2010 House Elections

The 2010 House Elections are looking better for Republicans by the day. First of all, it is always good to see Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com talking doom and gloom for Democrats. He is a pretty biased liberal, but he does good statistical analysis so I follow his blog pretty regularly. I was delighted to see his post today suggesting that a loss of 50-70 seats in the House was very possible based on the latest generic ballot polls. He did a linear regression model (statistical term for finding a pattern) for Democratic seat gain/losses depending on percentage of the popular vote nationally. What he found was not good for Democrats. If Democrats were to lose by the 2.3 points projected by the current Real Clear Politics average, he found that Democrats would lose 30 seats. Even worse was that, typically, due to a number of reasons, Democrats over-perform in the polls. Since 1992, Democrats perform at around 3.4 points worse in the actual Congressional vote than they do in the polls. This would mean that the 2.3 points projected might more likely be a loss in the national vote of around 5.7 which would mean a loss of 51 seats.

So why does all of this matter so much? Well, in order to hold onto a majority in the House, Democrats can only afford to lose 40 seats. A loss of 50 seats would give Republicans a solid majority in the House. For perspective, the Republican Revolution in 1994 only saw Republicans pick up 54 seats.

Now, Nate Silver clearly points out that this is all a worst-case scenario assuming that there is no change in the momentum back towards Democrats. Well, I think that it actually could be worse than he lets on. I decided to look at the numbers myself. I went to Pollster and analyzed the Generic Ballot polls.



I tweaked their default chart by eliminating an internet poll that has consistently been off the charts in support of Democrats. I also selected high sensitivity which highlights recent trends. Interestingly, this leads to an even worse picture for Democrats. Notice the steep decline in Democratic support very recently. Interestingly, the turning point is March 21st. Anything ring a bell about that date? It is the day that the health care bill passed the House. Remember all the supporters of the bill saying that once it was passed there would be a big boost in the polls for Pres. Obama and Democrats? Well... it hasn't happened. Pres. Obama's numbers have stayed remarkably steady along with Congressional approval. Democrats, though, have seen their generic ballot numbers plummet.

So, what would it mean if the best, most recent polling numbers indicate closer to a 5% advantage for Republicans on the Generic Ballot? Well, by Nate Silver's calculations, that means an actual election day advantage closer to 8.4 points. That would be around a 65 seat loss for Democrats.

I think that we are about to see the biggest pickup in House seats by an out-party in a long, long time. It may outperform the Republican Revolution of 1994. Certainly, the current projections look incredibly gloomy for Democrats and there is no reason to believe that anything will change that. Passing health care legislation was supposed to turn their numbers around simply by showing they got something done. Well, it turns out passing unpopular legislation may be even worse than not passing anything.

The only remaining hope for Democrats is that the economy shows signs of economic recovery. Well, the chances of that happening before November are looking worse and worse. The Labor Department announced on Thursday that new jobless claims rose unexpectedly and all of the latest talk has been that significant reduction of unemployment figures aren't expected at any point this year.

So... everybody looking forward to the budget battle between Pres. Obama and a Republican House in 2011?