{"id":2865,"date":"2010-10-02T13:36:45","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T17:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2865"},"modified":"2010-10-04T09:48:45","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T13:48:45","slug":"what-if-republicans-win-the-house-by-a-narrow-margin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/10\/02\/what-if-republicans-win-the-house-by-a-narrow-margin\/","title":{"rendered":"What if Republicans win the House by a narrow margin?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a blog post today, NY Times pundit Nate Silver makes this comment about the Democratic Party’s chances in November<\/a>:<\/p>\n

They have only about a 10 percent chance of holding onto 230 or more seats in the new Congress, according to the model, which might allow them to retain a reasonably functional working majority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If Democrat hold the house by a narrower margin, Silver argues, it would be a “perilously” thin governing majority.<\/p>\n

He’s right.\u00a0 But here’s the wrinkle:<\/p>\n

By his forecast, even in this Republican-surge year the GOP is likely to win control of the House by an even narrower margin.<\/p>\n

According to Silver’s latest forecast, Republicans have a good shot at winning about 225 seats — only seven more than are needed to vote in a new Speaker.<\/p>\n

(Obviously, Silver’s predictions are only that.\u00a0 The GOP could win far more seats, or significantly fewer…)<\/p>\n

Put another way, the GOP will have roughly a 2% majority.\u00a0 By contrast, Democrats currently enjoy an 18% majority.<\/p>\n

What will that mean going forward?\u00a0 It means that even if they do win a majority, Republicans will likely need the help of some Democrats and moderates within their party to get things done.<\/p>\n

This will be even more necessary if Democrats retain control of the US Senate.\u00a0 Only bipartisan bills are likely to get passed and signed by Democratic President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

One question that will shape this dynamic is whether the new crop of Representatives are predominately tea party conservatives.<\/p>\n

Or will GOP politicians elected from more moderate “purple” districts emerge as centrists?<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that it could be very difficult for hard core conservatives to find enough votes to, say, roll back healthcare reform or shut down the government or eliminate earmarks.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, even if they hold their majority, liberal Democrats will almost certainly have a very tough time pushing some of their favored legislation, including cap-and-trade.<\/p>\n

While this is clearly a big Republican year, it’s still not clear that a new Congress will emerge with a mandate to govern in either direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a blog post today, NY Times pundit Nate Silver makes this comment about the […]<\/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\/2865"}],"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=2865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}