2/12/2006

U.S. House of Representatives forecast for November 2006

My DD has the usual "we can win everywhere" forecast. One slight problem with these forecasts: they always miss the local races that one's party loses.

Still it's a valuable record to use as a benchmark. I shall issue my own forecast around April.

In other news from My DD, the opinion polls are starting to show a narrowing of the Democrat lead. The problem this year is that as a mid-term election, the party that organises best and mobilises its core vote usually outperforms the opinion polls. With very few truly competitive races, expect any claims of a landslide to be disappointed.

Between them the two stories read: "We're going to win!" and "Shut up! don't look at the polls. They're Bushitler lies!"

For the record, Election Vote Predictor 2004 (see sidebar) showed the following in May 2004: May 24 Bush win 281-257, and May 25 Kerry win 320-218. These are the earliest figures I could find. The result was George W. Bush 286, John Ferry 251. As these forecasts were made on the basis of aggregating U.S. opinion polls, I see no reason to assume that they're overstating the Republican vote on the day. Far from it.

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