State of the Race – November 5 (What to Watch For)

As you can see from the  picture, it all starts with a blank map tomorrow night. In prepara-tion for Election Day, I thought I'd share a few final thoughts and things to be looking for as you watch the coverage on election night.

1.                More 2004 Similarities: For those of you who have been reading this election analysis all along know that I have been drawing many comparisons to the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Here are a couple more to add to the list: Yesterday I was watching NBC's Meet the Press and they released the final NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll and it found Obama leading Romney by a margin of 48% to 47%. And what was the final NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in 2004? You guessed it – Bush was leading Kerry 48% to 47%.

If Obama does repeat Bush's performance and gets reelected, then there is another similarity as well. You may have heard over the weekend that the Washington Redskins have been a predictor for presidential elections over the years. The predictor is as follows: if the Redskins win their last home game before the election than the party that currently controls the White House will win the election and conversely, if the Redskins lose than the challenging party will win. Since 1940, this predictor has been right 17 out of 18 times. The one time it was wrong? Once again, you guessed it – 2004 when the Redskins lost to the Packers, but President Bush was reelected.

2.                Early State Results: At 7:00 EST, polls will close in six different states – Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Virginia & Vermont. I fully expect the networks will call Kentucky, South Carolina and Vermont shortly thereafter as Kentucky and South Carolina are in the “Safe” Romney category and Vermont is in the “Safe” Obama category. I would be shocked if Virginia is called for either side before any real results start coming in as it has been a clear tossup state throughout this entire race. However, the more interesting states that will be closing first are Georgia and Indiana. Both of these states are in the “Likely” Romney category and I would expect they would be called relatively early in the evening. However, I will be paying especially close attention to how quickly Indiana is called. It was a state that went for Obama in 2008, but the president has not really contested it in this cycle. If it is called immediately for Romney, that is clearly a good sign for the Republicans, but if it lingers throughout the evening, that could be a sign of a long evening for the Romney campaign.

On the flipside, there are no real comparable Obama states that would give a similar indication until you get to 9:00 EST which is when the polls close in Minnesota and New Mexico. These are both states that are in the “Likely” Obama category and have had similar poll numbers to Georgia and Indiana. If there is a lack of calling these two states shortly after they are closed, that could portend poorly for Obama.

3.                FLOHVA: I mentioned that Virginia closes polls at 7:00 EST and this is the first of the major battlegrounds that could potentially get called. As I said in my prediction post yesterday, Romney will most likely need to sweep FLOHVA in order to win. If you don't believe me, just look at where Romney is spending his last full day of campaigning: he was in Florida this morning, then he goes to Virginia and then he goes to Ohio before finishing the day in New Hampshire. All three of these states close their polls relatively early in the evening as Ohio closes at 7:30 EST and Florida closes its final polls at 8:00 EST. Many of Florida's polls will actually close at 7:00 EST, but since the Florida Panhandle is in the central time zone, those polls remain open until 8:00 EST. All this raises good point, whenever I'm talking about polls closing, I am using the time at which point ALL polls are closed in a state.

4.                Poll Closing Times in the Battlegrounds: As for the 11 battleground states that I have previously identified, the polls will close in these 11 states at the following times (all times EST):

7:00 – Virginia

7:30 – North Carolina, Ohio

8:00 – Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania

9:00 – Colorado, Michigan, Wisconsin

10:00 – Iowa, Nevada

As I've said all along, these are the states to watch and obviously as they start to get called we will have a better idea of who the next president will be. North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan are the ones that should be the easiest to call as North Carolina has been trending towards Romney and Pennsylvania and Michigan towards Obama. If it gets late in the evening and any of these states has not been called, that is bad news for the candidate who is expected to win that state.

5.                Poll Closings for Senate Battlegrounds: On Saturday, I provided my predictionfor the Senate races as well. As a reminder, below are the poll closing times for those states that I think will determine which party controls the upper chamber in Congress. Once again, all times are EST and as with my Senate chart, I have labeled the states in blue if there currently controlled by the Democrats and in red if there currently controlled by the Republicans and the asterix behind the state name indicates that it is an incumbent that is running.

