Excuse my ignorance, but aren't ALL Seats in Play today?

[symbolman]

Why are there only 30 to 50 seats being talked about? I thought ALL the seats were in play.

Isn't it possible that Dems and Independents AND TRUE conservatives could SWEEP the Congress CLEAN today?

I'm saying this because of the wide variation I'm seeing in Polls everywhere from 20 points to 3 points in the Ford race ALONE.

Why only THESE being reported on? I mean there's no heads rolling (Yet) but couldn't this be the equivalent if EVERYONE is unhappy?

I'd like to think so :)

[KyndCulture]

1. There are many uncontested seats.

[x-g.o.p.er]

Correct,

With all the redistricting that has been done (by both parties) there are very few congressional seats that are competitive anymore.

In my southern Illinois district, Democrat Jerry Costello ran unconstested, as did several other Democratic candidates.

[mduffy31]

2. There are a number of "safe" seats

and a number of non-contested races also.

[ccpup]

3. There are obvious "safe seats"

for both Dems and Repugs, although, with Foley now gone, I'm sure there are many more "safe seats" than there were before.

:evilgrin:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. And don't forget Haggard.

the idea of a safe seat is an anathema to our democratic process. there should be none at all.

[symbolman]

4. Ahh

but what of Dean's 50 State program, didn't they get someone to run for those Uncontested seats?

I just don't want to believe the media, they tend to leave stuff out :)

thanks

[KyndCulture]

8. Some uncontested are Dem.

My race was.

[symbolman]

10. Beauty

I LIKE the sound of that :)

Thanks

[Jeanette in FL]

15. So was mine, another Dem safe seat

Corrine Brown, North Florida

[Coventina]

5. My in-laws had a choice between "R" and "L"

I recommended that they vote for the "L" (Libertarian).

But, I'm not kidding myself, the 'puke is going to win.

[Umbram]

6. The House maybe...

I assume you realize that Senators run on staggered cycles.

[Gregorian]

7. Not in Oregon

I think it goes back to the House having only a third up for election every two years.

Is that right? Something like that.

[ArbustoBuster]

19. The House is entirely up for vote every two years, the Senate is 1/3 every two years.

If the country really wanted to, we could kick out everyone in the House every two years. (In actuality, though, that's never happened.)

[insanity]

20. That's the Senate

All districts in the House have elections every two years. However, there was no Senate election this year.

[BrotherBuzz]

37. 2 - 4 - 6 rule of thumb

House - EVERY two years.
President - four years.
Senate - six years (stagged races - 1/3 at a time)

[BelgianMadCow]

41. DING DING

winner for clarity & brevity

but you meant staggered races maybe?

[BrotherBuzz]

44. Maybe, I haven't mastered speil check yet

;)

[Gregorian]

46. Thanks for setting me straight you guys!

I am constantly amazed at what I still don't know.

I too have been asleep for a long time. Not any more.

[Tansy_Gold]

9. "Uncontested" seats in "safe" districts is no excuse

I'm in one of those districts and I was FURIOUS this morning to discover the Dems had no one running against ultra-puke Jeff Flake, AZ-5. I only moved into this district last spring and haven't had time yet to get really active, but I have made myself a promise for '08: If the Dems don't find someone to run in this congressional district against the pukes, *I* will.

There is, AFAIC, no reason whatsoever for a national party not to be able to at least put a name on the ballot to counter the other party. no reason at all.


Tansy Gold

[symbolman]

13. Hell YES

that's NUTS!

If I found that out *I*d run as well.. ridiculous to have NO DEM in place!

WOW, that's just insane..

[LondonReign2]

27. As I noted in another thread

We've actually had an imrpvement in my Texas district. In '04 there were only four offices being contested by Dems (one of which was the Prez), none of which had a snowball's chance. This election cycle at least there are nine races with Dems running (and three with only Repug/Lib, and 29 uncontested Repug).

[undeterred]

12. All congressional seats are being voted on today.

The race I worked on has never been called "in play" and there has been no polling. But guess what, with a heavy Dem turnout we might win!

[symbolman]

16. I'm certainly rooting for that

and I was WONDERING if we might Pick up a SHITLOAD from anywhere else, not just what the MEDIA has decided for us..

