Rothenberg Predicts a 15-20 Seat Gain in the House Races for Dems

[BurtWorm]

:shrug:

http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2006/08/2006-house-ratings.html

2006 House Ratings
2006 Rothenberg Political Report
House Ratings

Races are listed by likelihood of a party switch. For race-by-race analysis and explanation of the rankings, you must be a subscriber to the print edition of the Rothenberg Political Report. For a subscription form, click here. Rankings updated August 25, 2006. Republicans currently hold a 232-203 majority in the House. Democrats need to net 15 seats for a majority (218 seats). We are currently predicting a Democratic gain of 15-20 seats.

[longship]

1. Very cautious Rothenberg. That's too low.

It'll be more. Maybe many more.

[WI_DEM]

6. I think its good to be cautious

the days of huge swings are over due to redistricting. It could happen but it's less likely than it was in '94.

[longship]

10. I think it's good to raise expectations, not lower them.

Right now there are about 50 Repuke House seats in play.
Right now there are about eight Repuke Senate seats in play.
Both these numbers could (are likely to) increase before November.

Conditions are pretty much ideal to have a reverse 1994 midterm this year and the Democratic Party is holding all the cards. It's a perfect storm year. If Dems play their cards right, there's very little the Repukes can do to stop us from turning the entire country around. But that ain't gonna happen if Dems become satisfied with a mere 15 House and 5 Senate seats.

We could get 30, or even 40 House seats. We *could* even get 50 if we worked very hard and made no mistakes. We could get seven Senate seats, or even eight. Nine would be tough, but it's reachable (NV being the stickler).

There is not a single Democrat held Congressional seat being projected to turn-over. That's on both sides of the Capital. Not one.

Let's keep our hopes high so that we can achieve great things. There's no time or effort to waste.

[Iwasthere]

7. We are setup for failure

Unless we can get real numbers out there they will pull it off

[longship]

11. Glass half-full, eh?

I don't see what you see.
Read my post just above.

[warrens]

9. At the moment, he looks about right

I think there is going to be a groundswell in the fall. But he's only looking at the moment, and right now, that looks realistic. There are going to be a bunch of surprises, I think, and the pickup is going to be nearly 30. Some are saying 40.

[longship]

12. Bingo!

You have it right. But Rothenberg is pretty conservative.

Consider this:

If Rothenberg was making an accurate count of Dems barely taking over the House, would CNN and Bloomberg both taking a risk at predicting a Dem House take-over this early in the campaign season?

The answer is "no". CNN and Bloomberg are seeing something bigger happening than what Rothenberg is predicting.

Right now there are about 50 House seats in play, every one of them held by the Repukes. I am sure that by November we could be looking at more than that in play. Of those, I see 23 likely turn-overs. There are another 16 which can easily be in that state by November. A dozen more are moving in the right direction. This means that there are very big things happening.

Rothenberg is deliberately low-balling. He doesn't want to get caught with his pants down on this. Things are so politically squirrelly that I don't blame him. But I'm sure he knows that he's going to be very likely making changes to his predictions, soon and often. I'm also sure that he knows what we all suspect, that things are going to move only toward the Dem side after Labor Day.

[William769]

2. Talk about a wet dream!

And in a good way. :)

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. Rothenberg is usually pretty good.

I'd trust that assessment. :thumbsup:

[longship]

5. He'll be changing this assessment before November.

Things are going Dems way and the situation is far from static. There are up to 50 Repuke House seats in play right now. We could get many of them.

There are very few Dem House seats in play, and zero of them are realistic takeovers at this time.

What does that tell you?

[SheilaT]

4. What's his track record

in predicting election outcomes?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

8. He was right in 2004.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030616-011105-4808r.htm

It should be noted Rothenberg doesn't do the polling himself - he analyzes the polls, and quite well too. If you go to his blog, check out the article about the PA/VA Senate Race polls.