Gallup released

[AuH2O]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-05-national-poll_x.htm

Dem +7.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sounds about right

[Moooooo]

Any state polls?

[Sam Spade]

Any state polls?

I hope not.

[Sam Spade]

Anyway, this means I'm placing my money on Pew/WaPo being the more accurate numbers now.

[Democratic Hawk]

At this rate, the wave will be but a ripple

Dave

[AuH2O]

I don't see any other rational conclusion. There are the polls showing Dems +15 or whatever, but the better firms say otherwise and the polling in individual races tends to confirm that.

I think there is now almost no chance of a huge Dem wave of 30+ seats and it may not be that easy for Dems to net 20. Almost all competitive races are in GOP territory and if Republicans come home, the Democrats will be held in relative check.

[Eraserhead]

Any state polls?

According to Frank Newport they are coming out Monday.

[Sam Spade]

I don't see any other rational conclusion. There are the polls showing Dems +15 or whatever, but the better firms say otherwise and the polling in individual races tends to confirm that.

I think there is now almost no chance of a huge Dem wave of 30+ seats and it may not be that easy for Dems to net 20. Almost all competitive races are in GOP territory and if Republicans come home, the Democrats will be held in relative check.

Not really, but if you want to believe that, go on ahead. 

[AuH2O]

I don't see any other rational conclusion. There are the polls showing Dems +15 or whatever, but the better firms say otherwise and the polling in individual races tends to confirm that.

I think there is now almost no chance of a huge Dem wave of 30+ seats and it may not be that easy for Dems to net 20. Almost all competitive races are in GOP territory and if Republicans come home, the Democrats will be held in relative check.

Not really, but if you want to believe that, go on ahead. 

If Dems are up 7 or so on the generic, how are they going to win districts that went Bush by 30%???

[Moooooo]

Any state polls?

According to Frank Newport they are coming out Monday.

At the rate Democrats in Maryland are dropping, Im not sure I wanna see em.

[Sam Spade]

I don't see any other rational conclusion. There are the polls showing Dems +15 or whatever, but the better firms say otherwise and the polling in individual races tends to confirm that.

I think there is now almost no chance of a huge Dem wave of 30+ seats and it may not be that easy for Dems to net 20. Almost all competitive races are in GOP territory and if Republicans come home, the Democrats will be held in relative check.

Not really, but if you want to believe that, go on ahead. 

If Dems are up 7 or so on the generic, how are they going to win districts that went Bush by 30%???

There are "very few" of those CD's out there in this election and CO-05 has already been pushed pretty much off my list before the new polls came out.  You need to narrow the number to 15%-20% to get a few more CDs where your point may be worthwhile.

[Moooooo]

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What did the generic ballot look like at this point in 1994?  Are they implying it was similar to the 7% gap we are seeing now?

[Eraserhead]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

What did the generic ballot look like at this point in 1994?  Are they implying it was similar to the 7% gap we are seeing now?

Yes. It was a 51%-44% Republican lead among Likely Voters.

[Nym90]

Dems up 11 with registered voters. So it really all comes down to turnout; the higher the turnout is, the better it is for Dems.

Democrats winning the national popular vote by 7 percent would result in about 230 seats in my estimation. That seems right on the money.

Of course, the national numbers are irrelevant, if this tightening merely reflects Republicans in solid GOP districts finally coming home; that won't have much effect on the results other than to limit Democratic gains in very strongly GOP districts (of which, as Sam pointed out, few were competitive to begin with).

[AuH2O]

I don't see any other rational conclusion. There are the polls showing Dems +15 or whatever, but the better firms say otherwise and the polling in individual races tends to confirm that.

I think there is now almost no chance of a huge Dem wave of 30+ seats and it may not be that easy for Dems to net 20. Almost all competitive races are in GOP territory and if Republicans come home, the Democrats will be held in relative check.

Not really, but if you want to believe that, go on ahead. 

If Dems are up 7 or so on the generic, how are they going to win districts that went Bush by 30%???

There are "very few" of those CD's out there in this election and CO-05 has already been pushed pretty much off my list before the new polls came out.  You need to narrow the number to 15%-20% to get a few more CDs where your point may be worthwhile.

20% is ridiculous too. Bush's approval is at 40% or so. That means that, for the Democrats to have a big wave, they have to win districts where Bush is still popular!!!

The fact is, in 1994 the GOP won very, very, very few districts that were more than 10% pro-Dem. For a Dem wave, they need to win A LOT of districts like that for the GOP.

There is zero reason to think that will happen. You're just wrong.

[Sam Spade]

I don't see any other rational conclusion. There are the polls showing Dems +15 or whatever, but the better firms say otherwise and the polling in individual races tends to confirm that.

I think there is now almost no chance of a huge Dem wave of 30+ seats and it may not be that easy for Dems to net 20. Almost all competitive races are in GOP territory and if Republicans come home, the Democrats will be held in relative check.

Not really, but if you want to believe that, go on ahead. 

If Dems are up 7 or so on the generic, how are they going to win districts that went Bush by 30%???

There are "very few" of those CD's out there in this election and CO-05 has already been pushed pretty much off my list before the new polls came out.  You need to narrow the number to 15%-20% to get a few more CDs where your point may be worthwhile.

20% is ridiculous too. Bush's approval is at 40% or so. That means that, for the Democrats to have a big wave, they have to win districts where Bush is still popular!!!

The fact is, in 1994 the GOP won very, very, very few districts that were more than 10% pro-Dem. For a Dem wave, they need to win A LOT of districts like that for the GOP.

There is zero reason to think that will happen. You're just wrong.

When did I make any predictions that I could be "wrong" about?  I was just pointing out that your assumption concerning that there is no chance for Dem +30 is wrong.  I can come up with a list right now that has the Dems winning 30+ seats with only 3-4 being more than 10% pro-GOP (obvious ones like PA-10, for example).

You may be quite right and the Dem gains will be under 30 or even under 20.  I am likely to predict somewhere between 20-30 myself when I get the final predictions up tomorrow.

Most of the CD's we'll be talking about come Tuesday night will be less than 10% pro-GOP anyway.

[AuH2O]

OK, the chance of 30+ is nonzero. But it's not just about heavily pro-GOP districts. There are other factors... money advantages, incumbency, etc. A 5-7 point generic ballot lead is just not enough for the Dems to sweep every competitive race.

The GOP won so many in '94 because there were huge numbers of open seats and many seats that really should have been GOP already, but weren't because of historical loyalty to Democrats. 2006 is totally different. Safer districts, fewer open seats, and so on.

The chance of 30 for the Dems is lower than the chance of less than 10. Unless national and Senate polls are totally unrelated to House outcomes, which makes little to no sense.