These are my predictions for the House and the Senate this year. I have payed a lot of attention to
Larry Sabato's breakdown for a while as well as
Cook Political Report. They are my two primary tools for this prediction in addition to much help from
Electoral-vote.com. As you can tell from my title, I'm predicting a major tidal wave this year. Look below the fold to see the picks.
Senate:
Democrats win the Senate with a narrow
one seat majority. Democrats pick up Montana, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Democrats will also win Missourri and Virginia in extremely tight races that might take the whole night before we have an official winner. Ben Cardin will hold on to Maryland as will Bob Menendez squeek out a victory in New Jersey.
House:
The House is harder to summarize for the obvious reason, the sheer volume number of seats there. The Democrats will win a majority in the House and then some taking 32 seats. Final House of Representatives will be 234 Democrats to 201 Republicans. Ann Coulter will then go on FOX News and declare a Republican victory. Here are the pickups in the House:
Democrats-
NH-01
NY-24
NY-20
CT-05
CT-04
PA-06
PA-07
PA-08
PA-10
OH-01
OH-15
OH-18
VA-02
NC-11
FL-16
IN-02
IN-08
IN-09
KY-03
IL-06
IA-01
MN-06
TX-22
CO-04
CO-05
CO-07
NM-01
AZ-05
AZ-08
ID-01
WA-05
WA-08
The surprise upsets of the night for the Democrats are the Idaho 1st and the Washington 5th, these bordering districts will both swing to the Democrats. The Democratic wave will be obvious by the time all three Indiana districts go to the Democrats and one of the Kentucky districts, at that point Republicans will know they're in for a long night.
Republicans-
GA-12
Conservative Democrat John Barrow loses in the consolation prize for the Republicans, Democrats take the House and the Senate, Republicans take the Georgia 12th.
As a diarist (who I'm too lazy to go back and find to link to) pointed out earlier, even if I'm wrong it will be an amazing night for the Democrats. Even if we don't take back either House and merely cut the margin close (something I see as extremely unlikely) it will be a major victory for the Party that was declared dead by many pundits just two years ago. If the Democrats take just a small margin in the House many pundits will begin talking about how popular and successful Republicans are. They will be wrong, any House majority will be nothing short of a tidal wave for the Democrats, and should be treated as such. The odds were all stacked against us this year, with gerrymandered seats, with far fewer seats won by Kerry represented by Republicans than were won by Bush in 1992 and represented by Democrats. The sheer force of the anti-Republican sentiment required to boot Republicans from their House Majority this year will be historic. Lets all work hard the next two days to get out the vote and make sure it happens.