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Sunday, November 05, 2006
What to watch on election day - Senate
As promised, here's the first of two posts with pointers for Canadian watchers of the America mid-term elections. I'm starting with the Senate. As will surprise no one on the northern side of the 49th, different states close at different times, so key Senate races will be coming in throughout the night. The list below shows not just the state, but the times when the polls close there (set in chronological order).
7 PM - Virginia: For months, the Republican incumbent (George Allen) was considered a lock. That vanished in the last two weeks, as the campaign took a turn into Weirdville. The race between Allen and Democrat Jim Webb has acquired a storyline all its own, almost entirely devoid of national influence. Thus, neither party can take much from winning this seat - except the seat itself, which could be vital. If either candidate wins early (say, before 8), it may be an indication of a national trend one way or the other. Odds are, however, this election won't have a winner until at least 10, by which point it will still be interesting, but largely a sidenote.
7:30 PM - Ohio: Incumbent Republican Mike Dewine has trailed his Democratic challenger, Sherrod Brown, for months. While recent polling has DeWine closing the gap, I personally don't think he has enough time. If DeWine is a winner, the Senate side of the election is over. If Brown wins, as is likely, the longer it takes for the networks to project his victory, the more worrisome Democrats should be nationwide.
8PM - New Jersey, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, and Pennsylvania: The first one is a Dem seat - incumbent Bob Menendez is running against Republican Tom Kean, Jr. The next two are Republican seats: Bob Corker is running for the GOP in Tenn. against Democrat Harold Ford (Incumbent Republican Bill Frist is retiring); in Missouri, Republican incumbent Jim Talent faces Democrat Claire McCaskill. If the recent polling is any indication, NJ and Missouri are too close to call, while Corker seems comfortably ahead in Tenn. Corker should win sooner than anyone else in the other two states. More to the point, the Democrats need at least two of these three seats to have a shot at the majority (all three if Allen wins in Virginia). Conventional wisdom says Menendez and McCaskill will win, in part because both are ahead in the polls. If either Kean or Talent can win, the Democrats hopes for a majority are probably finished. Likewise, if both Tennessee and Virginia go Democrats, the GOP could be in for a long night. There is a race in Pennsylvania, where GOP incumbent Rick Santorum has been trailing Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. for well over a year. If Santorum wins, the Republicans might actually gain seats in the Senate; it would also mean every pollster in America would have to eat their statistical models.
Maryland is a very interesting race, where Democratic Congressman Ben Cardin is trying to hold the seat (incumbent Dem Paul Sarbanes is retiring) against Republican Lt. Governor Michael Steele. Steele, if elected, would be the first black Republican Senator in almost 30 years. More to the point, he has already won the support of several black Democrats furious at how the state party has taken them for granted. Still Cardin has led every poll (albeit the most recent ones by margins within the margin of error) except a recent Survey USA poll which has the race tied.
9PM - Arizona and Rhode Island: Arizona's Republican incumbent Jon Kyl seemed just fine, until an exit poll of early voters had him losing. Still, Kyl has led every statewide poll, including those conducted after early voting started. The exit poll may be suffering one of the problems I noted earlier; still, you never know until the votes are counted. If Kyl loses, the GOP takes a serious body blow. Meanwhile, Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee nearly lost the Republican primary in September, and was widely perceived as a goner against Sheldon Whitehouse - until a Mason-Dixon poll had Chafee leading Whitehouse by one. I'm still skeptical, but if Chafee does pull it out, turn out the lights on the Dems' chances for a Senate majority.
10PM - Montana: Three-term Republican Senator Conrad Burns has managed to win in 1988, 1994, and 2000 largely despite himself. He may just do it again: the latest poll has him tied with Democrat Jim Tester. I think Burns will pull this out - he's won two "lost" races before, which should put the nail in the Dems coffin.
Predictions: The Democrats need to wrest six seats from the Republicans to take control of the Senate, without losing any of their own. The races are so tight that you can use competing versions of conventional wisdom to predict them. The first - that any incumbent who is polling below 50% will likely lose - means Allen, DeWine, Menendez, Talent, Santorum, Chafee, and Burns are done. A newer mantra - that undecided voters in a poll likely won't vote in mid-term elections - would be good news for Menendez and, for now, Chafee, and bad news for Santorum and DeWine, while Allen, Talent, and Burns would be left sweating it out. Interestingly, with the exception of Allen, all Republican candidates have seen movement in their direction in the latest polls.
I'll start with the easy ones: the Dems take Ohio and Pennsylvania; the Repubs hold Tennessee and Arizona (Corker is not an incumbent, and some polls have him over 50% anyway; Kyl is at 53% in the latest poll I've seen).
As for the rest (Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Rhode Island, and Montana), I'm going to go waaaaaay out on a limb here. Usually, races this close don't split half and half, they go all one way or all the other. Based on what I've seen, they'll go Republican. The exception may be the Allen race in Virginia, but Webb's political organization on the ground is, from what I can tell, much weaker than Allen's; I think that will spare Allen - barely.
