What Iowa Means for Sanders

Liberals feel obligated to vote for Hillary, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them are her perceived electability advantage over Sanders, the fact that she's a woman, and her length of service in politics. But in their heart of hearts most of them would prefer to vote for Sanders. The longer Sanders sticks around and remains viable, the more they'll listen to their hearts. Everyone seems to think Sanders can't win, but no one thought Obama could, either.

Of course, Sanders isn't a hip, young, fresh-faced newcomer either.

Shaming the Shameless

So Donald Trump has taken the pledge to support the eventual candidate selected by the Republican Party, and not to run as a third-party candidate. Woohoo! Except, um, doesn't this rely on the power of shame? It's not a legal contract. The only power inherent in the pledge is its power to shame someone who breaks it. Anyone think that applies to Trump?

Lightweight Veep Debate Roundup

Ryan: centered, factual, wonkish. Kept his cool. Looked like the smartest kid in the class. Slight downside: looked like the smartest kid in the class.

Biden: disrespectful, crazy, rude. Drunk uncle at Thanksgiving who can't quite keep his millions and billions straight.

Biden's pre-debate email was very Biden-esque. It began: "I told Barack I have one mission tonight: tell the truth and stand up for what we believe in." Perfect.

The polls will probably not reflect much movement from this, but I can't see that it helped the Democrats much. Think any swing voters watched that debate and thought: "Gee, that Biden guy is the one I want one heartbeat away from the nuclear launch codes." I don't.

Intrade has Obama/Biden down 3.5% today thus far. But still well over 50%.

Debate Thoughts

A good night for Romney, as everyone seems to agree. The post-debate CNN poll was 67%-25% pro-Romney, a margin of victory rarely seen. Surely that 25% is only the hardest of hard-core Obama supporters, which means the independents must have sided with Romney in truly overwhelming numbers.

Still, a few tricks were left on the table. I wish Romney had held Obama's feet to the fire more on his record. For example, all those times Obama talked about how Romney would horribly cut the budget and throw grandma out on the street, all Romney had to say was: "For the sake of argument let's say we went back to the spending levels of 2000. Did Clinton throw grandma out on the street? No. But we had a balanced budget and spending was far below its current level. Obama's spending far more, and are you any better for it?" But he continually argued that he wouldn't cut X, wouldn't cut Y. It's OK, Mitt! Cut some stuff!

Also, Romney threw out some talking points without really explaining them. That's something that McCain did four years ago, and it's infuriating. In response to Obama's absurd claim that domestic oil and gas production is up due to his administration, Romney scored a telling blow by explaining that production is up on private lands, but not public lands, but then he just said Romney would (in contrast) "build that pipeline". I know he's talking about the Keystone Pipeline, of course, but it would have made sense to spend 20 seconds explaining this, because many people out there don't know about it.

I'll take it, though. Good performance out there. Next up is the VP debate on October 11, and that should be a joy to watch, kind of like watching your favorite NFL team face your worst football rivals... from high school.

The Demoralization of Liberals

I listened to an interview with Michael Chabon on NPR a few days ago. Most of it, of course, was about the book, but one segment had political interest. Chabon was a big Obama supporter in 2008, to the point of hosting fundraisers for him.

NPR host Michael Krasny asks him (around the 10:00 mark) whether he's still as enthusiastic about Obama. The answer, pretty obviously, is no, but Chabon doesn't want to say so outright. His careful response is: "All we wanted by working so hard for him was to have the chance to be disappointed by him." I'm not naive enough to think we're supposed to take this literally. If Obama's first acts as President had been to eliminate income taxes, private Social Security, increase the size of the military, and bomb Iran, I don't think Chabon would just say: Oh, well, all we wanted was the chance to be disappointed... and now we are! No. Obviously he means that all politicians disappoint you to some degree or another, and so getting him elected would simply provide the opportunity to be disappointed.

