RSS Feed MenuUnder the heading, “Republicans not in a position to retake the House (yet),” Chris Bowers estimates that the Democrats have a 41.2%-37.7% lead in recent generic House polling. Bowers writes, “Democrats are, after all, still winning.”
But it’s not so simple. In research published a couple years ago, Joe Bafumi, Bob Erikson, and Chris Wlezien found that, yes, generic party ballots are highly predictive of House voting–especially in the month or two before the election-but that early polling can be improved by adjusting for political conditions. In particular, the out-party consistently outperforms the generic polls.
The paper accompanying this graph was among the first public predictions of a Democratic takeover in 2006.
Bafumi, Erikson, and Wlezien’s analysis doesn’t go back before 300 days before the election, but if we take the liberty of extrapolating … The current state of the generic polls gives the Democrats .412/(.412+.377) = 52% of the two-party vote. Going to the graph, we see, first, that 52% for the Democrats is near historic lows (comparable to 1946, 1994, and 1998) and that the expected Democratic vote–given that their party holds the White House–is around -3%, or a 53-47 popular vote win for the Republicans.
Would 53% of the popular vote be enough for the Republicans to win a House majority? A quick look, based on my analysis with John Kastellec and Jamie Chandler of seats and votes in Congress, suggests yes.
It’s still early–and there’s a lot of scatter in those scatterplots–but if the generic polls remain this close, the Republican Party looks to be in good shape in 2010.
P.S. Is there any hope for the Democrats? Sure. Beyond the general uncertainty in prediction, there is the general unpopularity of Republicans; also, it will be year 2 of the presidential term, not year 6 which is historically the really bad year for the incumbent party. Still and all, the numbers now definitely do not look good for the Democrats.
midcon // Sep 23, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Unfortunately, the fortunes of the GOP will rise and fall based on the fortunes of the Dems. The GOP strategy is promote the failure of the Dems in order to ensure the GOP success. The sad part is the GOP will not succeed because they did anything.
greg_barton // Sep 23, 2009 at 9:27 pm
You guys seriously underestimate the political savvy of the Obama camp. You will never see it coming. Just watching the ACORN silliness play out is entertaining. The right wing has no clue how much they’ve been suckered there. I leave it as an exercise for the right wing folks hanging around this site to figure it out. But of course, you won’t. Ya’ll are too wrapped up in the belief that Obama and crowd are clueless to believe you can be so well played.
rbottoms // Sep 23, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Better pray none of your screaming teabaggers are found to be involved in this:
A U.S. Census worker found hanging from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery had the word “fed” scrawled on his chest, a law enforcement official said Wednesday, and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.
The law enforcement official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity, did not say what type of instrument was used to write the word on the chest of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher. He was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky.
The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a slaying or a suicide, and if a slaying, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment. An autopsy report is pending.
Investigators have said little about the case. FBI spokesman David Beyer said the bureau is assisting state police.
“Our job is to determine if there was foul play involved — and that’s part of the investigation — and if there was foul play involved, whether that is related to his employment as a census worker,” said Beyer.
Beyer declined to confirm or discuss any details about the crime scene.
Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau’s southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is “an apparent homicide” but nothing else.
Census employees were told Sparkman’s truck was found nearby, and a computer he was using for work was found inside it, she said. He worked part-time for the Census, usually conducting interviews once or twice a month.
sinz54 // Sep 24, 2009 at 10:37 am
When the incumbent party loses the support of the people, the opposition party starts to look good automatically.
Obama is running right down the same track that Carter did.
Obama speech to the U.N. yesterday was very similar to Carter’s infamous “inordinate fear of Communism” speech in his first year of office.
Obama’s difficulties in getting ObamaCare passed by a Dem-controlled Congress are similar to Carter’s difficulties with his own Dem-controlled Congress.
If that continues, then the GOP should make great gains next year, and topple Obama in 2012.