96%
In the days ahead, I will do my best to present some organized thoughts and analysis of the results of the 2006 elections. I came home late last night and wound up commenting on Politics1.com until the wee hours, so I do not feel like writing anything profound at this time, but I would like to give my take on what happened in the near future, as well as taking an early look ahead to all the Governor/Senate races in 2007 and 2008.
Before I present the next series of numbers, I want to of course point out that there are several Senate and House races that are still in flux and in some cases, official results will not be known until December.
That being said, for the purpose of the Wednesday afternoon Quarterbacking, I am going to assume that whomever is currently ahead in the vote counts, be they Democrat or Republican, and even if they are just a couple hundred votes ahead, will be considered the winner. I am going to assume that Henry Bonilla wins the runoff in TX, as since he was at 48-20 in Round 1, it is at least a fair assumption. A Louisiana runoff will be between two Democrats. After everything is official everywhere, I will recalculate as necessary.
Let me also say that I presented my final predictions on all races a full 9-11 days before the elections. There were definitely a couple races that for the House at least that broke late against what I decided, and I mentioned a couple of them in some comments here last Sunday. Nonetheless, I decided to stick to my guns and not make any changes after we were 9 days away.
Governor races- I was 35-1.
U.S. Senate races- As things currently stand, I am 31-2.
House races- As things currently stand, I am 417-18.
All together, that makes me 483-21. Good for 96% accuracy.
That is a lot better than my NFL picks! But in case anyone has not figured it out, I just pick those based on who I want to win, and primarily on how it will help the Bears.
Let me concede, that there are probably a whole heck of a lot of people out there who got the overall Senate balance of power prediction excatly right or just missed it by 1 compared to my 2.
And there are certainly many people who came far closer on what as of now looks like a 29 seat Democrat gain to my overall (optimistic) picture of 11.
But in spite of that, I honestly wonder how many people only got 21 specific races wrong all together.
Picking a number out of the sky for a party's pickup is one thing, but actually looking at things district by district is another. I feel like I did a pretty good job in actually predicting winners, as compared to most of the other predictions I have seen out there.
For example, I just checked Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, and while he may very well have nailed a prediction of a 29 seat switch, he did that with 19 incorrect predictions, compared to my 18. In your face Sabato! Nice rug too.
I will have to check Rothenberg, Todd, Cook, et al at another time.
Basically, a whole bunch of highly endangered Republican incumbents and candidates who were supposed to lose actually wound up winning, as I had predicted many of them would. More than a handful of other Republicans who were supposed to be far more secure wound up losing. It was a freaky election in the House. There were surprises aplently. Even the people who came very close to the overall change in the balance of power probably got more than 18 House races wrong, because they would have picked both Democrats who wound up losing, and (like me) Republicans who wound up losing too.
The message here is campaigns matter! If you run a strong and prepared race, you can overcome a national trend. If you get caught napping, you can be taken by surprise and defeated.
Looking at all the Democrat pickups, it looks to me that if not for the Republicans who expected to coast and who got taken by surprise, and the several districts where we lost seats, not because of any actual issues, but because of individual scandals and circumstances in those specific districts, the GOP would have actually kept the House in spite of Iraq and everything.
But that did not happen. Democrats won fair and square, and we go at it again in two years.
In the meantime, I am hanging my hat on what I think is an impressive 96% prediction ratio, which I think might actually be a higher score than the race by race predictions of any other amateur or professional pundits I have seen.
And that makes me a little less bummed.
posted by Corey @ Wednesday, November 08, 2006
14 comments
14 Comments:
Given that most federal and state governors races in 2006 were not particularly competitive, your 96% is not all that impressive. The overall Democratic Party success in the 2006 midterm elections were predictable as long ago as 12 months ago, or at the very least 6 months ago. Your analysis on this blog and elsewhere during most of the past 12 months was not particular impressive. You were suggesting not that long ago that several Democratic governors, senators, and representatives (or Democratic "open seats" in those categories) would be defeated or picked up by Republicans. As you know, not a single Democratic officeholder in those categories or open seat in those categories was defeated or picked up by the GOP. These trends were predictable by a rational observer of American politics many months ago (and I made this case on this and other blogs several times before getting absolutely frustrated with your "wishful thinking" a month or so ago). I understand that you went back and changed your ratings in many of these races in the past couple of weeks, but it remains true that you were slow to pick up on the Democratic "wave" in 2006 (and a few days ago, you still believed that the GOP would hold the U.S. House and Senate). By the way, with the exception of a relatively small number of stalwart GOP states (i.e. South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho) the Democratic Party made significant, and potentially more damaging to the GOP in the future, gains in local and state offices (e.g. state legislative seats and state constitutional offices). The Democratic Party, a party that you obviously have disdain for, is once again the majority party in the USA. After a relatively short 12 years of political dominance at the federal level in the USA, the corruption, incompetence, incoherence, divisiveness, and partisanship of the Bush Administration and GOP has been repudiated by the American people. No doubt, a majority of Americans wish they had come to their senses two or more years ago. Perhaps, the disaster that had befallen America and the American people in Iraq would have been averted or mitigated.
