Both CNN and MSNBC are now projecting that House Republicans will gain at least 39 seats and control of the House. The crowd here at the GOP victory party, where Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele just spoke and predicted a 55 seat pick up in the House, is cheering as CNN analyzes the races.
Some significant pickups …
…now has just a 2 percent chance of going Republican, according to Nate Silver, thanks to Democratic wins in Connecticut and West Virginia.
Although as I’ve blogged before, the House is the chamber the Democrats, in an ideal world, probably would have preferred to keep.
Their model suggests the GOP will gain at least 50 seats.
Given the grim predictions, it’s not surprising that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Election Night soiree seemed a relatively subdued affair. (At least, that’s how it seemed from the tiny, roped-off press pen at the back of the room where they cordoned off reporters for the 15 minutes we were allowed inside the room.) …
In the end, Christine O’Donnell seemed to fulfill everyone’s expectations, save perhaps her own. As Democrats expected, she was a lot of fun to watch, offering at times a parody of what Democrats like to think about Tea Party candidates. (“Got to just laugh,” she wrote in one tweet yesterday. “Mix up again.”) As institutional …
If Republicans come up just short of winning the Senate seat tonight, Sarah Palin is going to have some awkward questions to answer about her endorsement.
It’s not clear what will happen to several high-profile Tea Party candidates tonight, including Joe Miller, Ken Buck and Sharron Angle. But at least one of them will be joining the U.S. Senate, and perhaps the one who best represents the movement’s anti-government ethos, fierce constitutionalism, and rejection of the Republican Party …
Nearly 500 House and Senate seats are in play tonight, in addition to 37 governorships and about 80% of the nation’s 7,382 statehouse seats. As the returns spill in, here are some of the races to keep an eye on.
Also worth checking out: Time.com’s Races to Watch package, which examines many of these in much greater detail.
It’s not 39. That’s the net gain required for Republicans to reclaim the House, but even on what should be a difficult night, the Democrats have several pickup prospects. Perhaps the best is in Delaware’s at-large Congressional district, where Democrat John Carney, the state’s former lieutenant governor, should breeze past Republican …
In the 1940’s and 50’s when Sam Rayburn ruled the House his famous motto was: “You’ve got to go along to get along.” Rayburn governed during such a volatile period of war (World War 2, Korean, the beginning of Vietnam) and economic upheaval that the House flipped six times in 21 years. He got along so well with his GOP …
While the balance of power in Congress is likely to undergo a seismic shift tonight, at least one thing won’t change – the legislative maneuvers lawmakers undertake purely to score political points. Case in point – repeal of the Affordable Care Act. This law will be on the books so long as Barack Obama is in the White House. But don’t …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4o-TeMHys0]
Twenty-five moments that illustrate just how crazy this campaign season really was.
The big drama right now is just how large the GOP’s gains will be. The consensus seems to be a House pickup in the 55–60 range, roughly, and 6-8 seats in the Senate, leaving Democrats with a narrow and largely unworkable majority in that chamber. (Jon Chait has some sociological complaints with those forecasts.) But I’m also very curious
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