less is at stake in the Senate in 2010 than in the House -- only a little over a third of the seats are up, of course, and to a large extent, the map is favorable to the Democrats, since this is essentially a replay of the 2004 Senate elections, while the Democrats made their large gains in the 2006 and 2008 races, which won't repeat until 2012 and 2014 respectively.

So, here are the latest projections:

2010 Senate

A few changes to report here and they are mixed in direction -- I will report on those changes, as well as other races that do have not changed in projection but have new polling data:
Connecticut -- moves from Lean GOP Pick-up to Likely GOP Pick-up. As improbable as it would have sounded just a year ago, this dark blue state now shows Chris Dodd behind by 10 to 11% in the latest polls. He is in big, big trouble.

Delaware -- moves from Lean GOP Pick-up to Toss-up-- a new Susquehenna poll has Beau Biden up by 5%. Castle (who is running) has led in other recent polls, so this is not enough to tip this race back into the blue column, but certainly puts the outcome back up in the air.

New Hampshire -- moves from Toss-up to Lean DEM Pick-up -- Hodes leads anywhere from 1 to 5% in three new polls. While these leads are small, the breadth and direction of the polling, puts this one back marginally in the blue column.

New York (Gillebrand) -- remains a Lean DEM Hold -- she is anywhere from down 2% to up 5% versus Pataki and way up on Rep. Peter King. If Pataki is in, this is a toss-up, if Pataki is out, this is a safe hold.

Illinois -- remains a toss-up. The race to replace the embattled Sen. Roland Burris, appointed by disgraced ex-Gov. Blago is a dead heat in the last poll we have.

Pennsylvania -- remains a toss-up. Specter is up 5% in one poll, down 2% in another -- still no clear direction in this race.

Missouri -- remains a Lean DEM pick-up -- DEM's are up from 1 to 3% in a variety of polls. This one is razor-close, but is still directionally in the DEM column.

Ohio -- remains a Lean GOP Hold -- Portman is up 3 to 5% in the latest two polls.

Florida -- remains a Safe GOP Hold -- while Crist is taking some heat from the right, he is still heavily favored in the Republican primary and is up 17 to 31% in general election polls. If Crist starts to fall behind in the primary, I will re-evaluate. Republicans would be crazy not to nominate him.

This leaves us with:
Safe DEM Holds (7)
Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin

Likely DEM Holds (4)
California, Indiana, North Dakota, Massachusetts*
* Special election to be held in January

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

Lean DEM Pick-ups (2)
Missouri, New Hampshire

Toss-up -- DEM Controlled (3)
Pennsylvania, Illinois, Delaware

Toss-up -- GOP Controlled
None

Likely GOP Pick-up (1)
Connecticut

Lean GOP Pick-up (2)
Colorado, 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 Dakota, Utah

Which leaves us with a projection of:
GOP Pick-up of 1 to 4 seats (central projection -- GOP +2 seats)

So, depending on the toss-ups, the new Senate would have 54 to 57 Democrats, plus 2 independents. Democrats would lose their filibuster breaking super-majority, but would retain a healthy margin.

The best case scenario for the GOP, that they take all the leaners, would lead to a GOP pick-up of 8 seats, leading to a new Senate with 50 Democrats, 48 Republicans and 2 Independents. This would still ensure Democratic control as the 2 Independents vote with the Democratic caucus and Vice-President Joe Biden is the tie-breaker in the event of a 50/50 split regardless.

In the House,
Generic polls are still all over the place, but I rely on my faith that aggregation produces the best results, reducing the impact of individual poll bias. The averaging shows:
GOP +0.5%

This leads to a projection of: GOP +30 Seats
Republicans would need a gain of 40 seats to regain control of the House. They don't have this kind of margin yet (unless you believe the more favorable polls that have their generic margin greater.) While it may seem kind of odd that an aggregation of polls that shows the GOP getting more votes wouldn't lead to a GOP majority, this has to do with the way the districts are drawn, which is marginally favorable to the Democrats, thanks to their greater control of redistricting after the 2000 census. This is the last election cycle that uses those districts, congressional seats will be reapportioned and redrawn for the 2012 election, following the 2010 census.

At present, the GOP would need to be at about +3% in order to retake the House. Still a tall order, but they are getting a whole lot closer than they were, even a few months ago.

It continues to appear that the GOP has a shot at taking the House in 2010, but little chance of retaking the Senate. Retaking the House would be huge for the GOP as they would essentially have the power to stop all tax and revenue bills, which constitutionally must pass the House before they are even considered in the Senate.

