OK--Here is my considered election prediction:

[Jackpine Radical]

The Democrats will narrowly take every race in which the last polls before the election show them leading by at least 10%. They will also win all races in which they lead by at least 3% going in AND there have been no systematic disenfranchisement projects.

"Systematic disenfranchisement projects" include Blackwell-style de-registrations of registered voters, massive gerrymandering, questionable voting machines, and the like.

The upshot of all this is that we can indeed win, but only if everyone puts out max effort & we GET OUT THE VOTE bigtime.

[longship]

1. I'm going with a somewhat more bolder approach.

Because of the extreme disconnect between the "big issue, national" indicators and the candidate polls, I am taking the bold approach of presuming that the former will trump the latter. My reasoning behind this move is that the big, national indicators are showing an *unprecedented* political tidal change. These numbers are way above the indicators in any recent election, going all the way back to the 1950's.

All the big indicators support a Democratic landslide and *none* of them are offering any tempering trend.

Then, there's those stupid candidate polls showing race after race after race showing Republicans in trouble, but the numbers stop short of race after race being in a Dem take-over position. It's like the people are showing resistance to going all the way. But that's not what the national indicators are saying!

The only thing I can think of that would cause this effect is if those doing the polling are using models which overstate Repuke strength. This may be because of pollsters using more cautious models from previous elections which will not necessarily be accurate this time.

The electorate is in an awfully foul mood and the GOP is going to pay for it in November.

I'm calling for seven Senate seats and 35 House seats. My Senate prediction is pretty firm, but Kyl may be slipping which would push it to eight seats, probably the absolute maximum. My House prediction is very soft because there may be no limit to the number of seats which the Democrats could take. If you were to ask me what I really think will happen on Nov 7th, I'd say, "The Dems will take upwards of fifty House seats, maybe more."

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. There is another explanation...

It's simple - a lot people don't blame their own Congressman or Senator. They blame everyone else's.

[longship]

3. I know that one -- I don't believe it this time.

And here's why...

The number of competitive House races is increasing daily. Some vote counters are saying there are 60-70 or more races, almost all Repuke-held. The pundits are also saying that they can't keep up--things are moving too fast. There will be more by November 7th, maybe many more. It's hard to predict how many and I've seen no projection lines.

So, if people are resistant to voting against their own representative, why in the Sam Hell are all these races becoming competitive? And why doesn't a significant number of these races continue beyond competitive to "take-over likely". It can't be that people have loyalty to their candidate, otherwise the race wouldn't have gone competitive in the first place. Many of these are in extremely Republican districts! I don't see where is this candidate loyalty is showing in the big picture.

Also, the accumulation of the poll numbers reveals the same thing as the national indicators!! Yet, very few of the polls are breaking through. This puts the onus on the pollsters to explain why their models aren't showing what is clearly happening at the higher level.

I think it's that the polling models cannot handle this year's crazy political environment--a possibly important political sea change. I believe that the pollster's assumptions are just plain wrong. That's why I'm only looking at candidate poll trends, and in accumulation but discounting the actual numbers.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. An interesting and thoughtful analysis.

My own prediction was simply gased on granting the Puggies the power to introduce a 10% cheat factor into certain elections, e.g. OH, FL, TX, so we have to be strong enough to withstand that. Then I figured that "normal" Puggy tactics of discouraging minority voters, messing with absentee ballots & similar dirty tricks are good for 3% in even the cleanest of states.

[longship]

5. The Cheat Factor.

It's likely to be smaller, and more sporatic than previously. The GOP is in *BIG* trouble this year and they know it.

Taking a huge risk rigging a House race or two here and there will not get the job done and they know that, too. The last thing the GOP needs right now is for some hungry district attorney to convene a grand jury because of electoral shenanigans. The Senate is different. However, the GOP also knows that rigging a statewide election depends on the cooperation of many people. Again, there's the whistle-blower/hungry DA with the grand jury.

I think we're pretty sure that what we'll see is the usual machine voting fuck-ups, a lot of slimey campaign ads, and a healthy dose of voter suppression. The organized and widespread rigging of machines is just too damned risky. Any thing we see is going to be incidental and scattered. But that's precisely why we all need to be on guard.

[Barrett808]

6. I predict numerous vote-fraud suits on November 8th...

...with most coming from the GOP, which will, of course, have perpetrated most of the vote fraud. This won't stop them from tying up the election results in the courts for months, and thereby extending their reign by default.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. There is every possiblilty of such an outcome. (nt)