March Senate Predictions

I’m going to forecast some Senate races in 2008. These are obviously extremely preliminary, but early polling data can give us a rough estimate over what to expect in the fall. And I decided to be gutsy and not lump them into “Democratic favored” or “leans” categories…

I’ll keep up with Senate race predictions on my new “Senate Races” section.

Democrats Keep: (11 seats)

Pryor (D-AK), Biden (D-DE), Durbin (D-IL), Kerry (D-MA), Levin (D-MI), Reed (D-RI), Rockefeller (D-WV), Harkin (D-IA), Baucus (D-MT), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Johnson (D-SD)

Republicans Keep: (14 seats)

Stevens (R-AK), Sessions (R-AL), Chambliss (R-GA), McConnell (R-KY), Wicker (R-MS), Dole (R-NC), Inhofe (R-OK), Graham (R-SC), Alexander (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Roberts (R-KA), Cochran (R-MS), Enzi (R-WY), Barrasso (R-WY)

Democratic Takeover: Close races but are currently trending Democratic takeover (4 seats)

Norm Coleman (R-MN) to Al Franken, John Sununu (R-NH) to Jeanne Shaheen, Pete Dominici (R-NM) to Tom Udell, Open Seat to Mark Warner (D-VA)

Republican Takeover (1 seat)

Mary Landreau (D-LA) to John Kennedy

Too Close: Close races with no clear front-runner (3 seats)

Bob Schaffer vs. Tom Udall- Colorado, Gordon Smith (R-OR) vs. No Clear Challanger, Susan Collins (R-ME) vs. Tom Allen

I put in the “too close” category because there are truly a few races that will be very close in November, or at least they’re trending that way right now. Republicans Smith, Collins, Sununu and Coleman are vulnerable while Democrats have their eyes on open seats in Virginia & Colorado. If everything goes as planned for the Democrats, they could walk away with a net gain of 5 seats in November, giving them a 56-44 majority in the Senate. It currently looks like, unfortunately, Mary Landreau (D-LA) will lose her seat. In the after math of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of New Orleans residents fled Louisiana, depressing the city’s Democratic electorate. Landreau squeaked by in 2002 (before Katrina). Now it looks like without the base that elected her, she will be unable to win in November. That’s the only bad news for Democrats–and the only reason she is vulnerable is because of the political implications of a natural disaster. Republicans are certainly going to be on the defensive this year.

Once again, this is where I stand as of right now. I’ll post more in depth info about some of these races and new predictions as the year progresses. Public opinion changes, events happen, controversies erupt: you never know what can swing an election.

The 2008 Electoral Map

In the first national poll of presidential preferences, SurveyUSA asked 30,000 respondents in all 50 states, if the election were held today, who would you vote for.

The Results:
Both Democrats Beat John McCain
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hillary Clinton 276
John McCain 262

States Democrats Pick Up:
West Virginia, Arkansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida

States Democrats Lose:
Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire

View Clinton/McCain Electoral Map
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barack Obama 280
John McCain 258

States Democrats Pick Up:
Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Virginia

States Democrats Lose:
Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey

View Obama/McCain Electoral Map

I’m always skeptical of national polls, but it’s interesting that this is the first conducted in all 50 states for the general election.

Thank You Virginia, Maryland, and DC!

Virginia:
Obama 64%
Clinton 35%Maryland:
Obama 59%
Clinton 36%

District of Columbia:
Obama 75%
Clinton 24%

For the first time, Obama has cut into Hillary Clinton’s base. His momentum is beginning to reach into Clinton’s core constituencies, and pull them apart.

AP:

Obama was getting the backing of two-thirds of men and nearly six in 10 women, according to preliminary data from exit polls of voters conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks. In previous Democratic presidential primaries, Clinton — the New York senator bidding to become the first female president — has carried a slight majority of women while Obama has enjoyed support from slimmer majorities of males.

Among Independents:

One out of every five Democratic primary voters were independent — and those voters chose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, 67 to 32 percent….Roughly one out of every five voters in the GOP primary were independent as well – but those voters did not vote for the party’s likely nominee, John McCain, who had been expected to benefit from their support. Instead, independent voters backed Mike Huckabee over McCain, 43 to 34 percent, with Ron Paul pulling in 19 percent.

Virginia: Allen (R) vs. Webb (D)

The race in Virginia is an insane contest of mudslinging and name-calling. It is without a doubt one of the most contested races in the nation, with Republican incumbent Senator George Allen fighting for his political life against former Secretary of Navy and writer, Democratic challenger Jim Webb.

It is difficult to even describe the insanity of this race. Perhaps this quote is a good place to start:
This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great. We’re going to places all over Virginia, and he’s having it on film and it’s great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he’s never been there and probably will never come. [...] Let’s give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia

This is but one aspect of this race that is so profoundly nuts. During a speech before an RNC crowd, Senator Allen pointed out a Webb campaign staff member who was monitoring the Allen campaign. The guy’s name was Sidrath; he was an African-American man who wore a baseball cap and had a Mohawk. Reports from the Allen campaign in the subsequent days of his remarks explained that Allen got the word “macaca” from his staff. Evidently, in Tunisian francophone culture “macaca” refers to a monkey and it happened to be that Sidrath was French Tunisian. Allen responded by saying that the word must have morphed among his staff members from “Mohawk” to “macaca”- but the press did not buy it. In the following week after the controversy, Allen apologized on numerous occasions even calling Sidrath to apologize in person. Webb’s campaign responded by labeling him as a racist.

This is not to say that Webb has a monopoly on mudslinging. Allen’s campaign recovered some excerpts from several of Webb’s published works that seem to be suggestive in nature and reveal his position on woman in combat operations written during his time as a navy officer. Webb responded to the “suggestive passages” by saying that they were real-life occurrences that he was documenting as a writer while serving in the armed forces. (Some of his passages contained such demoralizing acts as sodomey of a father and a son, among others.) His response to memos regarding woman in the military was the he simply participated in a navy discussion at that time about woman. Webb reemphasizes that this does not currently represent his opinion of woman in the military. Allen labeled him a sexist.

Webb has painted Allen as racist, a proponent of big business and a proxy of special interests. Allen has painted Webb as immoral, sexist and crude. Nothing has been left unsaid- from Allen’s alleged racial slurs in college to his religious affiliation.

Dead Heat
It shouldn’t be a surprise that this race is tied. There is no definitive poll that shows either of them outside of the margin of error. www.electoral-vote.com within the past week has been calling Virginia interchangeably for Webb and Allen since many polls throughout October show a dead-heat for the senate seat. The most recent poll has Webb slightly ahead by 1%, 48-47. Virginia is a state that Democrats feel is vulnerable, and consequently has dumped millions of dollars into Webb’s campaign. Allen likewise has been receiving tremendous support form the RNC for his endeavor to keep his seat. Where Ohio was the tossup state that determined the control of the presidency in 2004, Virginia may very well be that state for the US Senate in 2006. It will be interesting to watch this race evolve as we get within days of the election.