E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
What Chance Do the Republicans Have of Maintaining Control of the House
Ian Ayres
Lots of pundits and polls spill ink on this, but prediction markets are the best summary statistic. If you're becoming obsessed about knowing where we stand, you can find out the current odds for Republican control the house by clicking here (currently about 35%) and Republican control of the Senate by clicking here (currently about 65%). These links are constantly updated, so bookmark them and checkback often.
Here's a graph showing the price/probability for republican control of the house. Notice how it decisively dipped below the 50% probability in wake of the Foley scandal:
Slate's summary makes it seem like the Senate control is really a toss up. But the smart money suggests that Republicans have at the moment about a 2-1 chance of retaining control. Posted
6:25 AM
by Ian Ayres [link]
Comments:
It would be a mistake to count the GOP out in the House based on media polls. The polls of "likely voters" in the actual competitive districts are all over the place, indicating the polls themselves are inaccurate or the electorate is unsettled on for whom they plan to vote.
The last polling for Congress in an off year election in 2002 predicted that the GOP would lose seats, when they actually gained.
How can this be? This has received comparatively little press, but the GOP has elevated voter turnout to a carefully managed science based on massive numbers of volunteers making communicating by phone and door to door with GOP leaning voters specially identified for interest in certain issues.
The worry among many Elephants (and hope among many Donkeys) was that the volunteers and thus the voters would not turn out amidst the torrent of "bad news." That does not appear to be the case so far. Instead, volunteer contacts are reportedly up.
Even amidst this adverse electoral environment, this methodology was most recently used to elect Brian Bilbray in the district vacated by the disgraced Duke Cunningham...
This is probably the reason for Mr. Rove's fascinating self confidence while many fellow Elephants are tearing out their hair. That and about $100 million in Elephant ads which are about to hit the airways.
This election will be Rove's stiffest test yet, though. The media environment is toxic in a sixth year of an unpopular presidency. The next couple weeks should be very interesting for political junkies like myself.
Its long been said that what goes around comes around and this new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll seems to be an indication that the GOP is fast approaching a first hand encounter with the short end of the proverbial stick. For the Party that has sought to make terror and fear the surf and turf of their pre-election voter menu, they may instead find themselves bogged down in the sands of scandal as a fast approaching wave is about to sweep them out of power in a classic example of voter house cleaning.
Clearly, the most significant finding in this new poll is that the Democrats may be finally closing the deal with voters...something they have been unable to achieve in recent election cycles. If the Democrats are in fact now seen as a favorable alternative to the GOP, it may well signal that the country has not only rejected more of the same from the Republican Party but decided that the nation needs to move in a decidedly new direction.
I hope that I'm being paranoid about this issue, but let's not underestimate the Republicans' skill at stealing elections, both by preventing people from voting and by messing with the computer outcomes. Why didn't Congress enact a law requiring paper trails in congressional (and presidential) elections?
The Republicans win because the Senate is gerrymandered by history (D votes the last three cycles outnumber Rs, and not by 537) and because the House is gerrymandered by design.
There has been plenty of cheating on both sides (viz. FL2K), but in 2004, the (R) candidates won fair and square, insofar as gerrymandering is legal and, in the case of the Senate, enshrined in the Constitution.
Parenthetically, a Californian, I look forward to the utopia in which Ted Stevens is met by 55 (fifty-five) Barbara Boxers.