But I find the response revealing in another way: it shows that the person Chabon (and by extension, many other highly motivated liberals) supported was important as a personality, not as a policy figurehead. Obviously Obama's policies were important as well, but the idea of electing the first black President was foremost in their minds. I don't think, for example, that too many people think back on the Carter Presidency with the same wistfulness: no one was just hoping for the chance for him to disappoint them. No, they voted for a set of policies, of which he was their driver. In 1980, Reagan was elected as the driver of a set of opposing policies when Carter's had been shown to be a bust.

If someone as motivated as Chabon can't muster up any more spirited a defense of Obama than that, on as friendly territory as he's ever likely to find (a public radio station based out of San Francisco!), liberals must be quite demoralized this year. That can only redound to the advantage of Mitt Romney. If only he can capitalize on it.

The OpSec Attack

This is pretty interesting, not to mention damning, if true:

The day after this video went public, I (and millions of my closest friends) received an email from Jim Messina at Obama Campaign HQ, directing me to a blog post defending the President.

I invite you to look it over, bearing in mind a dog not barking. You will note that the blog post contains no actual defense. Rather, it is nothing but ad hominem attacks on OPSEC and the various people involved in making this video.

It's possible, of course, that the video is a lie. But the Administration would mount a more credible defense by explaining that, rather than just telling us we can't trust the video producers.

Ron Paul and the Possibility of a Brokered Convention

Ron Paul is apparently executing an end-around strategy to win the GOP nomination: delegate targeting. The idea is that, even in states he does not win, by careful management of the delegate-selection process, he could manage to control a majority of actual delegates to the convention.

In states that do not bind their delegates (to vote for the nominee selected by the state's primary), these delegates could theoretically vote for Paul regardless of the popular vote total. In states that do bind their delegates, Paul's strategy is even more long-game: in the event of a brokered convention, the delegates could become unbound and then Paul could have a majority.

During the tumult of early primary season, the possibility of a brokered convention is often bandied about. There hasn't been one since 1952, but there certainly could be again. This year, Intrade estimates the odds at 26%, up from 5% two weeks ago. No doubt this is due to the rise of Rick Santorum. Super Tuesday will sort much of this out; if the Intrade odds remain this high after those primaries, I'll be really interested in this scenario.

However, even if one candidate locks up the nomination, there's another upside for Paul: "[T]he more delegates Paul controls, the more of an impact he can have on determining the GOP platform at the convention." True. Unnerving, but true.

Gingrich: Then Again...

Having accused Newt of desperation just a few days ago, I have to eat my words today:

Gingrich now has 31% support from registered Republican voters in the Gallup daily tracking poll, compared with 27% for the former Massachusetts governor.

The former House speaker now has completely erased a 23-point advantage Romney enjoyed earlier this month.

For myself, I'm still undecided. Mitt is just so, so dull. I'd love to see Newt mixing it up with Obama in the debates. But Obama is nothing if not a disciplined campaigner, and Newt is anything but that. I'd hate for Newt to win the nomination and then make some October unforced error that sank his campaign.

This is about where I was in 2008. As the NJ primary approached, Mitt and McCain were both still in the running. Holding my nose, I pulled the lever for McCain, primarily because of Mitt's blandness. I didn't expect McCain to pull his punches in the general election and thought he'd have a better chance of winning. Of course, I was wrong.

This time around, once again it's all about winning. Policy-wise, there's not much to choose between the three front-runners (Paul not included: he's the outlier and frankly unacceptable, not to mention unelectable). I suspect Mitt is more electable than Newt or Rick Santorum; he'll be more likely to appeal to moderates. But Newt, despite what some people say, actually does have a record of reaching across the aisle, and he might prove capable of winning them over. And there's no question Newt will fire up the base more than Mitt. Then again, this year, do we need our candidate to fire up the base? The other candidate should be doing this for us.

Next Tuesday will be a watershed, that much is certain.

Desperation is...

...Newt Gingrich's pride in Todd Palin's endorsement. My favorite part is where he "hopes" that Sarah's endorsement is coming soon.

