I believe turnout for the Dems predicted to be high will be extraordinary. When the post-mortems are written they will focus on, amidst other issues, the Obama "ground game" which has broken new ground in terms of modern day political organization and execution. This ground game will cement the close states into the Obama camp and help pull a few more Congressional Dems to the finish line.
Obama will sweep all close swing states inc. (MT, NV, CO, MO, NC, VA, IN, OH, FL) and grab one Nebraska EV by taking the Omaha congressional district. He will not surprise with a GA, AZ, WV etc.
The Dems will pick Senate seats in VA, NH, NM, CO, AK, NC, OR. But fall short in MN, KY, GA and MS. I will be disappointed to not see Franken in the Senate but the indy candidate is going to screw up that race. Also it is entirely possible the GA will come down to a run-off but the only reason it will be close is extraordinary turnout that will not be replicable for the December run-off, although expect a ton of money to be dropped into the state in the interim as the Dem net roots try to take on race.
I believe this to be the ideal result for the Dems in the Senate. While my emotional side would like to see the Dems with 60 seats in the Senate. My practical Machiavellian side knows owning 60 seats would bring considerable costs in the form of any and every problem becoming solely the Dems' problem. It would also raise the already sky high Dem base expectations to utterly unrealistic levels. The Republicans could sit back and play obstructionist while forcing the Dems to address the myriad of challenges left in the wake of eight years of Republican misrule. With 58 seats the Dems will need some Republican help, but not alot. The ME Republican senators, Snowe and Collins, as well as Specter from PA (likely facing a tough '10 re-election race if he runs again) will become key potential allies in creating "bi-partisan" solutions to our problems.
We have a poll over to the right, but feel free to drop your predictions into the comments. Attached is a WaPo tool to make picks by state
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I think that the polling is overstated. Although I am confident that Obama will win, I don't think it will be with the overwhelming numbers that Silver's polling predicts. I think Obama will win with 311 EVs - getting only OH and NV of the swing states.
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