7:00 – Indiana, Virginia

8:00 – Maine, Massachusetts*, Missouri*

9:00 – Arizona, Wisconsin

10:00 – Montana*, Nevada*

I have added Maine to this list only because the significance it could have if independent candidate Angus King does win as expected. If he does, I doubt he will indicate a preference for which party he will caucus with, but it will be interesting to see if you can read anything when and if he does give a victory speech.

6.                Turnout in States Affected by Hurricane Sandy: How the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York respond to the devastation from Hurricane Sandy and provide for polling places might be an interesting story. In fact, I would guess that turnout will be lower in these three states, especially New Jersey and New York. While I do not expect this to affect who wins these states, it could impact the larger popular vote total. Obama is expected to win all three of these states and if he ends up winning the Electoral College, but turnout has been suppressed in these three states than it is a very real possibility that Sandy may cause a split decision and Romney pulls out a popular vote victory. If you read my prediction post yesterday, you know that I thought about predicting a split decision. While I do not think it will happen, the most likely scenario if it did occur would be Obama winning the Electoral College and Romney winning the popular vote and Hurricane Sandy might be the culprit if it does occur.

7.                Is 11:00 Really the Midnight Hour? In looking at when all the polls close, I went through a scenario of what the map might look like on election night. Unless there is some big surprise and one of the key battleground states gets called early in the evening, Romney will probably have the electoral vote lead for most of the evening. However, that lead might turn into a pumpkin at 11:00 EST. That's because there are 78 electoral votes in the states of California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington that will most likely go into Obama's column at 11:00 EST when those states’ polls close. In fact, while I doubt it will happen, if Obama gets to 192 electoral votes or higher prior to 11:00 EST, then the race is over as those 78 electoral votes will put him over the top. So if you're rooting for Romney and you see an electoral vote lead early in the evening, just remember the lesson of Cinderella as 11:00 just might be your midnight hour.

8.                Victory Speech: Whoever wins on Tuesday will have a difficult road ahead of him as the country is clearly divided and Congress will most likely be divided with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. This means that whoever is elected president will have to deal with the other party to get things done. You could have an honest debate about which of the two candidates is best equipped to do this, but there is no escaping the fact that there will need to be some bipartisanship to accomplish any agenda. Additionally, it's clear to me that barring something unforeseen on election night, neither candidate will be able to claim a mandate for his election. Therefore, if we do get a victory speech early Wednesday morning, then I am very interested to see what tone the victor takes. Will he be humble in accepting his victory recognizing that he does not have a clear mandate and must try and repair a divided nation? Or will he take a tone where he misreads the election and tries to claim a mandate?

Well those are my final thoughts and things to look for on election night. Check back tomorrow as if there is anything that develops before the polls are closing, I'll try and post. Likewise, if there are any final changes in my categories for the states, I will also report that. Once again, Happy Voting!!

State of the Race – November 3 (Senate Prediction)

For my final weekly report, I wanted to give my predic-tions for this Tuesday's election and give you some things to look for on election night. However, if I would've done that all in one post, it would have been a VERY long one. So I decided to break this into three different posts with my prediction for the Senate races today, my prediction for the presidential race tomorrow and a post on what to look for on election night on Monday or early Tuesday.

Before I get into my Senate prediction, I thought we should take a look at where things stand in the presidential race as we enter the final weekend. Since last week's report, there have been 88 polls done in 31 states; including 57 polls in the 11 battleground states I have identified (CO, FL, IA, MI, NV, NH, NC, 0H, PA, VA & WI). So just three days until Election Day, here's where we stand:

	Safe	Likely	Lean	Total
Obama	179	58	44	281
Romney	143	48	15	206
Tossup				51

If you want to see how I arrived at these categories, I would encourage you to review the first “State of the Race” post I did on August 11 which can be found here. The photo above gives a visual breakdown of which side each states fall on. For a list of which states fall in which categories, I provide the following chart:

	Safe	Likely	Lean
Obama	CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NY, RI, VT, WA	MI, MN, NM, OR, PA	IA, NV, NH, OH, WI
Romney	AL, AK, AR, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, MT, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY	AZ, GA, IN, MO	NC
Tossup	CO, FL, VA

Here are the changes from last week: Connecticut moves from “Likely” Obama to “Safe” Obama; New Hampshire from “Tossup” to “Lean” Obama; and Florida from “Lean” Romney to “Tossup.” As I said, tomorrow I'll get into more detail on the presidential race and give my prediction for where I think it will end up in the Electoral College.