Perry Bites the Dust

I have to admit I was one of the hopers when Rick Perry threw his hat in the ring. Supposedly he's an excellent campaigner, and there's no doubt that he's presided over a very good Texas economy while the coasts slide into the ocean. It's hard to get excited about Romney. Cain's sexual allegations have caused him to implode. And none of the others seems serious. With Ryan and Christie sitting it out, that left a huge gaping whole for someone to fill. Perry seemed like he might be that person.

But really. He tries to make a point about eliminating agencies and can't even remember his own talking point. That's not a guy we can have debating Obama if we expect to win. I'm afraid this seals the deal: it's going to be Romney, and we might as well accept it and make the best of it.

Prediction Time

In the Senate, I'm predicting a 7-seat gain for the GOP. Ignoring the seats with 10-point leads one way or the other, there are 8 seats in play, with 2 locked up for the GOP. Those 8 seats are: California (DEM+3), Colorado (GOP+4), Illinois (GOP+2), Nevada (GOP+4), Pennsylvania (GOP+5), Washington (GOP+1), West Virginia (DEM+3), and Wisconsin (GOP+7), where I'm giving the latest poll results in each case. Many of these polls are within the margin of error, but we can still calculate probabilities for each. Based on these numbers, we can find a joint probability distribution for various levels of GOP pickup.

GOP Gain	Probability
+2	negligible
+3	0.04%
+4	0.6%
+5	4.6%
+6	17.6%
+7	34.1%
+8	30.9%
+9	10.9%
+10	1.3%

The median of the distribution is at the high end of a 7-seat GOP pickup. It's certainly pretty likely that we'll have an 8-seat pickup, but playing the odds I'll predict +7.

In the House, it's more complicated since there are a lot more races. Also, polls are sketchier. But let's use the latest Real Clear Politics map to make some estimates. If we plug in some reasonable probabilities corresponding to "likely GOP", "leaning GOP" and "tossup", we get this distribution for GOP seats (here I'm ignoring insignificant tails):

GOP Seats	GOP Lead	Probability
Under 223		0.07%
223	10	0.06%
224	12	0.10%
225	14	0.17%
226	16	0.28%
227	18	0.45%
228	20	0.69%
229	22	1.01%
230	24	1.45%
231	26	1.99%
232	28	2.65%
233	30	3.40%
234	32	4.22%
235	34	5.06%
236	36	5.86%
237	38	6.55%
238	40	7.07%
239	42	7.38%
240	44	7.44%
241	46	7.24%
242	48	6.80%
243	50	6.18%
244	52	5.41%
245	54	4.58%
246	56	3.74%
247	58	2.95%
248	60	2.25%
249	62	1.65%
250	64	1.17%
251	66	0.80%
252	68	0.53%
253	70	0.34%
254	72	0.21%
255	74	0.12%
256	76	0.07%
Over 256		0.08%

The median of the distribution is for the GOP to have 240 seats, representing a 61-seat GOP pickup. There is a 96% chance the GOP will pick up between 50 and 76 seats, and a 90% chance they pick up between 52 and 69 seats. So I think we can count on the GOP having at least a 26-seat majority and it's not impossible for them to attain a 60-seat majority.

Of course, this will do them little good without the Senate or the White House. Those will have to wait until 2012.

Intrade Predicts 61-Seat GOP Gain

Very interesting analysis of Intrade data from Eddy Elfenbein.

Senate Math Update

Way back on December 16, 2009, I posted a very simplistic analysis showing that the GOP had roughly 3 chances in 5 of picking up Senate seats, about 1 in 6 of losing seats, and just a 1% chance at picking up 6 or more seats. I called this "things looking moderately up for the GOP".

