Which is pretty close to ‘standing pat.’ I’m not really going to go into the tall weeds on this one – my math isn’t up to the task – but the result is pretty darn close to my own gut call of “single-digit Democratic gains*,” so clearly these people are geniuses.
Moe Lane
*I expect a good bit of churn, though. We have a large freshman class and redistricting is affecting both sides; but the Democrats have a lackluster lineup this election cycle and the last three cycles have been pure hell on any Congressman who had any visible weakness at all. So we will lose people, and so will they, and the Republicans will retain the House.
How do we square that projection with the current dead-heat polling in the presidential race? I find it hard to believe that we can have a draw, essentially, in the house but *lose* the White House. I just don’t see *that* many people voting straight-incumbent or consciously spitting the top of the ticket from the bottom. My guess is there will be a coattails effect for Romney, not an Entrenchment/Status-Quo vote. But I’m not a pro, so what the hell do I know?
Echoing BoH here, if the Ds only gain one in the House, Romney wins a landslide. I think the polling isn’t sampling enough Republicans (yet…)
I agree with BoH and Darin but I also think there will be a negative O’bama coattail effect. As Datechguy pointed out yesterday Republicans are enjoying a registration advantage over the democrats.
People don’t like congress, but they do (overall) tend to like “their congresscritter”.
This leads to “Yeah, I don’t like Obama, but I do like Rep. Blank (D-mystate)” .. i.e. split ticket votes.
Remember, if it’s close, it doesn’t take much of this split-ticket stuff to retain a D Rep while electing an R POTUS.
Mew
(on the other paw, if it’s not *actually* close, and what we have is either an impending preference cascade (Ace of Spades’ theory) or a more nationwide awakening similar to Wisconsin-2011 (I forget who thought that one up…) then we could see the GOP share in the house increase…. but it’s not showing up in the polling at this point)