We have a long way to go before the 2010 mid-terms, so a lot could change in either direction. But the mid-terms are shaping up to be a very exciting set of races.

Senate Showdown Looms, On the Virtues and Vices of the Fillibuster, Is the GOP Tide Coming?, Annoying Things

The Vote to Get to a Vote to Start Debate on Whether to Vote
Well, we are finally going to get this thing moving in the Senate, sort of.

Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a critical vote for Saturday night. It's a vote to begin debate. Well, not even quite that. It's a vote to end a filibuster against starting debate.

Let me try to explain. In the Senate, any member who feels like it can try to filibuster anything, with 60 votes halting a filibuster. Opponents of Senate health care legislation have made it clear that they will use ever tactic available to them to stall the process, so they are going to filibuster the motion to START debate on the health care bill. This means that Harry Reid will need 60 votes to invoke cloture (stop debate) on the motion to START debate.

It appears reasonably likely that the Democratic and Democratic-leaning Independent caucus of 60 will hold together to get the debate started. Democrats with misgivings about some of the provisions, such as Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln appear to be hinting that they will fall in line. Independent Joe Lieberman is on record saying he will vote to start debate but will oppose a final bill containing any sort of public option. It appears that there is a near zero chance of any GOP support to break the filibuster.

But, of course, this is just the start of the fun. Then, each amendment to the bill must be debated, again with the potential for a filibuster on each and every amendment. Then a filibuster will have to be broken to get to a final vote on the bill, a bill passed, the bill melded with the House bill that has already passed in conference committee and the whole elaborate dance of filibusters around starting and stopping debate will have to happen again after the final bill (presumably) passes the House.

Tired yet?

Truth is that this vote is not really all that crucial. Not breaking a filibuster doesn't kill the bill, it simply sends Reid and company back to the drawing board to try to find a new way to get 60 votes. And a win isn't that great for the DEMs either -- after all, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Lieberman, Bayh, etc. all still have to be satisfied with the final product all while holding the liberals together.

Expect many weeks of test votes, filibuster votes and confusion to come. If Harry Reid somehow actually pulls this off, I will take back everything I've said about how ineffective a leader he is. But that's still a big "if".

Is the Filibuster a Good Thing?
It comes up almost every time power changes hands in the Senate -- a debate about the benefits and problems with the current Senate filibuster law.

First, a history lesson. The filibuster is NOT, contrary to the belief of some, a part of our constitution. Our constitution is pretty lean on specifics around the U.S. Senate. Pretty much all it says is that there will be 2 senators from each state, that senate terms will be 6 years, that Senators have to be 7-year U.S. citizens who are at least 30 years old, that the Vice-President is President of the Senate and breaks tie votes, that the Senate has power of advice and consent over appointments and is one of the two bodies that pass laws. There are a few more specifics (specifically enumerated powers, appointment by the state legislature later changed to popular election, etc.), but those are the basics. Not a word about a filibuster or super-majority.

The filibuster DOES have a long history in the Senate, which has always structured its rules to be a more conservative (in the sense of change resistant) than the House. In olden times, a real filibuster required a filibustering Senator to actually stand on the Senate floor and speak for as long as he intended to keep the filibuster up (see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for some romanticized historical perspective.)

In 1919, in an effort to block a single rogue senator from derailing major legislation, the Senate adopted a new rule that two thirds of the Senate could vote to cut off debate from a filibustering few. In 1975, the number of votes required to kill a filibuster was reduced from two thirds to 60%, which is where it stands today.

In decades past, the filibuster was used selectively. Robert Bork was not filibustered as a nominee, nor was Clarence Thomas. Filibusters were reserved for special moments when the minority felt an imperative to obstruct.

This started to change in 1993, when the GOP staged a filibuster against President Clinton's small stimulus bill. But even the GOP of the early 90s was somewhat restrained -- they did not filibuster the Family Medical Leave Act, for instance.

When George W. Bush came to office in 2001, the filibuster became even more prevalent. Democrats started using it to block judicial nominees whose philosophy that they opposed, where the tradition had been to restrict such filibusters to judges deemed unqualified. This infuriated Republicans who threatened a "nuclear option" of completely doing away with the filibuster (although it was unclear if the vote to eliminate the filibuster, could itself be filibustered.) This talk died down after the "Gang of 7" moderate Senators, including then-moderate John McCain brokered a deal to let some nominations through and let other filibusters stand.