As for the Senate races – in short, I think the Democrats will retain control of the Senate. As a brief aside, you will notice I have said nothing about control of the House. That is because it is widely considered a foregone conclusion that the Republicans will retain control of the House, and I see no reason to disagree with that conventional wisdom. The race for control of the Senate however has been much more vigorously contested and is much easier to track. Last week, I provided a chart of where I see the Senate races and I have updated the chart for this week below. A reminder that states in blue are currently held by the Democrats or an Independent who caucuses with them, states in red are currently held by the Republicans and a state with an asterix after it signifies that it is a race with an incumbent.

	Safe	Likely	Lean
Democrat	CA*, DE*, MD*, MI*, MN*, NJ*, NY*, RI*, VT*, WA*, WV*	CT, FL*, HI, NM, OH*, PA*	IN, MA*, MO*
Republican	MS*, TN*, TX, UT*, WY*	NE, ND	AZ, NV*
Independent		ME
Tossup	MT*, VA, WI

Since my post last week, there have been three changes – all in favor of the Democrats. Michigan moves from “Likely” Democrat to “Safe” Democrat; Connecticut moves from “Lean” Democrat to “Likely” Democrat; and Indiana moves from “Lean” Republican to “Lean” Democrat. When you add in the seats currently held by each party and add in all the seats that are leaning in one direction or the other, the breakdown is 50-46-1 in favor of Democrats.

A few thoughts on the states I have in both of the “Lean” categories. On the Republican side, Nevada is a state that is trending towards President Obama and the demographics of that state seem to be increasingly favoring the Democrats. Senator Heller has run a good campaign and most of the recent polls indicate that he is leading. However, two years ago the polls also suggested that Senate majority leader Harry Reid might be on his way to defeat and he ended up surviving. In other words, it is only the power of incumbency that has kept this race in the “Lean” category and out of the “Tossup” category.

As for the other “Lean” Republican race, the polling in Arizona has been sparse and over the last month, there have been polls that had both candidates in the lead. An interesting side note to the Democratic candidate is that Richard Carmona was the Surgeon General under George W. Bush, so he may have some appeal to a state that clearly leans red. That being said, with the presidential race at the top of the ticket, I would expect that will help Congressman Flake win this race.

On the Democratic side, these are three states where the presidential race clearly leans in one direction and there is a chance that the Senate race will go the opposite direction. The exception that will potentially buck this trend is Massachusetts as Scott Brown tries to re-create the surprise he had in January 2010 when he shocked the political world and won Ted Kennedy's former seat in a special election. I doubt that Senator Brown will be able to duplicate this effort as he runs in a general election with a presidential race at the top of the ticket. The polling has had Elizabeth Warren leading, but she is underperforming compared to President Obama’s numbers in the state. All that said, if there is a surprise on election night that favors the Republicans, this is the one I would look for.

As for Indiana and Missouri, these are almost identical races. They are states where the Republicans should be winning easily, but the conservative candidates put up by the Republicans have made some extreme statements concerning abortion and rape and it has alienated moderates and independent voters. Indiana is especially an interesting state as the conservatives in the state decided to oust sitting Senator Dick Lugar in the Republican primary in favor of State Treasurer Richard Mourdock as they felt Senator Lugar was not conservative enough and had been in Washington too long. This was a state that I had planned as being my pick for surprise of the night, but the recent polling has made it so that the Democrats are now favored in this race. Similarly, the Republican voters in Missouri put up a more conservative candidate against Democratic incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill. When pundits were looking at the Senate map at the beginning of this year, these were two states that were thought to be easy wins for the Republicans, but the conservative candidates that were nominated have made this much harder for the GOP. If these two states elect Democratic senators and the Democrats control the Senate by one or two seats, there will be a lot written about whether the extreme conservative wing of the party cost the Republicans control of the Senate.

