Sep 30 2010
Crystal Ball Turning GOP Red
Larry Sabato is out with updated projections for the 2010 election cycle and things keeping getting worse for the Dems. In the House, Sabato has moved 10 races from ‘toss up‘ to ‘leans GOP‘ – all of them Dems. Long time incumbent: 13 term Kanjorski of PA 11 is on this list, as is long term Texas-D Chet Edwards. Sabato’s other adjustments are all to the right: 5 seats move from ‘leans dem‘ to ‘toss up‘; 2 races move from ‘likely dem‘ to ‘leans dem‘; and 4 races from ‘safe dem‘ to ‘leans dem‘. Sabato’s Crystal Ball has the GOP already picking up 47 seats and taking the house – with plenty of room for that number to keep growing!
In the Senate and Governor races he has the GOP picking up 7-8 and 8, respectively. But the picture of the House is most telling, because it indicates a broad and high tsunami wave rising across the country. It indicates that underestimating or missing the voter turnout model by even small margins could mean pollsters are just not measuring the size of the voter backlash. With all these house races turning redder and redder in every corner of the nation, it is clear that November will be an election to remember for generations to come.
If the GOP gains 55 or more seats in the House, then the Senate will almost certainly go along with it. Unfortunately Delaware won’t be a seat Republicans will get though since in that race they picked a candidate who makes Huffman in Oregon look competent.
The only thing historic is going to be the historic levels of overestimation and subsiquent dissapointment on the GOP side. A true turn of the tide would wipe the Democratics out of the Senate. Yes the GOP will take the House back, but will only be able to slow down the agenda. Unfortunately Obamacare will survive.
The work has just begun. Do not overestimate, and then do not be dissipointed. To take out nation back will take a great deal more work. The old guard GOP need to take a hike. but as we see in Alaska they refuse to get with the program.
Leftist strongholds across the nation control a large number of House and Senate seats (California) and leftism is not dead. Victory is in the struggle for hearts and minds of the population. Our schools, culture, entertainment…. are all majority occupied by leftists. The change must start there.
These are the key demographic realities of 2012, via the NRO Campaign Spot blog:
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/248295/october-surprise-iwonti-help-democrats
The enthusiasm gap: Republican intensity continues to outpace Democrat. We keep waiting for the election interest gap to close but it’s not tightening much yet. Clearly it still could and some of the close races will get even tighter – but right now the GOP is on course for a two-three point added advantage from the enthusiasm gap.
Independent men. Independent men are looking more and more like Republican men in their attitudes and opinions – extremely frustrated and in the mood for change. That alters the target universe a little bit for us to focus on Independent women who are the battleground in many races this cycle.
Private sector GDP has fallen from ~80% in 2007 to less than 74% in 2009. Men, particularly the undergraduate and non-college educated white males have taken the brunt of this change.
All white males who lack university graduate degrees are functionally Republican in terms of voting patterns for as long as Obama Democrats are in office or their job killing policies are in place.
They won’t begin to vote or act differently until that 80% private sector GDP number gets back in a substantially larger American economy.
That is the reason for the look of the Larry Sabato House map.
This steam cleaning will take two election cycles to complete. There just aren’t a lot of Senate Democrats up for election this cycle. A huge crop of them are up in 2012, though.
Crosspatch,
The difficulty will be in keeping the steam pressure up. Once the emotion has subsided and the realities of governing sink in. It takes longer to fix something than to break it.
I hope all of this is REALLY!!! the start of a small government push and not just a lot of steam.
National Review had what I thought was a very good piece today about why this election will be so historic.
“The massive electoral repudiation that increasingly looks likely for Democrats is not, however, why this vote will be historic. It will be historic because it is the most intense battle yet in the Fifty Years’ War between conservatives and liberals for possession of America’s political soul.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/248231/fifty-years-war-henry-olsen
This is not the final battle, but it may be the penultimate one – 2012, with the Presidency and a truly useful Senate Majority at stake has the chance to be the final word. But 2010 may be the most intensely fought and most surprising conflict because neither side saw it coming until it was almost upon them – in that sense, this is looking to be this nation’s political Gettysburg.
The war will go on for a while longer, but after November the Dems will be so badly wounded that they no longer have any chance at final victory. The real question, as with Gettysburg, will be what the GOP is willing to do with the victory they are about to be handed. Mead neglected to pursue Lee when he could have destroyed him, squandering the victory and resulting in 2 more long years of bloodshed. The GOP needs to find the nerve to strike while the iron is still hot.
I hope for the best, but warn again, don’t over expect in election results and in post election legislative success!
There are two barriers to success. The “Left” and the “old guard GOP”. The old guard will/are do their best to sabotoge the emerging wave. (i.e. Alaska Senate race…et al.)
Let’s hope for Senate victory, but it’s looking less likely than a month ago.
[…] Pawlenty, Jindal get As – hotair.com 09/30/2010 Crist a D, Paterson an F. more… Crystal Ball Turning GOP Red – strata-sphere.com 09/30/2010 Larry Sabato is out with updated projections for the 2010 […]
Hey is this a wave or what, we need do better.