But 2009 has ushered in a new era for the filibuster. The GOP has used the filibuster more this year than in any previous congressional year, attempting filibusters on virtually every piece of legislation and every nomination that they oppose.

Clearly there is plenty of blame to go around between the parties for the rampant use of the filibuster as we see it today. But that is hardly the question. The question is -- is the filibuster today a good thing or a bad thing?

Predictably, the party in power (the Democrats) think it is not and the party out of power (the GOP) defends it vigorously. It should be noted that these are the exact opposite of the party positions eight years ago.

For my money, I think the presence of a filibuster is an important thing. Unchecked change with one party in power, although they are democratically elected, is dangerous. Besides, the DEMs have the votes, in theory to break a filibuster, they just need to hold together their own caucus. If they can't even do that, how sorry for them can I feel if their own members vote to filibuster their legislation?

The rampant use of the filibuster is out of control, to be sure. But even in the good old days, universal healthcare would be a filibuster-worthy subject.

So, here's what I would propose:
First, eliminate the filibuster on STARTING debate on a bill and on amendments but allow a filibuster on final passage. Surely, forbidding debate can't be in the interest of careful deliberation, but blocking a bad piece of legislation could be.

Second, how about Harry Reid requiring that if the GOP is going to filibuster that they actually occupy the floor and talk like old times? I think it would be worth bringing the Senate to a halt for a while to see what was really going on. Keep the Senate floor open 24/7. If they aren't going to play ball, don't just run and hide.

Regardless of what I think, the filibuster is almost surely here to stay. Let's see what happens tomorrow night.

GOP Tidal Wave in 2010?

As President Obama's approval numbers continue their gradual decline (new numbers again next blog), more Americans begin to blame the Democrats (as opposed to President Bush) for our economic woes and the right continues to get fired up, is it possible we will see a much more massive GOP sweep in 2010 than I have been projecting?

It's early to say, but I'm beginning to become a believer. As I've said, the most important metric to watch is not the polls, but the unemployment rate. If it starts dropping by early next year and dips down significantly by November, we could see a ho-hum mid-term with little change. If it is still double digits come November, prepare for a "throw out the bums" bloodbath. And the Democrats being in power, makes them the "bums", in case that wasn't clear.

Things Annoying Me This Week
Haven't done this in a while, so here are my awards for really annoying people and things:
(1) To the media for paying more attention to former Governor now sideshow freak Sarah Palin than to serious members of the GOP like Lindsey Graham and Tim Pawlenty.
(2) To the media again for paying more attention to a bow than to the fact that we are in hock to the Chinese for billions and getting worse. I mean, seriously, who on Earth cares about a bow?
(3) To Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for saying that any major piece of legislation must be terrible if it doesn't get 70 to 80 votes in the Senate. I guess he thinks the founding fathers were idiots for not requiring a 71 vote majority for passing, oh, say, the BUSH TAX CUTS....hmmm...maybe he has a point.

Oh well...if politicians and reporters weren't annoying than they wouldn't be politicians and reporters.

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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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The Next Year in Politics

The 2009/2010 Schedule
The 2009 elections are now behind us and there are a mere 359 days until election day 2010. There is a heck of a lot of unfinished business in congress as well as a lot of mid-term primaries and campaigning that will commence shortly.

Let's take a look at the legislative calendar first.

There are 4 major categories of legislation that the congress will need to deal with in the next 359 days:

(1) Fiscal 2010 Appropriations

The status of Fiscal 2010 appropriations is below. The House finished its work on preliminary bills in late July (as it is supposed to.) Many of the bills have been slowly slogging through the Senate, which has been very slow to follow. Of the 17 major departments and categories requiring annual appropriation:
* 6 have been signed into law
* 5 have passed the House and the Senate and await work from a conference committee
* 6 have only had a version passed by the House with the Senate yet to act



The current continuing resolution (the second one passed) allows the 11 departments who are not yet funded to continue operating under Fiscal 2009 policies until December 18th, therefore this is the new "deadline" for congress to act on the remaining pieces of legislation. Of course, congress can always pass another continuing resolution and keep kicking the can down the road.

(2) Cap and Trade
The House has already passed a cap and trade bill, the Senate has been bogged down in various committees trying to construct something that could get 60 votes. There are recent signs of life and compromise on this bill, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) helping to craft a compromise that would bring along moderate members of teh GOP. Clearly whatever clears the Senate will be far more conservative than the bill that passed the House, but the President has some hope of getting something that fulfills this domestic policy priority passed in the next 3 or 4 months.