Finally, we should take a look at the three states that I placed in the “Tossup” category. The first is Montana which is a state that will clearly go for Romney, but Democratic incumbent Senator Jon Tester has run a good campaign and has a slight lead in the latest polls. The question will be whether that is enough to overcome the pull of the presidential race at the top of the ticket. As for Virginia and Wisconsin, these are two open seats in battleground states, so it's not surprising to see that they are tossup states in the Senate as well. In Virginia, it is an interesting race as it features two candidates that have held statewide office before in former Democratic Governor Tim Kaine against former Republican Senator and Governor George Allen. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is a state that leans Democratic, but the Republicans have put up a strong candidate with good name recognition in former Governor and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, who is running against Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin. Honestly, who wins either of these two races is anyone's guess.

So here's my predic-tion: I do not expect any surprises on the states I have currently in the “Lean” categories, so I'll predict that the Republicans will win those states to get to 46 Senate seats and the Democrats will win their seats to get to 50 Senate seats. A potential surprise on both sides: for the Republicans as I said above, look for them to potentially pickoff Massachusetts and for the Democrats, they could potentially pickoff Arizona. As for the “Tossup” states, I'll predict that Senator Jon Tester squeaks out a win and retains his seat in Montana. In Virginia and Wisconsin, I'll predict these states will split and Virginia will go Democrat, while Wisconsin will go Republican. The picture above shows the breakdown and this would result in the Democrats retaining control of the Senate 52-47-1. (A quick note about the map: the states in gray do not have Senate races this year.) As this would put the Democrats in control, I then predict that Senator-elect Angus King from Maine will then choose to caucus with the Democrats giving them a total of 53 seats, which is what they have currently.

As I said, tomorrow I will post my prediction for the presidential race, so stay tuned…

State of the Race – October 31 (The More Important Race: Control of the Senate)

With the Northeast in the process of cleaning up after Hurricane Sandy, the number of polls being done has actually slowed down. As a result, there has not been much movement in the presidential race since my report on Saturday. So I thought I would dedicate this post to the control of the Senate. While there has been a lot of focus on the presidential race, it could very easily be argued that the more important race is being conducted in 33 states where the control of the Senate will be decided. More on that below.

For those of you who are political novices, US Senators are elected to a six-year term and since federal elections are conducted every two years, one third of the Senate is up for election every two years. Of the 33 Senate races this year, 21 of the seats are currently held by a Democrat, 10 seats are held by a Republican and 2 seats are held by independents who caucus with the Democrats (Joe Lieberman, CT and Bernie Sanders, VT). Senator Lieberman is retiring, so I will count that as a seat currently held by the Democrats and since Senator Sanders has been a reliable ally for the Democrats, I will count him as a Democrat as well for the purposes of my analysis which means that there are 23 seats which the Democrats are trying to hold and only 10 seats which the Republicans are trying to hold.

Presently, the Democrats hold a majority in the Senate by a 53-47 margin. This means that if the Republicans want to take control of the Senate they will need a net gain of four seats to take out right control or a net gain of three seats to arrive at a 50-50 tie which they would have control of, if Governor Romney is elected and Paul Ryan becomes Vice President who would then have the tie-breaking vote as President of the Senate. With that in mind, let's look at the 33 states that have senatorial elections this year:

Democrats: California*, Connecticut, Delaware*, Florida*, Hawaii, Maryland*, Michigan*, Minnesota*, Missouri*, Montana*, Nebraska, New Jersey*, New Mexico, New York*, North Dakota, Ohio*, Pennsylvania*, Rhode Island*, Vermont*, Virginia, Washington*, West Virginia* & Wisconsin

Republicans: Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts*, Mississippi*, Nevada*, Tennessee*, Texas, Utah* & Wyoming*

