Final results (except the recounts!)

As of 8:21, it seems like the Democrats will have a majority in both houses of congress. In the three key Senate battles, Claire McCaskill has a 42,000 vote advantage, Jon Tester has a 1586 vote edge, and Jim Webb has a periously close 7,800 vote cushion. I think that what I said about Bush and executive power will still hold true, albeit to a lesser extent. A united congress will be something of a check, but I think we'll be seeing a lot of signing statements and ignored laws to the detriment of our democracy. One other prediction about the Senate: Joe Lieberman is suddenly going to become an extremely popular man. There are going to be a lot of Democrats (Kennedy, Kerry, Dodd especially) telling him, "You know I was just kidding with that whole Lamont thing, right Joe? Come on, don't look at me like that!"

Let's take a closer look at the house. Going by the results on CNN.com for every race, I found 13 out of the 14 races that haven't officially been called yet. In these, the Republican currently leads in 8 (albeit by narrow margins) and the Democrat leads in 5. If those results held, it would give a swing of 33 seats towards the Democrats. This is a phenomenal result for the boys in blue, but it could have been a lot bigger. Last night when presenting my "49% Doctrine," I suggested that the Democrats picked off the really vulnerable republican incumbents based solely on the anti-Bush mood but couldn't sweep the board without a positive national message, a la the Contract with America. I said at the time that I thought the Dems could easily have picked up another 12-15 seats by running on more than the fact that they aren't Republicans. I was right.

Looking through all the races in the House, I was able to find what I considered the 25 closest races. I tried to limit this to contests where the margin of victory, or current lead in undecided contests, was within 4 points. This is that next tier of contests, the group that would have fallen during a political earthquake. The Repbulicans won 16 of these 25 races (Fl-13, CT-04, Il-06, NV-03 NM-01, NY-25, NY-26, NY-29, NC-08, OH-01, OH-02, OH-15, PA-06, VA-02, WA-08, and WY-AL), and thanks to that showing the GOP remain competitive in the House. On a night when nationally the GOP got hammered, the Democrats were just barely too weak to run the table. Just to be clear, we're talking about 100,000 votes nationally being the difference between a great year and a legendary triumph. I am and will continue to be convinced that any nationalized message in addition to "Bush sucks" would have given the Dems most if not all of these seats (and a couple others, too) for a net gain of something like 45-50 seats.

That will be all for me. Thanks for coming along for the ride,

--Barry Caro

Republican hopes

While Republicans across the country are groaning over the loss of the House and the possible future loss of the Senate, there are still reasons for them to hope. Alex Maugeri '07, president of Princeton College Republicans, says that this is a great opportunity for the party to refocus. “This is what happens," he says, "when Republicans move away from their values. It’s a time for the Republicans to regroup, and a time for the Democrats to stumble.”

For whatever problems the Republicans are encountering now, there is no question that the Democrats' reign in the House of Representatives will not be easy. Future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's position is "impossible," says Maugeri, also a 'Prince' editor. Many congressmen who picked up seats (Casey Jr., Lieberman, etc.) are "Democrats who aren't being Democrats," Maugeri said, holding several traditionally Republican values.

"This isn’t a governing coalition. The far left of the Democratic party has been totally repudiated and as a result I think the Democrats are going to have a very hard time governing and this bodes well for a 2008 presidential bid.”

This election is already being compared to the 1994 Republican sweep. But Maugeri says that similarities are not as perfect as Democrats would like. "Incumbents who lost seats were victims of wave of anti-war sentiment, which is not a governing philosophy. That’s what so different from 1994.”

Even Cindy Hong, Princeton College Democrats campaign chairman, agrees. "The election is more of a reaction against Republicans than a mandate for Democratic values," she says, based on a single issue:

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.

-- Rachel Dunn in Frist Campus Center

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