Polling On The November Election Outcome

Sad as it sounds, but this election will be about which party is the lesser of the evils.

The Washington Post claims that the GOP is predicting anywhere from a seven seat loss to a 30 seat loss. Should anyone be surprised at this? Seven seats strikes me as low, and also would signal that the GOP retains control in the House. A 30-seat loss would mean a shift in control in the House, but I don't think that will come to pass. It's also close to what many were predicting even before Foleygate, North Korea, and the uptick in violence in Iraq.

Tradesports historical data shows that the contract on GOP control of the House is about where it was a month ago, before everything hit the fan, and that the GOP control of the House has been trending down for most of the past year. Losing seats appears inevitable, but that was apparent for much of the past year. Foleygate has not changed the calculus - just look at where the contract was at the beginning of September and now and realize that the bounce in September was largely due to the GOP pushback on national security issues. The situation in the Senate is similar to where it was in late November 2005, though the GOP has to be concerned because of the sharp dropoff in the past month.

Real Clear Politics is the place to go for the best roundups on election news. Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to retake the House, so what should they reasonably expect? I think 10-14 seats is quite possible, especially in an off-year election.

Both parties are trying to nationalize the elections to the extent it's possible. Democrats want to criminalize the GOP over Foleygate and Abramoff and Cunningham, while trying to avert the eyes from Menendez, Mollohan, and their own Abramoff ties. GOPers are trying to cast the Democrats as the party that's weak on defense and national security, though they're trying to make folks forget that they're wishy-washy on border control.

Since all politics is local, the party control of Congress will depend on the outcome of 435 separate local elections, and there are only a handful of races that are competitive or likely to change hands. RCP puts the figure at 40. That's roughly 10% of the seats in the House.

The Senate is even more difficult, with only 14 competitive races.

So, for all the talks about national sentiment and how people rate Congress, it really does come down to how people feel about their own representatives. Just ask yourself whether you like your representative. You probably do (if you even give it much thought), but you probably despise Congress as a whole and how they've mangled everything from national security to immigration and border control or Social Security reform or budget or tax reform (just to name a few key issues). Yet, an individual voter has no control over all of Congress, just his or her own representatives.

GOPers who are concerned about the race and are considering sitting out ought to reconsider their positions because of this basic fact. Those who have blogged that they would sit out the election, like Malkin (who then reversed course), ought to remember that all politics is local, and that their own local representatives could lose despite the fact that they've done a good job for their constituents.

Democrats, meanwhile, have to be concerned that despite the GOP shooting itself in both feet with the handling of Foleygate, an inability of the GOP to exploit the border fence bill passage (though that may still come), and all the ongoing problems with Iraq, Afghanistan, and now North Korea, they aren't severely trouncing the GOP candidates. That should tell them that they've got to do more than simply say that they're going to offer something different or that the Democrat candidates will do a better job. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that they would, and their calls that they're the more ethical party fall flat on its face (look no further than how Pelosi and Hastert both sought to extend congressional immunity to protect William Jefferson him from law enforcement investigation and searches of his office, despite the fact that investigators already found $90,000 in cash stashed in his freezer). Many voters realize that the Democrats don't have a message that resonates other than "We're not the GOP, Vote for US."

For some, that might be enough, but not for me.

National security will continue to dominate many of the races, which includes the issues of Afghanistan, Iraq, border control, and defense spending. The fence bill will be signed into law by President Bush, when GOPers think that they can time things for maximum effect. That time is fast approaching as they need to get inside the news cycle and find some other issue to bump down for at least a few days.

Which party do you trust more with the keys to the national security establishment? I don't trust the Democrats, not when they offer up various statements that in toto say that they're going to cut and run from Iraq as soon as possible, including cutting funding to the Iraq operation. What kind of message do you think that sends to our allies, including those Iraqis who have been laying it all on the line hoping for a better tomorrow? All they have to do is look at what happened when Congress cut the funding for our allies in South Vietnam to know what could happen in Iraq. Millions dead and displaced. Not a pretty picture, and one that is infinitely worse than what we're seeing now in Iraq despite the loss of American lives thus far.

Democrats like to say that the Bush Administration handled North Korea wrong, though one can rightfully point out that the Democrat position failed miserably to stem North Korea's ambitions when they were still in the development phase and used the time between 1994 and 2000 to reach the nuclear threshold and there was little for a Bush Administration to do. Bush committed to Six Party Talks, and Democrats think that the right course of action was direct negotiations, though there's no reason to believe they would have been any more successful, and that would have given North Korea exactly what it wanted - split the US from the Japanese and South Koreans who actually have to live with the outcome.

Yet, there are many who think that the GOP is going to go down like the Titanic and are already casting blame. RedState has more on that phenomenon.

As for the situation in New Jersey, all I can say is that Menendez is a lout, and his ethics are more than questionable. Fausta has more on his latest batch of dirty tricks. The alternative is Tom Kean Jr., and I find that he falls short on many areas, but he's not as bad as Menendez.

Others blogging: AJ Strata, Don Surber, Dan Riehl, Sister Toldjah, Hot Air, Stop the ACLU.

UPDATE:
Now here's a scary thought. Kos actually makes sense for a change on election outcomes.

I'm getting a little nervous with people thinking we have any race this fall in the bag. While things look great for us right now, the election isn't right now. And if Republicans can do anything, it's close the deal. And quite frankly, we're not a sure thing anywhere.

We've got to pick up six seats for a majority, seven if we want to avoid a potential Lieberman blackmail situation (if he wins his race). We have to hold all of our own endangered seats (looking solid in MN, okay in MD, and iffy in NJ). Then, in the Republican-held competitive races left -- MO, MT, OH, PA, RI, TN, and VA -- all but one feature incumbents, always the hardest races to win. Incumbents rarely, rarely lose.

He wonders why Democrats are getting so excited. They haven't won anything yet, and Democrats are at a disadvantage monetarily on several key states, where the GOP can pour funds in to help races. And he's right. They haven't won anything, and haven't figured out how to close the deal. To the Left, getting close to winning is a big deal, but it's still a loss when the seat goest to the other side.

These are important things to keep in mind going into the home stretch of the 2006 election season. Nothing is certain and the dynamics of the races leaves lots of room for movement as people finally become engaged in the various races.

We'll be treated to lots of fury and noise, signifying not a whole lot of new information that is actually useful to voters who are trying to make decisions.