Of those states listed, the asterix indicates that it is a state where an incumbent is running for reelection. Using the same categories I am using for the presidential race, here's where I see the Senate races (blue represents a seat currently controlled by the Democrats and red represents a seat currently controlled by the Republicans):

	Safe	Likely	Lean
Democrat	CA*, DE*, MD*, MN*, NJ*, NY*, RI*, VT*, WA*, WV*	FL*, HI, MI*, NM, OH*, PA*,	CT, MA*, MO*
Republican	MS*, TN*, TX, UT*, WY*	NE, ND	AZ, IN, NV*
Independent		ME
Tossup	MT*, VA, WI

In terms of the total seats control by both parties, the breakdown is as follows: for seats not up for election or considered safe, the Republicans have an advantage of 42-40. If you add in the seats I've identified as “Likely” for a given party, the Democrats hold the advantage 46-44-1. If you add in the “Lean” seats, the Democrat's advantage is 49-47-1. Finally, there are also three states which I have identified as “Tossup” seats.

Based on this, I have a couple of observations. First, it is readily apparent that whichever party controls the Senate, it will likely be by a very narrow margin. Secondly, the Senate race in Maine may take on a lot more importance after the election if former Maine Governor Angus King is elected as an independent and the Senate party breakdown is 50-49. King holds a significant lead in the polls in Maine and I contemplated putting it in the “Safe” category, but decided not to as he is an independent, yet not an incumbent. At this point, it is unknown which party King would caucus with and many believe that he would caucus with the Democrats, but there is an argument to be made that he could caucus with the Republicans, especially if they will be in the majority.

My final observation regarding the Senate map is that, much like the presidential race, it seems to favor the Democrats. For instance, if you look at the 3 “Tossup” states, two of them were won by President Obama in 2008 and he is competitive in both of them this year as well. Also, states that the Republicans would have liked to be more competitive in appear to be slipping away, such as Florida and Ohio and other states that you would have thought would have been relatively safe for the Republicans have been closer than expected, such as Arizona and Indiana. While the Republicans will probably pick up two of the seats control by the Democrats, this very well may get wiped out with the Democratic win in Massachusetts and an Independent win in Maine. Once again, like the presidential race, the Republicans look like they need to sweep the tossup states in order to win and that would only put them at a 50-50 tie meaning they would need to pick off one of the "Lean" Democrat states to get to a clear majority of 51.

As I said above, the race for the Senate is arguably more important than the presidential race in that control of the Senate may very well determine where things go for the next two years even more than who is sitting in the White House. If Obama is reelected but the Republicans control both the House and the Senate, he may have a difficult time getting much of his agenda passed. However, if the Democrats retain control the Senate, the legislative battles will be waged on the Hill much like the last two years, but a Republican controlled House would have to recognize that there's nothing they can do without the President's approval and they will no longer be able to wait for his electoral defeat. This may make them more willing to negotiate and work with the Senate Democrats. On the other hand, if Romney wins the presidency, but the Democrats retain control of Senate, it will probably severely limit how much Romney is able to accomplish towards his stated goals. For instance, I find it highly unlikely that a Democratic-controlled Senate would pass a bill that repeals Obama-care which Governor Romney has promised to do. However, if Romney is elected with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, the Democrats will be limited to trying to filibuster things in the Senate, but much of what Romney would want to accomplish will probably get done. In other words, while both parties are hoping that they win the presidential race, it is the race for control of Senate which has turned into their backup plan to disrupt or support the agenda of whoever wins the presidency.

Later this week, I will post my prediction for the presidential race and I will provide the breakdown of where I think these Senate races will go as well. In the meantime, do not ignore the Senate races as they are just as much a factor in what happens the next 2 to 4 years as does the race to be the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Lights Went Out in Massachusetts

“And the lights went out in Massachusetts, the day I left her standing on her own.” That line from the Bee Gees hit “Massachusetts” must be running through the heads of many people in the democratic leadership tonight as the Republican Scott Brown has been projected as the winner of the special election to fill the remainder of Ted Kennedy’s US Senate seat. I’ll get to my personal thoughts on the race in a minute, but I’ll put my political scientist hat on for the moment and discuss why I think the improbable occurred as a conservative Republican won a statewide race in one of the bluest states in the country. The first Republican to win a Senatorial election since 1972 (interestingly enough, the year I was born).