Nate Silver's Predictatron, whose sophistication compared to my analysis is roughly that of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner to the Wright Flyer, shows the situation considerably stronger for the GOP: a 20% chance that the GOP picks up ten seats, and only a 3% chance of the GOP losing any net seats. Eight months ago I had the chance of the GOP picking up 10 seats at too low to be meaningful. Silver shows that a good bet would be for the Senate to be a 52-48 or 53-47 split, leaving Democrat, after the upcoming November elections. Considering how uneven the open seats are tilted toward the GOP, this is excellent news.

U.S. House of Reps Electoral Math

Jim Geraghty of National Review provides an invaluable breakdown of 99 Congressional seats that are in play this fall. Let's start with that and apply some math.

The current breakdown of the House is 253 Democrats, 178 Republicans, and 4 open seats. So either party needs 218 seats to secure a majority. According to Geraghty, all the Republican seats except one (Joseph Cao of Louisiana) are "safe." And 158 Democratic seats are also "safe." Let's assume that all of those safe seats remain unchanged (or at least that if one or two switch sides, they will be balanced by other switches so that the total numbers remain unchanged). What is the probability that the Republicans gain control of the House?

I assumed that a "code blue" in Geraghty's construction was an 80% chance of winning, a "code green" was 65%, a "code yellow" 50%, a "code orange" 35%, and a "code red" 20%. I also placed Joseph Cao in the "code orange" category.

The Republicans need to pick up 41 seats to get a majority. If Geraghy is right and my probabilities are reasonable, that gives them a 99.5% chance of doing so. Wow! It's worth looking at how the odds break down for some other possible splits.

Split	# of GOP Pickups	Probability
DEM +1 (or more)	40 or les	0.5%
GOP +1 (or more)	41+	99.5%
GOP +5 (or more)	43+	98.5%
GOP +11 (or more)	46+	93.7%
GOP +15 (or more)	48+	86.5%
GOP +21 (or more)	51+	68.0%
GOP +25 (or more)	53+	51.8%
GOP +31 (or more)	56+	27.8%

It's certainly looking very good for the GOP right now. Just to check myself, I re-ran the study with more conservative probabilities (thus reducing the likelihood of taking over any seat), and even then the GOP has an 81% chance to end up with a 15-seat (or better) majority. It's the GOP's race to lose.

Liveblogging the UK Election

Just accidentally turned on CSPAN in time to catch live coverage of the UK election. Pretty interesting, and dignified in that British way.

Thus far, the Conservatives are getting about 37% of the vote, with the balance coming from the Lib-Dems. My prediction is that the Tories will come agonizingly close to a majority, but ultimately fall short. They are at 223 seats with 227 going to competing parties, and that just-under-50% ratio has held for quite a while. Stay tuned...

UK Election Update

In a previous post, I wrote that the UK was heading to a hung parliament and a coalition government. After two more debates and Gordon Brown's pathetic "bigotgate", they're still heading there. The latest polls have the Conservatives at 34%, Labour at 27-29%, and the Lib-Dems at 27-31%. At these levels, either the Tories or Labour will need to find around another 4% to eke out a majority, and nothing that's happened in the past two weeks have created that much movement.

The Path to a Hung Parliament

I've been playing with these interactive tools at BBC: poll tracker and election seat calculator.

If we leave the Other category fixed at 9%, and set the Lib-Dems to various fixed positions (I used 2% intervals between 18% and 30%), then we can use the calculator to determine the breakeven points at which Labour or the Conservatives can obtain an outright majority. The breakdown looks like this:

Conservatives	Labour	Lib Dem
37.6%	31.5%	30%
38.1%	32.0%	28%
38.5%	32.7%	26%
39.1%	33.6%	24%
39.8%	34.4%	22%
40.6%	35.2%	20%
41.1%	36.1%	18%

To read this table, assume the Lib-Dems get the percentage given in their column. Then the other two columns give the minimum fraction of total votes needed to secure a majority.