For a time, I had anticipated a small handful of Governorships switching from Democrats to Republicans, to go along with the same thing in the opposite direction. I was never predicting many of those ocurrances though.
My final predictions, just like all professional pundits offer final predictions, had only 21 incorrect calls in Governor/Senate/House races.
The 96% number may be somewhat irrelevant as so many races are non-competitive but I still believe that at least in House races, very few people would have gotten under 18 wrong.
Your comments on the Democrat Party suddenly being the "majority party" are extremely interesting.
You seem to be reading too much into what happened, but I don't blame your misguided enthusiasm. You certainly have the right to be satisfied with what happened and enjoyed it, but another election is always across the corner.
I will offer my detailed comments in the days ahead when I get the chance.
Fair enough, but I still think that you were slow to react to the Democratic wave in 2006. My comments regarding the majority status of the Democratic party nationally simply reflects the fact that the Democratic Party will have majorities in the U.S. House and Senate in January 2007, as well in in terms of the number of governors and state legislative bodies/state legislators. It is also a fact that between 1994 and 2006, the GOP had majorities in most of these categories (while Democrats maintained majorities in most of those categories for the most part between 1932 and 1994).
Clearly, there are a handful of states (listed above) that are still dominated by the GOP, notably Texas and Georgia. But increasingly, these states are limited to the deep South and a small number of western states.
The emerging Democratic majority consisting of 28 states spans from New England and Mid-Atlantic states to Midwestern, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific coast states, including notably ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, RI, NY, PA, NJ, MD, DE, VA, WV, NC, OH, MI, WI, MN, IL, AR, IA, CO, MT, WA, OR, CA, NM, and HA.
Some states, including FL, OK, MO, AZ, KY, TN, NV, LA, KS, NE, ND, SD, and IN, are only marginally part of the emerging Democratic majority, but neverthless the Democratic Party will probably become or remain competitive in the years to come (i.e. states where the Democratic Party will ocassionally win state and federal elections and control some of the state legislative branches). Note that these "marginal" states will have ten (out of a total of twenty-six) Democratic U.S. senators, five (out of a total of thirteen) Democratic governors in January 2007, and several U.S. House members (including nine additional seats won in the 2006 elections).
Only AL, MS, SC, GA, TX, UT, ID, AK, and WY are largely not part of the merging Democratic majority. Even in these state we find some, albeit minimal, evidence of the competitiveness of the Democratic Party (e.g. governor of WY and lt. Gov. of AL).
Corey, I'm sorry, but.....Ha! (just had to gloat once) Your optimism along with electionprojection's was way off. And my pessimism was way off too. I was somewhat suprised by the results too, though - I thouroughly expected NM-01, OH-15, and PA-06 to change, and completely missed several of the ones that did change (Kansas, of all places!). But you have to admit, this was a commanding win for the Democrats. Not a tsunami, but definitely a strong tide. And I'd say national factors were important in about half of the pickups. I also think it'll take more than one cycle for Repubs to take back the House, if history is any indicator, but there will be a good chance next time. The Senate... I'm more confident in thinking it will remain democratic in '08, just because there are many more Republicans running than Democrats.
Looks like we learned that House polls really aren't good indicators of where those races are at, although they see very general trends. Senate poll averages, however, seem to be right on target. The averages of the senate polls for the last several days for the most part were right on the money. In VA, it was closer than expected, but we knew it would be very close, also in MT.
I don't completely agree with anonymous on the supposed realignment. Republicans are quite strong still almost everywhere, not just in the south as he/she asserts. However, New Hampshire seems to be following its New England colleagues in trending blue. Virginia is quickly trending democratic, and Florida is probably just as quickly losing its democratic stregnth. The south still has democratic strength in Arkansas and Tennessee (Ford exceeded my expectations), as well as Kentucky. They couldn't even beat two quite endangered incumbents in GA. If the Dems manage to nominate someone other than Hillary or their 2000/2004 ticket, there will be a lot of new swing states. However, I think Hillary will be hard to beat for the nomination and I just see her performing as well as Kerry, tops.