You've got MY Vote :)

[Umbram]

17. No...

Congress = House and Senate
All house seats are up for grabs.
1/3rd of Senate seats are up for grabs.

[BelgianMadCow]

14. Belgian news reported this morning only 1/3rd of Senate up for grabs

and the entire house. So it's not about safe seats alone.
I am not aware of the exact system, but wasn't surprised as I understood Kerry for example is not running.

:hi:
bmc

[ProgressiveEconomist]

22. Only "Class I" Senate seats are up for election this year

Since Senators serve 6 year terms, and Congressional elections come every 2 years, there are 6/2 = 3 classes of Senators.

See http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[BelgianMadCow]

43. Thanks for the explanation & confirmation

I was already thinking they got it wrong but had a hard time believeing that.

:hi:

[Jack Rabbit]

18. Look at it realistically

I live in California. Senator Feinstein is running for re-election.

You could say that her seat is in play just because there is a Republican challenger. I saw his name the other day, but I forgot it just as quickly as I read it.

On the other hand, no serious person believes she will lose. She will get about 60% of the vote. Therefore, her seat is not "in play".

[symbolman]

23. I lived in Calif when Schwartzenegger ran

and no serious person thought HE would win either :)

Now the bastards is beloved by all, since he moved into the Compassionate Conservative pigeonhole ...

I still don't believe he won, and he really only won by about 11 % of the vote, and GRAY SHOULD have been on that Ballot as well IMHO..

[onenote]

28. By election day, everyone pretty much knew Schwarzenegger would win

He was clearly leading in the polls as of election day.

[Cleita]

21. Yeah, like in California they keep saying Arnold Schwarzenegger

is 10 to 20 pts ahead of Phil Angelides in the Governor's race, yet fail to mention that there are as many independents and undecideds that could close the gap. Then the race becomes much tighter if those voters are taken into consideration.

[onenote]

24. reality check

Yes, every seat in the House of Reprsentatives and one-third of the seats in the Senate are "in play".
But as a realistic, practical matter, the vast majority of the elections are not competitive. The power of incumbency, gerrymandering, and regional differences all make the results in certain races a foregone conclusion. In many of these races there is nominal opposition, but the opponent has essentially no money, no name recognition, and no chance.

Whether the number of races that are competitive is 30-50 or more like 60-70 is something that we wont' know until the votes are counted. And a number of the races in which incumbents won with 70 plus percent of the vote in 2004 probably will be closer this time around, but the outcome is not seriously in doubt in most of them.

[symbolman]

26. That's why I brought this up

look at all the Dems who were trailing not all that long ago, then FOLEY, then HAGGARD, etc, etc.. and all of a sudden they are Contenders..

Who knows how many Dems and Conservos sick of Bush will just say, SCREW IT, I'm voting for the OTHER GUY?

Just a little fun thing to think about today, picking up an unexpected 80 seats and SLAMMING Bush's MAN DATE :)

Thanks folks I didn't know a lot of this..

[hootinholler]

47. My Dem challenger (Duck Md-06) didn't get much money

From the DCCC while running against Bartlett. Bartlett could have been taken down with proper support, and still might be taken down without it. I've not seen any polls for this district.

-Hoot

[Cobalt Violet]

25. My rep. was uncontested.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

29. Congressional Quarterly has been keeping track of races for

Congress for decades. With the advent of sophisticated redistricting by state legislatures since computers and massive voter data repositories like Acxiom and ChoicePoint became widely available, most seats are "safe" for incumbents. Most Congressional Districts are made up of people with very similar socioeconomic status and cultural traditions, for example, socially reactionary suburban white Protestants.

Because of this "gerrymandering", only a maximum of 33 out of 230 House seats currently held by Republicans are considered quite achievable for Democrats today. Go to http://www.cqpolitics.com/06map.html and click through to the detail on "House". You'll see that CQ rates only Jim Kolbe's seat in Arizona as "favored" to go Democratic. 9 currently-R seats are rated as "leaning Democratic", and 23 are rated "no clear favorite".

There are 20 R-held seats in a category called "leaning Republican", and the rest are rated "Republican Favored" or "Safe Republican". So even a real Democratic blowout could be expected to bring us only 1 + 9 + 23 + 20 = 53 currently Republican seats at best.