(3) Universal Health Care
Again, et tu, Harry Reid? The House on Saturday passed its sweeping, trillion-dollar bill. The Senate has no clear path to a 60-vote supermajority, although clearly it is going to require a much more conservative approach than the House. Reverting to a "trigger mechanism" is likely as are other concessions to centrists Lieberman, Snowe and Nelson. If those three get on board with a bill, it will pass. If they oppose it, it will get killed by the a "super minority" of 41+ votes.

(4) Fiscal 2011 Appropriations
In all my writing about Fiscal 2010, I should remind everyone that we are scarcely more than 10 months away from the start of Fiscal 2011 and that the House really needs to start taking up the 2011 bills by June or so. There will be a strong incentive for Democrats to get appropriations passed on time this year, since the incoming congress in 2011 seems highly likely to be more conservative than the outgoing one in 2010.

(5) Other Domestic Policy Priorities
Remember immigration?
How about Gays in the Military?
Entitlement reform? (yeah, right)
If we are going to add any new domestic policy priorities, it has to happen in a narrow window.

So how much time is left to do all of this?
Well..
Congress takes a break in November for Thanksgiving, in December and January for Christmas and New Year's, extended breaks in the spring and summer for district work periods and holidays and...let's face it, EVERYONE on both sides of the aisle wants to get home by next August to campaign for re-election.

So the window is fairly narrow.

The House clearly won't be the problem -- both the rules in the House and the nature of the Democratic majority make the House by far the easier of the two bodies to get legislation through. The Senate, as it usually is, will be the bottleneck. Stay tuned to see how things play out.

Election 2010

Don't kid yourself, the 2010 elections are upon us. Let's look first at the Senate.
Since my last update there has not been a ton of polling as pollsters had focused heavily on the 2009 races. Therefore, there are no changes to my projections. As a starting point, there are 39 Democrats, 22 Republicans and 2 Independents who are not up for re-election and will be returning to the Senate in 2011.

In addition, there are 7 Democratic seats that I consider very safe:
Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin

There are also 6 GOP seats that I consider very safe:
Florida, Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah

Add these in and you have 46 Democratic seats, 28 GOP seats and 2 Independent seats that are either guaranteed or highly unlikely to change hands over the course of the next year.

You can see from this the challenge the GOP will face, even in a pro-GOP year. With 48 Democratic or Democratic caucusing (Independents Lieberman and Sanders) seats basically out of play, trying to get to 51 will be very difficult.

The next category, the Likely Holds -- seats where one party is ahead by 10%+ bring further clarity.

They include 4 Democratic seats:
California, Indiana, North Dakota and Massachusetts*
* Special election schedule for January

And 6 GOP seats:
Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana

Factoring in these seats, we have:
50 Democrats, 34 GOP seats and 2 Independent seats that are likely to return.

Which leaves us with 14 races likely to be hotly contested:
Lean Democratic Hold (2) -- New York (Gillebrand)and Arkansas (Lincoln)
Lean Democratic Pick-up (1) -- Missouri (Bond's vacant seat)
Toss-up (4) -- Illinois (Obama/Burris open seat), Pennsylvania (Specter), New Hampshire (Gregg open seat), Ohio (Voinovich open seat)
Lean GOP Pick-up (4) -- Colorado (Bennett), Delaware (Biden/Kaufmann open seat), Connecticut (Dodd) and Nevada (Reid)
Lean GOP Hold (3) -- Kentucky (Bunning open seat), North Carolina (Burr) and Georgia (Isakson)

So my current projection, if we split the toss-ups evenly, gives us 55 Democrats, 43 Republicans and 2 Independents. If the GOP sweeps the toss-ups, that gets them to 45 seats. In their best-case scenario, where they sweep the toss-ups and take all the leaners (which is tough, but not inconceivable), they get to 48. They don't get to 51 votes (what they would need for the majority, with Vice President Joe Biden holding the tie-breaking vote if it hits 50/50) under any scenario that I can envision. If they were somehow to bust Democratic double-digit leads in the "likely hold" seats for the DEMs, they could get to 52, but that would require beating Evan Bayh in Indiana, Barbara Boxer in California, winning a special election in Massachusetts AND beating Byron Dorgan in North Carolina. Every single one of these events seems highly unlikely.

