My 2010 Midterm Election Predictions

This blog has a no politics policy, but there is an exception once every year before the elections.  One of the things that always stuck with me as a political scientist wannabe is the need to make electoral predictions so I can be held accountable for the analysis I make about elections.  Political analysts excel at Wednesday morning quarterbacking, but it’s always easier to make insight with hindsight rather than with foresight.

With that intro, here are my predictions for the 2010 midterm elections.

The House of Representatives

The Republicans are going to win this election.  There was no doubt about that since the day after the 2008 elections; the GOP had lost all but the most Republican of the districts and there weren’t too many seats left that the Democrats could gain.  The question was always not whether the Republicans will gain seats during the 2010 midterms, but just how many.

Even under normal circumstances, the GOP probably would have gained 20-25 seats.  These are not normal circumstances.  For a variety of reasons, people have become rather disillusioned with President Obama, but the problems are deeper.  As the always-insightful Jay Cost has noted, the Democrats face a perfect storm in this election cycle. The GOP wins won’t be limited to recapturing the traditionally GOP districts in Indiana and rural Pennsylvania or defeating long time conservative Democratic incumbents in South Dakota, North Dakota and the South.  It will spread to places like Washington, Michigan and even the Northeast where the GOP hasn’t performed well in a decade.

The Republicans will almost certainly give back the last category of seats in two or four years, much like the Democrats will lose most of their 2006 and 2008 gains this election cycle.   That the Republicans are likely to capture some of these seats, though, illustrates the trouble Democrats are facing in this mid-term elections.  Pundits like to focus on the vote of independents, but I’ve always believed that a far better predictor of electoral outcome is enthusiasm of the base.  It’s nice that a person says he supports a candidate during telephone polling, but it doesn’t mean much when the person would rather stay in bed than weather the storm on election day.  As my professor in college pointedly out, America’s largest political party is the Gone Fishing Party.  Disillusioned Democrats will stay home while angry Republicans will turn out.  In a midterm elections where the interest is low to begin with, this is the decisive factor.  Coupled with the independents’ breaking for the GOP in double digits and Democrats will have a rough Tuesday in one week.

The million dollar question is, “How rough”?   The popular barometer is 1994, when the GOP rode Newt Gingrich and his “Contract with America” for a net gain of 52 seats.  History, though, is a bad teacher because no two elections are ever alike.  On the one hand, the Democrats this time saw the tsunami coming months away.  Of course, the GOP saw disaster looming in 2006 and they couldn’t do anything about it.  It doesn’t help that the Democrats have far more seats to lose in this election.

My money is on the GOP performing slightly better than the 52 seats they won in 1994; there are just too many seats in play.  Yes, some Democratic incumbents will make a thrilling comeback, but for every comeback, there will be a shocking upset.  Most competitive races will fall GOP’s way and more incumbents who have no business being in even a close election will lose.  That’s just the way tough election cycles go.

Considering the expectations, it would be an utter disaster for the GOP if they fail to gain the 39 seats necessary to recapture the House; anything in the low 40s would be deemed a subpar performance and anything less than 52 seats will be spun as a moral victory for the Democrats.  If the Republicans gain seats in the 60s–something I actually consider unlikely from recent polls–the Democrats are almost certainly losing control of the Senate, where the story is completely different.

The Senate

No party has ever lost the House without losing the Senate, but the Democrats may buck history simply out of sheer luck.  As Jay Cost pointedly noted, the Democrats are defending Senate seats in states not particularly known for conservative leanings: New York (twice!), Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon, Washington and California.  If it was any other election cycle when their seats in the midwest and the South were up for re-election, there won’t be a scintilla of doubt that the Democrats will lose 10 seats in the Senate, and thus its majority.

But luck can only take the Democrats so far.  The closeness of the contests in liberal bastions like Washington and California indicate that the Democrats are in deep trouble because they are compelled to be defensive on their own home turf.  The polls show what would be obvious from this, that the Democrats won’t even be competitive in defending Arkansas, North Dakota and Indiana–proof they are blessed they’re not defending seats in the rest of the Plains and the South–while they won’t come close to picking up  Missouri and New Hampshire.  Russ Feingold will lose by double digits in Wisconsin and I doubt Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Colorado will be as close as the polls indicate.

That leaves California, Illinois, Nevada, Washington and West Virginia.  The Republicans essentially need to sweep to recapture the Senate by winning four out of these five.

The competitiveness of West Virginia surprises me the most, but not in the way most think.  When Robert Byrd died and the state’s popular governor announced he would run for the seat, pundits expected the Democrats to easily hold on to the seat.  This state, though, has progressively become more Republican since 2000 when George W. Bush carried it by a hair.  Only Byrd’s personal popularity kept it comfortably with the Democrats.  With the death of an icon, a popular governor or no, I would have expected the GOP to be pulling away by now.  I think the GOP will win this race, but if they don’t, the Democrats will perform better than I predict and they will comfortably keep the Senate.

I expect GOP victories in Illinois and Nevada as well, but the credit hardly goes to the GOP whose candidates have resumes that look strong only by comparison to Christine O’Donnell.  While the Democratic candidates in these contests will benefit from weak Republican competition, their numbers are far too weak to survive an election with a headwind.  Most close races go to the party riding the tidal wave.  So will these.

That leaves Washington and California.  I thought the GOP chances are best in the former where they recruited a strong candidate, but the incumbent has run a good campaign there to keep the challenger at bay.  I now think the unthinkable, that a Republican majority hinges on, and is within reach by, a victory in California.  Barbara Boxer is unpopular while her challenger is well-financed.    The numbers have been drifting in the wrong direction for Boxer and Fiorina has a legitimate shot.

Ultimately, though, I think the Democrats will hold on–just barely–to the Senate because it’s hard to sweep in any election cycle and the Democrats are playing at home.   At the end of the day, the Democratic base will come home and turn out in California and Washington, where I expect the incumbents to survive with a whisker.

On a separate note, keep a close eye on Alaska’s Senate race.  Lisa Murkowski, an incumbent who lost the primary, may become only the second person ever to win a write-in campaign for Senate.  I personally think that’s the most intriguing story of this election.