GOP will be a paper tiger in 2010 election

By JONATHAN MARTIN & ALEX ISENSTADT | 1/6/10 4:29 PM EST

 The GOP paper tiger

The recent retirements of two veteran Democratic senators and the decision by two Democratic gubernatorial candidates to drop their bids could prompt more in the party to head for the exits and frighten already skittish donors and activists. But it doesn’t yet appear that the party’s congressional majorities are at all threatened.

Republicans are poised to make gains in the House and the Senate, but the number of seats necessary to reclaim the majority makes it unlikely that they could knock the Democrats out of power in either chamber.

To win the control of the House, Republicans must win 40 seats in November. And to reclaim the Senate, they must pick up 11 seats. The math is harder than it looks.

“All things being equal, the turnout dynamics in a midterm cycle would probably cost House Democrats 10 to 15 seats. Throw in a rough national environment and our current outlook projects a GOP gain of 20 to 30 seats. Any further Democratic retirements or erosion in incumbents' standing could push that forecast higher,” said David Wasserman, an analyst for the Cook Political Report.

Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, is now predicting a GOP gain of 27 seats in the House and three to four in the Senate.

“Those are marginal but significant advances for the GOP since the summer. What has gone up can continue to climb if President Obama becomes more unpopular — or the projected gains can be scaled back if the economy strengthens faster than expected,” said Sabato.

While the House is more difficult to assess because the fields aren’t fully formed, the electoral math makes it seem difficult for the Republicans to pick up 11 Senate seats. While they might pick up North Dakota now that Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan is retiring and are running competitively in Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, the GOP finds itself defending seats in Missouri, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio and Louisiana.

Democrats took comfort in analyzing the case-by-case fallout from the Tuesday and Wednesday announcements, which saw incumbent Sens. Dorgan and Chris Dodd of Connecticut disclose their decisions to retire rather than face potentially difficult reelections, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter declining a reelection bid and Michigan Lt. Gov. John Cherry quitting his gubernatorial race before it even started.

“When you look at these races individually, our overall net position may have improved, particularly given that this is a bad year to be an incumbent,” said Democratic strategist Anita Dunn, the former Obama White House communications director. “On the micro level, none of these, with the possible exception of North Dakota, are all that damaging.”

Rightardia agrees with this analyses. Intrade prediction markets gives the Democrats about a 65 per cent chance of holding onto the House.

Intrade predicts in the Senate that he Dems could lose up to four seats. The RNC Chairman, Michael Steele also admitted that it is unlikely that the GOP will regain control of the House.

The Tea Bagger movement appears to be made up of a bunch of paper tigers that may fracture the GOP. No clear leader of the GOP has yet emerged either. 

source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31209.html

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