First: Voter Excitement. The Republicans clearly had the excitement level in this race. One of the many under-appreciated truisms of politics is that races aren’t necessarily won by convincing the other side to switch their vote or even get the undecided voters to break their way. It’s won by getting YOUR voters to the polls and the other side failing to do that. In a sentence, that’s what happened here. Clearly, Republicans and more conservative independents were fired up about the opportunity to send a message regarding what’s been happening nationally over the last year. They are fed up with the federal government’s spending and the health care bill became the prime example of it. In the meantime, the Democrats were NOT excited about Martha Coakley.

I spoke with my cousin last night who lives in Massachusetts in an area that is in a city just outside Boston and he remarked about how many Scott Brown signs he was seeing, but hardly any Coakley signs. And he lives in an area where there were plenty of Obama signs in 2008. While yard signs are not a good indicator of polls, they are a good indicator of voter excitement. You figure if someone is putting a sign in their yard that they are supporting a candidate, they certainly are going to vote come hell or high water. Additionally, the news reports I heard tonight suggested that voter turnout in Boston in the urban areas and in heavily minority areas was down in comparison to the rest of the state. That shows a difference in voter excitement in a much more tangible way. Voter excitement was clearly in Brown’s favor and as I write this 97% of the precincts have reported and he has a five point lead. That excitement clearly was the difference in those five points.

Second: Democratic Overconfidence. Think about it. If I had said after Ted Kennedy passed away in August that a conservative Republican was going to win the special election to fill his seat, you would have laughed me out of the room. I think the Democrats were thinking that way as well. Consider this: Scott Brown’s campaign was going on an ad blitz on this campaign as soon as the primary was over. The Coakley campaign acted as if the election was over once she won the primary. The simple fact is, she didn’t get serious about campaigning in this election until just a few weeks ago. I heard another pundit put it perfectly by saying, when Scott Brown was campaigning actively through the Christmas season, Martha Coakley was, literally, on vacation. It was only after the Coakley campaign realized that it might lose that it sprang into action. By that time it was too late. She had already been labeled by the other side and it was going to be difficult for her to reframe the election at that late hour.

Third: The Candidate. Along with some of the tactical mistakes of her campaign mentioned above, Martha Coakley turned out to be a weak candidate. She was too easily tied to Washington in a climate where people wanted to blame Washington. She also made some out right gaffes. My cousin relayed one to me that happened during the debate. The issue of Iraq and Afghanistan came up and she made a comment that we were no longer fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as we had driven them out. A couple days later the news a several soldiers being killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban drove home just how off that statement was.

All these things added up to a disastrous result for the Democrats and a HUGE victory for the Republicans winning that all important 41st seat in the Senate. I must say I am bittersweet about the result. Those of you who know me and my politics know that I still consider myself a moderate Republican and I enjoy seeing the party have a victory. I also feel that the Democrats deserved it for essentially setting this scenario up. Prior to 2004, the interim Senator appointed by Governor Patrick would have stayed in office until 2012, completing Senator Kennedy’s term. But in 2004, the Democrats changed the law because at the time they were worried about Republican Governor Mitt Romney appointing a replacement for John Kerry if he had won the presidential election against President Bush. So in some respects, the Democrats deserved this for trying to change the rules last time.

However, those of you who have followed my blog lately, know that I have been in support of the health care reform that is currently being debated. If this election ends up spelling the defeat of that legislation, I must say that I will be disappointed and for that reason, the result is bitter sweet.

So what now? I must give Luke Russert, of NBC News and son of the late Tim Russert, credit for this line, but I think it’s too good not to reprint – in the words of Axl Rose, Democrats must be asking themselves, “Where do we go now?” In the next day or two, I hope to post what options are available to the Democrats who are still hoping to pass health care reform. For now, I just keep thinking that the Democrats still must be thinking that as for health care reform “the lights [may have] went out in Massachusetts, the day [they] left her standing on her own.”