Election Predictions

Posted by Chris Connolly on 11.03.2008

What my gut is telling me...

Okay, it's time to put my (lack of) money where my mouth is and make some predictions about what is going to happen when the dust settles either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Since I've been following politics since I was able to read (around 1984), the gut has only been wrong on a presidential election once, and that was only because at the age of 13 I had yet to realize how dumb people could be and didn't think they'd actually vote for Ross Perot and his pie charts. With that in mind, here we go...

U.S. Senate seats in play

MN: Norm Coleman will hold his seat.
- Coleman is going to benefit from a strong independent candidate here, who could probably knock him off if Stuart Smalley wasn't in the race. Franken's behavior has been less than Senator-like on the trail, and coupled with his inability to pay his taxes will steer a lot of folks away from him.

GA: Saxby Chambliss will hold his seat.
- This race really narrowed over the course of the year. I think Saxby is still popular enough in my adopted state to hold on to this seat by the skin of his teeth.

NC: Kay Hagen will beat Liddy Dole.
- Liddy Dole is in one hell of a fight. I think her last ad exposing Hagen's relationship with atheist groups backfired on her, and Hagen will pick up this spot.

AK: Ted Stevens loses.
- Duh. I'm still mad that the state party didn't put more pressure on Stevens to resign or not seek reelection when he was indicted.

MS: Roger Wicker keeps his seat.
- Ronnie Musgrove doesn't have a chance. He was a horrible, corrupt governor and despite the amount of money being poured into the race by the DSCC, this seat is staying with Wicker.

VA: Mark Warner wins this seat.
- Jim Gilmore never stood a chance in this one. Who would have thought after 2004 that both VA Senate seats would belong to Democrats?

NM: Tom Udall wins.

CO: Mark Udall wins.
- His opponent missed a huge opportunity this summer when Udall said he wasn't leaving DC until they did something about energy and then proceeded to skip town on the next flight out.

NH: John Sununu keeps his seat.
- I am bucking the polls here because I think McCain is going to win NH and help Sununu keep his seat in the process.

OR: Gordon Smith keeps his seat.
- RCP has it as a toss-up, and I think in this one the toss-up goes to the incumbent.

KY: Mitch McConnell keeps his seat and continues to drive me nuts.
- Nice try by the Dems to pick up this seat, but it's not gonna happen.

LA: Mary Landrieu loses.
- LA is one of the few states that is becoming redder by the day, thanks in part to the boy wonder Bobby Jindal.

ME: Susan Collins keeps her seat.
- Cheer up Dems, she votes with you most of the time anyway.

TX: John Cornyn keeps his seat.
- Dude, it's Texas.

NE: Mike Johanns wins.
- He's a popular former governor and will win easily. Another plus is I no longer have to deal with Chuck Hagel's Benedict Arnold act.

Overall, while the Democrats will pick up a few seats (most likely getting to 54-57), I don't believe they'll get to 60.

House of Representatives

While the energy crisis over the summer gave me hope that the GOP would be able to retake the House, the "leadership" and RNCC fumbled an easy touchdown and it seems like they might lose about 10-15 seats. One of those seats is most likely Don Young of Alaska, and I am not going to be sorry to see him go. On the bright side, it looks as if the GOP will take back Mark Foley's old seat since it was revealed that his replacement was literally pimping out his mistress after running as a family values candidate in 2006. It also looks like the GOP can pick up two seats in PA, with Lou Barletta poised to knock off the ethically plagued Paul Kanjorski and Jack Murtha about to get the boot for becoming rather unhinged in the last few weeks.

The Presidential Race

Obama wins the popular vote thanks to huge turnout in places like New York, Illinois and California, but McCain wins the electoral vote. I think a lot of undecideds are going to break for McCain, because if Obama hasn't convinced them yet, he's not going to. I realize that McCain essentially has to win three out of the four following states to have a shot: PA, OH, VA and FL. He's within striking distance in Virginia. I think his strength with both the Jewish and Hispanic voters in the state, along with the help of a popular governor in Charlie Crist will allow him to take Florida. Ohio will swing his way in part based on the ACORN mess there, along with the hit job that was done on Joe the Plumber. Finally, Obama's coal comments have been all over the news, and coupled with Jack Murtha's effort to become a former congressman, I think McCain has one heck of a shot of taking PA. In the end I think that the map is going to end up very similar to the map Ashish posted yesterday.

Unfortunately, this scenario will lead to yet another four years of people bitching about a "stolen" election, but I've heard that so much it's become like a fridge humming in the background to me. Whoever wins, I'd just like to urge everyone to show some class, both in their words and actions. After all, both candidates are far from perfect and both parties are corrupt.