{"id":2587,"date":"2010-09-03T10:14:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T14:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2587"},"modified":"2010-09-08T10:09:25","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T14:09:25","slug":"are-democrats-doomed-in-november-yes-and-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/09\/03\/are-democrats-doomed-in-november-yes-and-no\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE: Are Democrats doomed in November? Yes and no."},"content":{"rendered":"

See my original post below for full context, but I’ve been poll-surfing the last couple of hours and have a couple of additional thoughts.<\/p>\n

A lot of the most dire prognostications about the Democrats are based around one poll:\u00a0 Gallup’s 10-point generic ballot advantage lead for Republicans.<\/p>\n

Again, granted — that’s dire.\u00a0 But when you look at the trend-line for generic ballot surveys, you find that the average GOP advantage is only 3%.\u00a0 A Zogby poll just last week put the Republican advantage at 2%.<\/p>\n

And just last week, Gallup’s own survey was only at at +3% mark for Republicans.<\/p>\n

Now, here’s a caveat to my skepticism:<\/p>\n

Most of these surveys don’t factor in “likely voter” models, and it could well be that the energized conservative base will still push us into Republican landslide territory.<\/p>\n

But do I think the fine-print of the election 2010 narrative may be more complicated than the conventional wisdom…<\/p>\n

ORIGINAL POST:<\/p>\n

This week, political prognosticator-extraordinaire Larry Sabato predicted that Republicans<\/a> will not only seize control of the House of Representatives in November — they’ll do it handily, with a pick-up of roughly 47 seats.<\/p>\n

“Given what we can see at this moment, Republicans have a good chance to win the House by picking up as many as 47 seats, net. This is a ‘net’ number since the GOP will probably lose several of its own congressional districts in Delaware, Hawaii, and Louisiana. “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First some context:\u00a0 Sabato is really good at making predictions like this, and I’m not.\u00a0 So take the rest of this post with a big grain of salt.<\/p>\n

But I’m still skeptical that the blow-out — and yes, it will be a blow-out — is going to be this bad.<\/p>\n

Here’s why:<\/p>\n

There are 168 solidly Democratic House seats.\u00a0 To keep control, the Dems have to find fifty additional wins across the US in districts that aren’t solidly Democratic.<\/p>\n

Most pundits believe the GOP will lose at least three of the House seats it currently holds, so that brings the Democrats’ must-win list down to 47.<\/p>\n

According to the New York Times<\/a> — and other analysts — there are roughly 50 additional House races that are “leaning” Democratic; and another 30 seats that are tossups.<\/p>\n

Further out on a limb, there are roughly a dozen more seats currently held by Republicans where unique local conditions could give Democrats a legitimate shot at pulling off an upset.\u00a0 (Here’s an example.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

With that big a battlefield in play, can the Democrats claw together 47 wins?\u00a0 In a Republican wave year like this one, it’s going to be brutally hard, but I’m still predicting Yes.<\/p>\n

The GOP has incredible momentum, but the party is also divided and muddled, and some of its candidates lack the funding to capitalize on the national mood.<\/p>\n

What’s more, many of these races are in parts of the country — the West and the Northeast — where the anti-Democratic zeitgeist isn’t so fierce.<\/p>\n

Also, despite their dispirited base, the Democrats still have some big assets in play, including their union-led get-out-the-vote apparatus, and an incredibly sophisticated electronic voter-contact-and-mobilization system.<\/p>\n

So here’s my updated late-summer prediction, the Out On A Limb edition:\u00a0 Democrats will hold the House and Senate by a razor-thin margin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See my original post below for full context, but I’ve been poll-surfing the last couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[886],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2588,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2587\/revisions\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}