Editor’s Note: It’s Election Day, and we’ve asked some experts to make their predictions and answer some basic questions:
What will happen in the House?
What will happen in the Senate?
Where do you see a surprise shaping up?
If you were allowed to write the headline for the
New York Times on Wednesday morning, what would it say?
And with caution to the wind …
Jim Geraghty
House: 218 Democrat, 217 Republican. The period between election night and the swearing-in is marked by relentless rumors of party switchers; the game of musical chairs ends with Speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to manage the thinnest majority in history, and the threat of any iconoclast on either side defecting means that only the most broadly popular agenda items for either side emerge from the House.
Senate: 51-48 (and Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats in the most nominal sense). The first major fight occurs with the sudden retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens for health reasons, and Bush's nomination of Miguel Estrada to fill the slot.
Surprises: Webb beats Allen. Tester underperforms. His loss, along with Lamont’s, leads the MSM to start mocking blogs relentlessly. Ford’s appearance on the cover of
Newsweek looks silly in retrospect. And Nelson’s win in Nebraska is closer than anyone ever expected. The conventional wisdom on the Democratic nomination shifts from Hillary to Obama surprisingly quickly.
NYT headline: “Despite Widespread Allegations of Vote Suppression by Republicans, Pelosi, Democrats Relish All-time Blowout Landslide Win of 4 Senate Seats, 16 House Seats”
— Jim Geraghty, who writes the “TKS” blog on NRO, is the author of Voting to Kill.
Jonah Goldberg
Dems +17 (whatever that math means).
Senate: R 53 - D 47.
Steele wins, Corker wins, Webb-Allen won’t be decided until recounts are finished, at which point Allen wins very narrowly. Chafee comes very close.
NYT headline: “Democrats Win Control of House, Fall Short On Senate; Our Long National Nightmare is Almost Over.”
— Jonah Goldberg is NRO’s editor at large.
Laura Ingraham
The only person to trust on predictions is Michael Barone, but my guess is that in the House Dems will pick up 18 seats (221 to 214).
In the Senate, Dems will pick up 3.
My surprise prediction: Maryland’s Michael Steele and Virginia’s George Allen will both defeat the
Washington Post. (Now won’t that be a fun front-page
Post headline on Wednesday.)
If hell froze over and I were a
NYT post-election headline writer: “Dems Plunged into Despair as Gains Fall Well Short of Expectations.” But if they are writing the headline as they probably will be: “Dems Take House in Overwhelming Repudiation of Bush Iraq Policy.”
Lesson of this election? Next time around, the GOP cannot wait until October 1 of the election year to pay attention to its base.
— Laura Ingraham is a nationally syndicated radio-talk-show host and author of Shut Up and Sing.
Larry Kudlow
Thanks to John Kerry’s mouth, Saddam Hussein’s death sentence, a strong economy and stock market, and George Bush’s indefatigable campaigning, the Republicans will come out of this election in better shape than almost anyone thinks.
My range on the House spans from a most-optimistic one-seat GOP hold to a 15-to-20-seat loss. But here’s the crucial point: Even if the Democrats rule the House with a slim margin, a number of new Blue Dog Democrats will give President Bush an operating House majority. It was the same for Ronald Reagan during his first term. Back in the early 1980s, the Gipper always could count on 35 to 50 so-called “Boll Weevil” Democrats (yesterday’s Blue Dogs) to support his legislation on lower taxes, reduced spending, and stronger defense.
Republicans will keep the Senate.
This in effect will be a stunning defeat for the Democrats.
Even though the
New York Times won’t get it (the headline will be triumphant), the stock markets will absolutely love it. The Dow Jones is headed for 13,000 in due course.
— Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and author of the daily web blog,
Kudlow’s Money Politic$.
Kathryn Jean Lopez
The news of the evening will be Hillary Clinton being reelected to a second term in the Senate. It will be news because most New Yorkers did not realize she even had an opponent.
I’m with Laura on these predictions — best left to Barone. That said: I’m putting my money on Republicans miraculously (not totally deservingly,
but it’s not about deserving it) keeping the House and the Senate, painfully narrowly.
Looking ahead, Virginia Republican Representative Eric Cantor will become the first Jewish Majority Leader.
Mike Steele will win in Maryland. Sticking by my contention all along: The shock of the evening will be Rick Santorum’s reelection to the United States Senate. Jon Kyl will be fine.
Lincoln Chafee, mercifully loses in Rhode Island. Tester wins over Burns in Montana.
Amendment 2 — the cloning amendment — will be defeated in Missouri, a great success for the culture of life. In large part because of it, Jim Talent will win.
In the
NYT: “GOP Retakes Congress. Minorities, Women, and Children Hurt Most.”
— Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online. She predicts with her heart.
Rich Lowry
I’m a terrible prognosticator, so my most honest answer would be, “I have no idea—talk to me when there are some exit polls!” But here goes...
In the House, Democrats gain 19, just enough to pick up a precarious majority. A win is a win, but after all the hype about THE WAVE, this will play as a mild disappointment for Democrats and not quite the stunning rebuke President Bush was supposed to receive. Republicans will be able to argue that, absent scandals and retirements, they would still be in control. They will be well-positioned to regain the House in ‘08.
In the Senate, Democrats pick up 4 1/2 seats. Corker wins comfortably in Tennessee, and Republicans win one of these three races: Montana, Missouri, or Virginia. Meanwhile, Chafee ekes it out in Rhode Island, giving the GOP another half-a-seat.
