2010

A lot has been made recently about the backlash Democrats have incurred because of their job initiative, spending bill, budget deficit, war in Afghanistan, and of course, actually winning a presidential election. Even the most diehard are skeptical of the light side's chances of keeping a majority in 2010/2012.

I'll start by saying Barack Obama is a lock to retain his presidency 2 years from now, if not for his sheer awesomeness then because we find ourselves in a state where incumbents just don't lose. In fact only 3 presidents have failed to win consecutive elections in this century alone, although Taft never secured his party's nomination for the 2nd go-around, and frankly, things that long ago were far different. Basically, incumbents in America do not lose.

I am so confident as to lay an Edmund to the world open bet, where I will take Obama versus the field at 3-2 odds for the 2012 presidential election.

Unfortunately the national news media chooses to place an undue emphasis on the importance of congress, even when the vast majority of Americans neither know nor care who their congressman are, nor what they actually acccomplish.

My predictions for shifts within the U.S. Senate:

Open Democratic seats are in the following states: Connecticut, Illinois, Delaware, Indiana, and North Dakota.

I believe Democrats will sweep all 5 of these races, the only exception being possibly Indiana, but a former losing congressman (R) is running against a handsome incumbent congressman (D). In short, ship it.

Open republican seats include 6 different seats: Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Ohio.

Clearly Kansas and Kentucky are screwy enough to retain their respective Republican seats, while I believe New Hampshire will shift to the other side of the aisle. Ohio is a tough bag, but along with Missouri, will probably vote Republican on that national/but appears local election level. Florida will shift to the Democrats, though I enforce the right to believe Ohio and Florida are interchangeable as far as a tally goes.

Incumbents are usually gold, and this applies ten times over for multiple term senators.

Democrats retain seats in: Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, New York (x2), Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. To me the only possibilities of an upheaval lay with a newly appointed senator (Bennet-D/Colorado), and a newly switched but quite old man (Specter-D/Pennsylvania). Certainly it's fair to assume a rookie Democratic senator is fair game in Colorado, but of all of the political geographic shifts occurring in the U.S. nowdays, the far west is most assuredly drifting towards blue.

Specter has a semi-legitimate chance of losing in his own primary, which is quite rare, but there is also a prospect of him or Democratic opponent losing to uber-conservative Republican challenger Toomey (R) in the general. Still, chances are less than 50% without a doubt.

Republican incumbents face challenges in those classic "that's so whacky I will make fun of it type state", which include:

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona (McCain), Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. I submit that the only one of these contests possibly up for grabs is South Dakota, a seat most recently held by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D), and the state which possesses the county that votes the most overwhelmingly Democratic in the entire nation come presidential elections.

Outside of that, North Carolina and Louisiana both hold Republican incumbents who have to defend their seats, the latter having admitted to a prostitution scandal. Aww, Eliot Sptizer is jealous: a Governor loses his job and is vilified, while a Republican senator is glamorized for his views not 4 months later. Narf. I'd say the toolbag from North Carolina has a chance of losing, but not the man Vitter from Louisiana, for he hails from a state which is assuredly more cosmopolitan than the rest of the deep south, yet seems to pride itself on running things opposite of of the national political atmosphere.

Long story short:

Democrats gain 2 seats, thus giving them 61 senators, although at least of them is a total scrub, and his name isn't even Lieberman. Republicans thus have 37, with 2 independents not holding reelections staying out.