Thankfully, CQ Politics has absolutely no currently Democratic-held seats in the category of "no clear favorite" or worse for us. Only 5 currently Democratic-held House seats are rated only "leans Democratic".

There are similar CQ analyses you can click through to for the Senate and for Governorships.

[symbolman]

31. Thanks

Great info, I'll check into it. :)

[Bitwit1234]

30. 435 in House of Representatives

Every two years the house of representatives have to be re-elected. Pundits are only talking about republican seats that are in play, because a lot of dems and reps have become entrenched and do well for their constituents. That way they are voted in again and again. those who are reprehensible are the ones ready to go....like hastert, schmidt etc.

[AllieB]

32. We have many Congressmen running unopposed

But all my congress guys are Dems here in Mass.

[WilliamPitt]

33. Nope

Incumbency is the strongest force in politics today, fueled of course by the money they can raise.

Here in Massachusetts, we have nine House members and two Senators. If God swooped down from heaven and denounced all 11 from the State House dome, all 11 would still win each election by 30-point margins.

There are 435 elections happening today, but only a fraction of them are actually in play.

[symbolman]

35. A woman on Jon Stewart's show one night

she'd written a book about politics and mentioned something I had no idea existed, the Good Old Boy Network for Incumbents - she said that the RIGHT and LEFT would only be Bi-Partisan about ONE THING, and that was Incumbency..

She said that there was a 98% RETURN for Incumbents and it blew my mind.

I just thought that with ALL THIS CORRUPTION and Plain old NASTY, that we could make Bush CRY like a Girl Scout on the front porch as you eat her cookies and tell her you're broke... :)

And I can see only ONE WAY for Laura to make Bush a Happy Man tonight AND do a good deed for her country.

She needs to Dress Up Like Monica Lewinsky and BLOW Bush in a PUBLIC Venue :)

Thanks!

[WilliamPitt]

39. It's absolutely true

and speaks to one of our biggest problems: the go-along-to-get-along phenomenon within the beltway. These people, at the end of the day, just want to hold on to their jobs. This was the central argument, back in the 80s and 90s, for term limits.

Of course, that was also when the Dems had held the House for going on six billion years, so...

[Matariki]

34. No, not all seats are up for election this time around

[WilliamPitt]

40. All the House seats are

[Matariki]

42. ah, i misread the question - thought the OP meant house & senate n/t

[warrens]

36. Gerrymandering

There are hundreds of seats that are overwhelmingly Dem or Repuke. There are about 50 or so that are in play. If we take 30, that would be very, very significant, since many were considered safe. Here in Chicago, formerly solid Repuke seats, like Hyde's, are in play because of strong Dem candidates, increasing population of immigrants and Dems moving to the burbs from the city, and conservative independents' rage at Bush. You get to Idaho, and there might be one guy in trouble, but the rest couldn't lose if they got caught raping a toddler.

[symbolman]

38. I know there's Gerry Mandering

but at the same time like you mention this is a pretty fluid society, and with the home prices in flux and job market screwy, you'd think that some of the drawn districts might change and slide right out from UNDER a candidate..

guess they have internals for that ..

thanks

[Blue_In_AK]

45. The House race in Alaska has been ignored nationally

because everyone Outside just assumed Don Young couldn't be beat after 17 terms with millions in his warchest, but Democrat Diane Benson has had a surge in grassroots support in the final month of the campaign. The last independent poll showed her down by only 7 points, with a margin of error of 5, and 6 percent still undecided. She wiped Young out last night in a last-minute debate during the 6:00 local news and by the 10:00 news it was proved that he lied during the debate about his voting record. So things are looking good here. Keep your fingers crossed for Alaskans. We're tired of being embarrassed.

[symbolman]

48. I'd like to see that RATS NEST CLEARED OUT

I heard there's a massive investigation there..

thanks!

[Blue_In_AK]

49. Yeah, the FBI has been investigating 7 or 8

of our state House and Senate republicans, including Ted Stevens' son Ben, for campaign/bribery sorts of issues. One of the things they were looking for were hats that somebody had made as a "joke" with "corrupt bastards club" printed on them. :shakes head: Our Diane is a wonderful candidate, and we just heard this afternoon that the Young campaign is quite worried, so we shall see. Nobody's given the old coot a good run for his money since 1992.