October 31, 2006
Tea Leaf Watch: 7 Days Out
Words of the day: natural tightening.
Leaves:
1. Charlie Cook: "With the election just eight days away, there are no signs that this wave is abating. Barring a dramatic event, we are looking at the prospect of GOP losses in the House of at least 20 to 35 seats, possibly more, and at least four in the Senate, with five or six most likely. If independents vote in fairly low numbers, as is customary in midterm elections, losses in the House will be on the lower end of that range. But if they turn out at a higher than normal level, their strong preference for Democrats in most races would likely push the GOP House losses to or above the upper levels."
2. The GOP reported more than 2 million voter contacts over the past four days, exceeding their expectations. (Hotline sources)
3. The GOP claims early voting successes in IA, NM and FL -- the Dems dispute this.
4. Cook changes the following seats to toss-ups: AZ 05 (Hayworth), CA 11 (Pombo), CO 04 (Musgrave), CO 05 (Open, KS 02 (Ryun), MN 01 (Gutknecht), NH 02 (Bass), OH O2 (Schmidt), WY Al (Cubin). CA 50 (Bilbray) and NE 03 (Open) have been downgraded to "Lean Republican." and IA 01 has been rated "Lean Democrat."
5. Pres. Bush's campaign schedule in the final stretch does not inspire confidence: he'll campaign for Ryun in Kansas and for Marilyn Musgrave in CO 04.
6. Two Research 2000 polls for the New London Day and the Manchester Journal Inquirer show Rep. Chris Shays (R) trailing Diane Farrell (D) 47%-43% in CT 04, and Rep. Nancy Johnson (R) behind state Sen. Chris Murphy (D) 46%-43% in CT 05 (release).
7. John Podhoretz "If the House is controlled by only a few seats, the coming election cycles could feature control of Congress flipping between parties every two years. This will surely affect the behavior of individual Congressmen and a change in the tone in the House."
8. Does Michael Barone sound like a confident conservative to you? " I don't know what the results of the midterm elections of 2006 will be. But I doubt that they will have the sweeping partisan or policy consequences of the midterm elections of 1874 and 1894, or 1938 and 1994."
Posted at 10:00 AM
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