The Senate: Back in play

Ok, so I'm gonna have to eat my words from a little while ago, but it looks like the Dems may have a chance at getting the Senate after all. A slim chance. Webb looks like he may be victorious after all (we'll have a recount for sure) and Tester is beating Burns, but it's still early out West. MD looks like it will narrowly stay blue after all. That means the Dems need to come from behind in either TN or MO and hold their narrow leads everywhere else. Is that likely? Probably not. But it is still possible.

In the House, the Republicans seem to have avoided a total meltdown. With 99% of the votes counted, they held 3 out of the 6 most vulnerable seats in NY. They're leading in two out of the three in CT. They held one of two in KY, and three of five in OH. This kept a bad night from turning into a 1994 style fiasco.

The reason for this is something I call the "49% doctrine." This is the idea that pure opposition can only get you to 49%, but that a majority requires some sort of positive agenda. Of the seats I mention above, the Republicans held eight of them by no more than 52-48 (NY-25, -26, -29, CT-02, -04, OH-01, -02, and -15). Of the six races the Democrat's won or are winning, only one is that close (NY-19). This means that the Republicans nearly swept all the really close races.

The Democrats succeeded in picking off the wink links, but weren't quite strong enough to defeat the next tier of opponents. I'm convinced that with any kind of positive national platform, those numbers would be reversed and the Democrats would be looking at a much larger House majority, probably on the order of 12-15 seats bigger. That would have made this a historic blowout, instead of a major victory.

--Barry Caro