On the House side, all 435 seats are up, so the outcome has much more potential to shift. Current aggregated generic polling has the Democrats at +3% (although polling continues to vary widely depending on the poll you believe), short of the 7% they were polling going into 2008 or the 10% that they actually took the congressional vote by in 2008. These numbers would imply a GOP pick-up of 15 to 17 seats, short of what they would need to gain a majority by a significant amount, but a good pick-up for a mid-term. These numbers could shift dramatically if President Obama's poll numbers continue to fall.

Ironically, the Blue Dogs that have been pushing for more moderate policies and generally causing the Democratic leadership pain are the ones most at risk. That's the weird thing about the structure of House races -- the moderate seats are the ones that change hands in swing years.

I'll be with you every step of the way, tracking the races. It's going to be a fun year for elections as obviously much more is at stake than in 2009.

Some Side Notes

Based on 2009 election results, where Rasmussen was indeed more accurate than the majority of other polls, I will include their polling at full weight going forward, until empirical evidence suggest that I shouldn't.

Recovey.gov reports that as of last week, $123.5 billion in spending and $83.8 billion in tax cuts have been paid out as a result of the stimulus or about 26.3% of the bill's total reach. Given that we have lost 7 million jobs since the start of the recession and the total claim of the stimulus bill was to attempt to "save or create" (whatever that means) 3 million jobs, there is some credence to liberals like Thomas Friedman who feel we are drastically under stimulating. But the political reality is that there is no will to do more, at least explicitly. Small scale moves like extending unemployment benefits again (which the President signed into law this week) or small projects embedded into appropriations bills (of which there are plenty) may happen. Perhaps the Cap and Trade bill would be a good time to include a bunch of infrastructure spending to upgrade our electrical grid and build green power? It might accomplish two goals at once...

Politifact.com's latest grading of the President's promise keeping, shows of the 513 promises that it is tracking:
52 have been kept
14 compromised (half-kept)
7 broken
440 to be acted on (in the works, stalled or no action)

So, the President has acted on 14.2% of his promises. Of those he has acted on, he has been true to his work 80.8% of the time. His term is 20% over, so he is obviously behind schedule if he is going to do everything he promised. But his consistency of approach is actually pretty good compared to history.

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Why the President Doesn't Have Much Time, 2010 Projection Update, The Bizarre World of NY-23, Hate Crimes Take 2

The Clock is Already Winding Down
President Obama has precious little time left if he is going to get major legislative accomplishments in his term.

That seems an odd statement to make just looking at a calendar in the abstract. Today is only day 279 of the Obama Presidency, a mere 19% of his term having expired. But, let's think about how the calendar shapes up.

• In 2010, the focus will shift to the mid-term elections. If you think Blue Dog Democrats in the House and at-risk Democrats in the Senate are nervous now about making major legislative change, this will increase exponentially as the mid-terms near. The White House has as much as admitted that major accomplishments won't happen in the 2010 congressional sessions.
• The congress that convenes in 2011 and 2012 will likely be significantly less favorable to bold policy changes. It will almost certainly be more Republican (more on that later) and a narrowly controlled Democratic-majority congress isn't likely to be willing to make big waves.
• In what is left of 2009, congress still has to deal with a fair amount of routine appropriations legislation (as covered here), in addition to debating the President's proposals. There are also several holidays -- Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's to work around.
  

So, in reality, the President has only about the 67 days left this year to get his biggest changes done -- and that's including the holidays and appropriations bills mentioned above.

Enough to make one wonder if he can really get health care and energy policy done, isn't it?

Intrade (the internet gambling site), rates the odds against health reform with a public option at 2.8 to 1 (it does not have a separate bet for whether health reform without a public option will pass.) The odds on cap and trade? 1.2 to 1 against.

Still breathing, but the deck is against the President getting both of his stated policy priorities done.

The 2010 Mid-Terms
(1) The Senate
Major changes in ratings from the polling of the past month:

Nevada -- the last 3 polls have shown Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) trailing by very small margins, but consistently trailing. This one, at least for now, moves from toss-up to Lean GOP Pick-up.

California -- Barbara Boxer is comfortably up by double digits in a couple of recent polls, despite the high profile run of Carly Fiorina. This one moves from Lean Dem Hold to Likely DEM Hold.

Louisiana -- Vitter still leads comfortably, but two polls that put the lead at around 10% indicate that he is not 100% safe. This seat moves from Safe GOP Hold to Likely GOP Hold.

New Hampshire -- New polls are split and the aggregate is right around the zero line, therefore this one moves back from Lean DEM Pick-up to Toss-up.

Ohio -- the Democrats have been slipping in the rust belt the last month and this one is no different. Recent polls show small GOP leads...not quite enough to move this one back in the GOP column, but certainly enough to take it from a Lean DEM Pick-up to Toss-up.