Summary prediction: R-55 (no change from 55), D-45 (no change from 45 - this includes an independent leftist sure to win Vermont's seat who has pledged to caucus with the Dems). If I'm right (and my history in picking elections in my own country was terrible until 2004), this will send shock waves through Washington, where Democratic Senate gains of some kind are considered a given).
Up next: the House - and no, the Senate prediction does not automatically mean I see the GOP holding the House, although I do give it a greater possibility than most.
Posted by D.J. McGuire on November 5, 2006 in International Politics | Permalink
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Comments
Any news on Rick Santorum?
Posted by: Winston | 2006-11-07 1:02:29 PM
Winston:
I have helped with the GOP get-out-the-vote here in Pennsylvania. Last night one of the other volunteers said that the Casey lead had been narrowed to 4 points. The staffers have said that Rick needed to narrow the lead to between 3 and 5 points and then the stronger GOP get-out-the-vote machine would triumph.
It was great news last night but, personally, I think I will believe it when I see it tomorrow morning. Of course, I would like to believe it but Casey has lead in most of the other polls by 9 to 12 points. I know there has been a GOP surge during the last week so all is not lost yet but it does not look good for Santorum.
I had the privilege of hearing him 10 days ago. We also went to Lancaster Sunday afternnon to hear him again, but we missed by a few minutes. The volunteer I mentioned earlier said he heard Rick for the first time Saturday - it was because of that meeting that he became a volunteer.
Everyone that I meet (on the GOP side of course) respects the message that Rick can deliver. It will be a loss to the Senate and the GOP if he looses. I personally believe that he is one of the few politicians who grasps just how large this war will get and for that I believe that it is in US interests that he remains. Yet, for all my own thoughts, this state does have a slight DEM leaning. Dem Governor Rendell is strong here and knows how to get support out.
Posted by: Brent Weston | 2006-11-07 1:20:46 PM
Thanks friend...
it seems Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum is not in good shape and it makes me feel bad about his possible loss in this election. You may ask why? And I say because he has been a strong advocate for a free and democratic Iran, he has been a friend of Iranian dissidents and has done a lot for the cause of freedom in my motherland.
If he loses, Iranian people, too, will lose one of their advocates and best friend in the US Senate. I really hope he wins and I do keep my fingers crossed.
Posted by: Winston | 2006-11-07 4:30:53 PM
Winston:
Thanks for your post. On a personal note, I am a home-schooling father with seven children. Santorum was, I believe, the only home-schooling parent in either the US Senate or the US House. He is a father of six children. His influence in the Senate over the last several years coupled with home-schooling friendly state legislatures has helpd the cause of home-schooling in the USA. I believe there has been a side-effect in the more conservative Canadian provinces such as Alberta, even if it is a small side-effect.
I mention this point to demonstrate the type of man that the Senator is. The Senator was and is an unashamed advocate of certain principles that make individual people great and by extension make civilizations great. You have pointed out that principle in operation on a large scale; I have pointed it out on a small scale. He will be missed by many both inside and outside Pennsylvania and I hope he stays active in politics after January.
If I may be so bold to ask, do people from your motherland refer to themselves as "Iranian people" as you did above or as "Persian people"?
Posted by: Brent Weston | 2006-11-08 7:52:43 AM
It was sad to see Santorum go down, he was a man of principle and possessed a lot of class.
I always enjoyed hearing him speak.
It is incredible, as well as discouraging to see men like him go down while the likes of Hastings, Menendez, Jefferson, Kennedy and others, not only get elected, but in the case of Hastings could be the leader of a house commission.
Unbelievable, but the world we are living in.
Posted by: deepblue | 2006-11-08 8:48:35 AM
deepblue:
"Unbelievable, but the world we are living in."
You know, it used to be that politics was a vehicle for:
1) using different methods to achieve similar goals or
2) having different priorities for similar goals
It now seems that politics is more about having fundamentally different goals.
When, a generation or two ago, the left started to make its dramatic change, the rest of us were warned by them to embrace pluralism. More than one philosophical system could exist within the same society - or so we were told. As the left makes yet another advance, we no longer hear that type of talking. At the time, a wiser man than I could see it then. He said that what was then called pluralism is not simply two philosophies existing and competing within the same society. It was actually a society going through a radical transformation from one set of philosophical beliefs to another. Because the beliefs were not so radically advanced a generation ago, I only suspected back then that he was correct. There is no uncertainty today.
Posted by: Brent Weston | 2006-11-08 9:09:35 AM
Brent, we're Iranians. Persians are a bit more than 51% of what we know as Iranian Nation.
Btw, thanks for helping the senator
Posted by: Winston | 2006-11-08 10:21:33 AM
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