September 27, 2006
41 Days Until Election 2006
41 days to go and the Democrats are getting nothing but good news this week(Clinton on Fox News, NIE report saying that Iraq has made us less safe). Of course, it is important to remember that momentum can stop on a dime in politics. So, the democrats shouldn't get too cocky. The election is still nearly six weeks away.
Starting today the sidebar on your right will have daily updates on the current House and Senate numbers. This is a service provided by electoralvote.com. I urge you to visit their site for further anaysis behind the numbers.
However, a word of warning about their projected House numbers. Since there are an enormous amount of districts in this country, it is difficult to get good polling agencies to poll every House race. So, Electoral Vote uses results from 2004 to get insight in districts where no polls exist. It is a flawed system, but it really is the only way.
This from Electoral Vote:
Our best prediction now is that the Republicans will hold the House 218 to 217, but don't take this too seriously. There are many close and volatile races going on, But if control of the House is by 1 seat, I can assure you there will be legal challenges in dozens of districts, especially when the voting equipment and ballots are so bad in so many states. It will Florida all over the place.
That being said, conventional wisdom has been that the Dems will win a majority in the House. People are much more skeptical about the Senate. But if you look at the numbers, things are looking good in the Senate for the Democrats right now.
There are a couple of interesting things to note about the 50/50 Senate split right now. One, is that Lieberman is currently winning the race in Connecticut over Lamont. Lieberman is running as an Independent, but says if he wins that he will vote with the Democrats. Also, Jim Jeffords from Vermont is, I'm assuming, counted as a Republican. He is actually a former Republican turned Independent.
So, if the numbers remain as they are today, then Lieberman could switch power back to the Democrats by switching his party affiliation from Indy to Dem. However, some dem's have turned on Lieberman since he decided to run as an independent. So, who knows what he will do?


