Senate ranking thread : looking ahead at 2012

[Antonio the Sixth]

A few time after the 2008 election, Nate Silver started his Senate rankings : he ranked all the Senate seats up in 2010 based on their estimated likeliness to change hands. I think the forum could make something similar for the 2012 elections. What we would do there is to mentions the seats (open or incumbents) which we expect to switch parties in 2012, and those where we think such situation is possible.

I've also included a poll, so that after posting our rankings we can select the seat swing we expect based on those predictions. The poll will remain open for about two years, and since the situation will certainly change by this time, you can change your vote each time you want. Let's see how good we are at forecasting !

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, let's see... I'm not as well aware as you of the situation of each races and the popularity of each incumbent, but here's my first guess :

Seats likely to change hands :
- Nebraska (I see Nelson ending up like Lincoln even though the context will be different)
- Connecticut (Hopefully democrats will primary Lieberman, or otherwise a good rep candidate might stand a chance)
- Massachusetts (Dems just need someone slightly more appealing than Coakley)
- Michigan (I've read Stabenow is deeply unpopular there)
- Missouri (seems like McCaskill is unpopular too)

Seats that have even chances of changing hands :
- Nevada (if Ensign or some teabagger runs)
- Montana (Tester is probably the weakest of the two Senators, so there might be a chance with the good GOP nominee)
- Ohio (we'll see what happens there, but I guess it will all depend to the environment and the GOP candidate)

Seats that might change hands :
- Maine (there are many scenarioes dems could benefit to, but all imply Collins not being the rep nominee ; we'll see what happens)
- Virginia (the 2006 election was close, so there always is some danger)
- Pennsylvania (not likely, but who knows)
- North Dakota (it's a red State, so Conrad can take nothing for granted)
- Florida (we'll see)

Seats that could become competitive with a retirement :
- Hawaii
- Wisconsin
- Indiana (but it seems like Lugar is running)

Seats that could become competitive in a wave year :
- NJ
- MD (Cardin's win was quite close compared to Mikulski)
- WV (remember it's a very red State)
- TN (Corker's win was close too)
- WA (since the GOP made it close in 2010 it could make it again in 2012)
- CA (same)
- AZ (who knows ?)
- RI (Chafee comeback ?)


Overall, I'd tend toward a rep gain of between 2 and 3 seats, which would keep the dems in control of Senate provided that Obama/Biden win. Anyways, there is a lot of uncertainty there, and we will be really able to make clearer guess only next year. I vote for a rep gain of 2 since I want to be optimistic.