So basically, I still very much see a 50/50 nation for the foreseeable future. The Republicans were overconfident largely due to a close win in 2004 that they declared a mandate. Democrats would be well-advised not to let this win blind them to the closeness of this election.
However, it does seem that Rove's polarizing strategy was not built for the long term; he lost some much-needed independents. And Howard Dean is vindicated in his 50 state strategy (WY, win or not, wow).
In Texas, Radnofsky and especially Bell outperformed Kerry's 2004 performance. If the governor's race had been between Perry and Bell alone, Bell would have won easily, and possibly still with just one independent. I am sure he wants to strangle Kinky right now.
Doesn't it feel good to be a Democrat right now? I'm enjoying it, I know it won't last forever.
Thanks for the detailed comments anonymous and Aaron.
It feels even better to be a Republican, because I know we are going to rebound and that what happened on Tuesday was mainly an anomoly.
The Democrats did not win this campaign. People did not know what they stood for. The Republicans lost it. Now, that is fine for you guy. You should take what you can get. I just think this will be like how the Republicans won the House in 1952 and lost it again in 1954 and failed to get it back for 40 years. Now, that is a long time, but who knows.
When I have the chance, we will look at all the pickups and determine which ones went because of national factors or any sort of backlash against the GOP on actual issues.
If as Aaron suggests, it is only around half, that would estimate to about 14 seats, which would have put the Democrats short of a majority.
The historic average for House seats in a sixth year midterm is 29 seats, which is what it appears to be this year. Since World War II, it has been even higher. 1942, during WWII was a bloodbath for FDR's party. The Republicans had a horrible 1986 midterm and everyone thought the Reagan Revolution was over and that a Democrat would cruise to the Presidency in 1988.
In politics, things are usually not as they first appear.
Corey,
You might want to do a bit of an analysis of what happened in the various states below the level of Congress or governor in the 2006 election. In other words, it wasn't just a few House, Senate, and governors seats that were picked up by the Democrats. I suspect you are going to find that Democrats swept hundreds of state and local races in places where Democrats historically (or at least in recent years) have not done so well, including some rural areas and suburban areas. The reason why there might just be an "emerging Democratic majority" is that it is possible that a majority of Americans do not believe in the (neo)conservative GOP ideas for dealing with domestic and foreign issues and problems (e.g. abortion and South Dakota or gay marriage and Arizona).
By the way, regarding same-sex marriage (which has been a good "wedge" issue for Karl Rove and the GOP for the past six years), I understand that a majority of Americans continue to believe that same-sex couples should be discriminated against when it comes to obtaining civil marriage licenses from the government, but the voting and survey data suggests that young Americans are much more receptive to same-sex marriage and that the overtime the percentages of Americans who vote for bans on same-sex marriage are going down, and probably will continue to go down, overtime. Same-sex marriage (or "civil unions" as they are called in some places) are currently legal in MA, CT, VT, and soon NJ (and of course in a handful of countries around the world, including Spain and Canada). I suspect that over the next one to three decades, more states in the U.S. will follow suit (especially after the U.S. Supreme Court rules that states may not discriminate against same-sex couples when it comes to granting civil marriage licenses). Already, many mainline Protestant Churches are effectively "marrying" same-sex couples in states around the U.S. While religious marriage ceremonies and civil marriages are two different things (i.e. only civil marriages are legally recognized in the U.S.), these trends will continue to erode opposition to same-sex marriage.
Let me begin by saying that I have no problem with states deciding to legalize civil unions.
Same sex marriage bans have passed by wide margins everywhere they have been on the ballot except for Arizona this past Tuesday. I do not know the specifics of why it failed in Arizona. Opponents believed they were going to win in Wisconsin and that question and lost.
The reason the abortion ban lost in South Dakota was that people felt it went too far because it did not provide an exception for rape and incest. A ton of people are Pro-Life, but have a hard time voting that way without the exception.
As for down ballot stuff, I suspect the Democrats made gains, but this is a sixth year midterm for a Republican President, and those things happen. Republicans have been making gains in those sort of areas (including party switchers) for well over a decade now. There is a limit to success and it is not overly surprising that Democrats might have gained some ground back.
Future elections will determine if it is a fluke or a trend. One election is probably not enough to make sweeping generalizations though. Look at the last Presidential contest where Republicans won all of the fastest growing counties in the country.