The latest polls have the Lib-Dems with 30-31% of the vote, the Conservatives with 33%, and Labour with 27-28%. That is, both Labour and the Conservatives are around 4% short of a majority. Even if the Liberal-Democrats slide in the polls, either of the major parties would need to capture nearly all of the defecting voters to get a majority. For example, suppose the Lib-Dems slide to 20% by election time. In this scenario, there are 10% up for grabs. To reach a majority at that level, the Conservatives need 40.6%, up 7.6% from their current polling. But Labour would need 35.2%, up 7.2-8.2%. So in either case, the defectors would have to split something like 3:1 for one of the major parties to avoid a hung parliament.

It's worth noting, by the way, that the poll of polls result before the debate shows Conservatives 39%, Labour 32%, Lib-Dems 18%, Other 9%... and the calculator shows that to be a hung parliament as well.

Brown v. Coakley

Scott Brown is changing the game in the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat vacated when Ted Kennedy died. The latest PPP poll has Brown up by 5. If Brown were to win, it would have massive repercussions:

• First win by a Republican Senator in Massachusetts in 40 years
• Democrats lose filibuster-proof 60th Senate vote
• Shock waves go through Democrats up for election in 2010 (if a Dem can lose in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, where can't he lose?)
  

The Intrade markets involved in these issues have been active lately, of course. Currently, the market predicts a brown victory at about a 2-1 spread, and that's up from about even just days ago. Brown still seems to have all the momentum. The question of whether the federal government will administer a public option health care plan has dropped from 10% to around 2% since the Brown surge.

The election is Tuesday. Athwart History will certainly be watching closely.

More on Early 2010 Senate Projections

In the spirit of climate science and financial derivatives, let's put some mathematical gloss on those horserace projections from yesterday.

First, let's pick some probabilities out of the air like Al Gore mentioning that there's a 75% chance of there being no Arctic ice in six years. For the sake of argument, say that if John J. Miller considers it a "likely retention", then the party retains 90% of the time. If he considers it "leaning retention", then the party retains 75% of the time. And if he considers it a toss-up, it's a 50/50 proposition. In that case, his breakdown gives us:

• 4 GOP seats are "likely retain"
• 3 GOP seats are "leaning retain"
• 8 seats are "toss-ups"
• 5 DEM seats are "leaning retain"

So assuming independence, it's a simple matter to calculate the probability of different senate compositions after the 2010 elections. And without further ado, it looks like this:

• 21% chance that the GOP ends up with 39 or fewer seats
• 17% chance that the GOP ends up with 40 seats (same as today)
• 61% chance that the GOP ends up with 41-45 seats
• 1% chance that the GOP ends up with 46 or more seats

The bad news for the GOP is that of Miller's 20 "interesting" races, half of them are currently owned by the GOP. Naturally it would be better for them if their races were safe and all the DEM-controlled seats were in play. The worse news is that there's at least one chance in five that, even with the favorable poll numbers we're currently seeing, the GOP could drop even below 40, and two chances in five that they go no higher than 40. That would keep the filibuster off the table (although, as we've seen with health care, corraling 60 senators can be harder than it might be, especially in the teeth of countervailing public opinion).

The good news for the GOP, of course, is that there are three chances in five that they pick up some seats.

Take this analysis with liberal doses of salt and any other spices you happen to come across. Things are looking moderately up for the GOP, but there's a lot of work to be done before next November.

Early 2010 Senate Projections

On NRO today, John J. Miller runs down the 2010 Senate races. It's very early, so these are about as accurate as using, say, the rings on a single tree in Siberia to predict global warming. But if you assume the toss-ups really are basically 50/50 propositions and that the leaning or likely retentions hold as Miller predicts, then the GOP picks up just one seat. (Eight toss-ups, five for Dem seats and three for GOP seats.) Of course, with the 60-40 Senate balance today, one seat is a big deal.

Here are the toss-ups: Colorado (Dem), Connecticut (Dem), Missouri (Rep), Nevada (Dem), New Hampshire (Rep), North Dakota (Dem), Ohio (Rep), Pennsylvania (Dem).