So where does this leave us?
Safe DEM Holds (7)
Hawaii, Maryland, New York (Schumer), Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin

Likely DEM Holds (4)
California, Indiana, North Dakota, Massachussetts*

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

Lean DEM Pick-ups (1)
Missouri

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

Toss-up GOP Controlled (2)
New Hampshire, Ohio

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

Lean GOP Holds (3)
Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia

Likely GOP Holds (6)
Alaska, Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana

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

Current Senate: 58 Democrats, 2 Independents, 40 Republicans

* Special election to be held in January, not November

Projection: GOP +3-7 Seats, central projection of GOP +5 Seats
2010 Senate with all toss-ups to GOP: 51 Democrats, 2 Independents, 47 Republicans
2010 Senate with all toss-ups to DEM: 55 Democrats, 2 Independents, 43 Republicans
2010 Senate with all LEANERS to GOP: 48 Democrats, 2 Independents, 50 Republicans
2010 Senate with all LEANERS to DEM: 62 Democrats, 2 Independents, 36 Republicans

Still no path to GOP control (even in the all leaners to GOP case, Lieberman and Sanders caucus with the DEM's and Joe Biden breaks the tie to retain Democratic control), but the most favorable reading on 2010 yet for the GOP.

(2) The House
The generic polling has as wide a range as I've ever seen it. Rasmussen shows GOP +5%, whereas CBS News has DEM +13%. That's an 18% spread between non-partisan polls (although some might question the partisanship of both the organizations mentioned there), an extremely rare circumstance.

My aggregation of all the polls puts the average at DEM +1%.

This puts my projection at GOP +17-22 seats.

If you believe the Rasmussen poll, that would imply a GOP pick-up of approximately 34 to 41 seats, enough to nearly seize control of the House. I don't see that yet.

So, in total, the GOP stands to gain in the mid-terms, but control of either body still looks unlikely.

Many have looked for a repeat of the Gingrich revolution of 1994. At this point, the structure of the election looks unfavorable to such a large swing for several reasons:

• Democratic majorities are much more sizeable, particularly in the Senate
• The rotation of Senate seats that are up in 2010 is unfavorable to the GOP, unlike in 1994. 2012 will be a much better map for potential GOP pick-ups than 2010.
• There are far less projected House vacancies in 2010, a key opportunity the GOP seized in 1994.

New York 23 and the Divided GOP
The 23rd district in New York is a moderately pro-GOP district (approximately 4% more Republican than the nation as a whole, based on the Presidential election results in November.) The President's popularity is down significantly. The GOP nominated a moderate for the seat. The GOP should be in good shape to retain this seat in the upcoming special election to fill the seat vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh, right?

Not so fast.

A splinter in the GOP has led to an indepedent / conservative party candidate that is receiving the endorsement of major national GOP figures such as Sarah Palin, splitting the GOP vote and creating a scenario where a Democratic win seems likely.

Congressional district level polling is a dicey exercise with limited accuracy, but two different independent polls show the same story -- Doug Hoffman (C) is stealing support from Dede Scozzafava (R), leading to a 4 to 5 point lead for Bill Owens (D).

This is close enough to shift, but Hoffman, currently in third by a fairly wide margin, is picking up money and endorsements, all of which probably plays into Owens' hands.

More an exception case than a bellweather because of the strange circumstances, it looks like the DEM's might be poised to add another seat to their House majority.

Hate Crimes Follow-up
Sometimes I write things that provoke a lot of repsonse. My posting on my opposition to hate crimes laws certainly was one of those times.

A lot of the feedback I found uncompelling. Yes, I'm aware that the historical reason for these laws was white juries in the South in the civil rights era that would not convict white of attacking blacks. Yes, this is a noble reason for wanting such a law. No, it does not change my view that this is the wrong solution to a real problem.

One piece of feedback that gave me pause though, was a point made by a reader. "You state that what is in a person's mind shouldn't be the basis for the severity of punishment. But isn't that exactly the difference between a first degree and second degree murder? An interpretation of a person's intent?" I must admit, this is a very strong point. We do use this distinction, based not inherently on the act itself, but based on evidence on what someone was thinking as a basis for the severity of punishment for murder. There is a legitimate parallel between that and a hate crimes law.

I still fear hate crime laws are a slippery slope towards thought policing and open the door to a more restrictive view of free speech. But I am not as confident in my opposition as I was 24 hours ago.

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