The Democrat Party, had a good night, because of Republican problems, more than any sort of increased support for them. That party still has fundamental problems, while Republicans at least can learn from this experience.
In 2008, we are likely to see a Democrat Presidential nominee, who will be a very divisive polarizing figure, who may very well hurt her party across the board, while there are more than 1 GOP Presidential hopefuls that conventional wisdom holds would be hard for her to defeat.
By the way, I will announce my choice for President on this blog on January 1, 2007.
If you think you know already who the DemocratIC [emphasis mine] nominee will be, then I suggest you take back your crystal ball because it's clearly on the fritz.
The Hedgehog Report put up a poll today saying that that potential nominee (whose name I think rhymes with Dillary Flinton) had only 29% support despite being universally well known. Some lock on the nomination.
My Crystal Ball is and always has been very good when it comes to picking the actual humans who will
win.
If you are looking at the Rasmussen Poll, nobody is close to Hillary except Obama. He may not run and is an unknown quantity. The Clinton Attack Machine would eat him for lunch.
Who do you think is going to be the most organized and have the most money?
Hillary will turn her primary campaign into a cause that will make anybody who dare not support her be an anti-woman hating bigot.
Nobody has a "lock" on anything in politics this far out, but I don't see how the Democrats stop her.
In any event, who is your candidate?
If she runs, Hillary Clinton will initially be the best funded/organized, but that doesn't guarantee victory. Not when a majority of your party (not to mention the general electorate) has qualms about you. Democrats will likely abandon her in droves if primary voting time comes and the polls/soundings indicate that she probably can't win the general election. Think Howard Dean in early 2004.
It's too early for me to pick who's my favorite. At this point, I'd say Barack Obama, if he runs. He's one of the few people in recent politics who I find inspiring and even exciting in a way; when he speaks, people listen more than they do to most other politicians. That suggests a potential to connect with the public that has been missing in most recent politicos; the question is if there's enough policy/achievement steak to go with the sizzle.
If Obama doesn't run, and I'd be a bit surprised if he does, then I'd also tilt to Evan Bayh or maybe John Edwards, though I'd like someone fresher. Also an Al Gore comeback is intriguing (he did, after all, win the popular vote, and the man who officially beat him is a lot less popular now) but again, a fresher face with less baggage would likely do better with the general public.
I don't rule out supporting Hillary, but she's got a lot to do to convince me that she can win a general election before I can support her. I suspect that a majority of active Democrats agree with me on that.
Under certain circumstances (i.e. her opponent was Mike Huckabee or Sam Brownback), Sen. Clinton could be strong in the 2008 election. However, if her opponent is Sen. McCain or, possible, Gov. Romney, she might have a more difficult time (I don't believe that there is any chance that Rudy G. will get the GOP nomination). The outcome of the 2008 election is largely going to depend on the political environment in 2008. If Sen. Obama runs for the Democratic nomination, he will pose a strong challenge to Sen. Clinton, and I suspect that he could possibly defeat her in the primaries. My guess is that both of them will not choose to run for president...I just don't know at this time which one will run. As the Democratic nominee, Sen. Obama could choose a V.P. candidate like Sen. Bayh of IN, Gov. Richardson of NM, Gov. Vilsack of IA, or even Gov. Sebelius of KS, and such a ticket would be strong.
I certainly wouldn't support Hillary for the nomination. People generally still like Bill, (except Republicans, of course), but she has never been really popular nationwide. I hope Democrats realize that she has a very low chance of winning in any of the 2004 red states, and could even have trouble in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania. That doesn't bode well against a moderate Republican. Versus McCain, I might not even vote for her, it would depend on the campaign. We don't seem to have any clear favorites at this point. It would not suprise me if both tickets nominate someone we don't expect. At least, I hope so.
Minnesota just elected a liberal, woman Amy Klobuchar to the U.S. senate by a 58% to 38% margin....sounds like a state that would be reluctant to vote for Sen. Clinton for president.
In addition to winning the open U.S. Senate seat, the Minnesota Democratic Party (DFL) took control of the state House of Representatives by a large margin (and maintained control of the state Senate also by a large margin). Democrats swept all of the state constitutional offices, except government/lt. governor (Democrats came close to defeating the incumbent GOP governor), and the Democrats took one U.S. House of Representatives seat from the GOP.
Democrats did at least as well or better in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, not to mention OH, in the 2006 election. Again, all states that would be reluctant to vote for Sen. Clinton for president.
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