Surprises: 1) Ehrlich, not Steele, is the Maryland surprise; 2) Nancy Pelosi does not become Speaker of the House.
New York Times headline: “Anger, Negativity Propel Democrats to Narrow House Majority.”
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.
John J. Miller House: Democrats +21, for a 224-211 majority.
Senate: See my detailed predictions
here. Bottom line is Democrats +4, which will leave the GOP with a 51-49 majority.
Two surprises: The
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative will pass narrowly; networks will call Virginia for Allen before they call Maryland for Cardin.
Headlines from tomorrow’s
NYT: “Democrats Receive Congratulatory Calls from Comandante Ortega; ‘Happy days are here again,’ says Nicaraguan leader.”
— John J. Miller is national political reporter for National Review and the author, most recently, of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.Ed Morrissey
Given the last-minute polling changes we’ve been seeing, I’m feeling more optimistic than I did last week when I first formulated my predictions. I believe the GOP will actually suffer little damage to the majority in the Senate, despite the dire polling we have seen — but the House will be another story.
House: This has been a tough race to call for the lower chamber. The Democrats tried to nationalize the election, and they had a lot of success early in the cycle, but they’ve lost their grip on the generic congressional ballot in all of the late polling. Unfortunately, they need only 15 seats, or 3.4 percent of the districts, to switch in order to wrest control from the GOP. Our friends at
Real Clear Politics have a chart which shows the disparity between Republican and Democratic seats at risk, and that will make the difference. The House will go from 232-202-1 to 222-213, giving Nancy Pelosi a narrow advantage.
Senate: Right now, the GOP has a 55-44-1 advantage. I see the Democrats picking up two seats, with a possibility of a third. Rick Santorum and Mike DeWine will almost certainly lose, and Santorum’s loss will really hurt the GOP. I expect either Jim Talent or George Allen to get edged out, but it’s such a toss-up that I’m going to figure that they’ll win at least one. Michael Steele will win Paul Sarbanes’s open Maryland seat, adding one back in for the GOP. Corker, Burns, Chafee all win, and on Wednesday we will all wonder why anyone counted Jon Kyl as anything but a solid Republican hold. In the end, the split will be 53-45-2 (Sanders and Lieberman).
The biggest surprise will be Joe Negron winning Mark Foley’s open seat, as his “Punch Foley for Negron” campaign will prevail in the bright-red Florida district. I think Lieberman’s race will help keep Shays and Simmons in office, as he pulls more Republicans to the polls. It’s possible that the GOP might pick up a Georgia seat, but it’s not likely. I think we will have to deal with a thin margin of Democratic control in the House, and what that means for the White House is difficult to say.
Lastly, our friends at the
New York Times will highlight the House victory with this headline: “Electorate Deals Rebuke To Bush, War.” However, if the GOP manages to exceed my expectations (and make my fervent wishes come true), the headline will be “Iraq Casualties Continue To Increase”.
— Edward Morrissey blogs at Captain's Quarters.Kate O’Beirne
Let me offer first the good news of my guesswork: Democrats won’t win more than 30 seats today and Republicans will hold the Senate.
I won’t be surprised if Democrats win about 22 House seats; Republicans have generously spotted them almost half that number with a combination of scandals, retirements, and ambition for higher office. But for the scandals and open seats, the Republicans probably could have held on, even in the terrible political climate they face this year. An intriguing possibility to entertain ourselves with while we wait for the polls to close: Should Democrats take the House by a very small margin, perhaps Republicans and a few sane, dissident Democrats can elect a Speakerre palatable than Nancy Pelosi). We’ll have plenty of time to ponder this: given the number of absentee ballots, early voting, and glitches with voting machines, there could be recounts in a dozen races this year, rather than the typical four or five.
I’ll guess that Democrats pick up four Senate seats. I predict that both Jim Talent and George Allen enjoy narrow wins, but Lincoln Chafee and Conrad Burns don’t.
My upset wins are Ehrlich and Steele in Maryland.
My
New York Times headline: “Democrats Defeat Black Candidates in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.”
— Kate O'Beirne is the author of Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military, and Sports.
Mark Steyn
Well, my petard was hoist a long time ago. I said months back that the Republicans would hold both houses, and I’m stuck with that even if the polls show Rosie O’Donnell winning the Utah Senate race by a landslide. But fortunately for me the GOP will come out ahead on the night, more or less. I figure a Republican majority in the House of three-to-five seats, and the Senate not so different from what it is now, except for the loss of Lincoln Chafee’s seat.
To be honest, I’m not even sure Chafee will lose, but he ought to. This is beyond partisanship: If only 100 citizens from a population of 300 million get to be senators, Lincoln Chafee should not be among them. On the other hand, if Rick Santorum loses, he will nevertheless emerge from this election with a reputation more enhanced than the winner — and, for the party, the loss of the Pennsylvania seat will be offset by gains elsewhere, either in Maryland or Washington State. In the House, I think both the Foley and DeLay seats will be retained.
If I’m wrong, of course, it will be a sobering moment: The American people will have chosen to reward a September 10th party mired in sour oppositionism and cobwebbed boomer pieties. Don’t get me wrong. Both wings of the political class have underperformed since 9/11, and this unlovely election is the consequence. But even a narrow Dem victory will embolden the media: Unlike 2004, they’ll have succeeded in dragging the dead horse of the Democratic party across the finish line, and they’ll be even more audacious in two years’ time.
— Mark Steyn is author of America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It.
