Sean Oxendine's blog

I found this link from James Pethokoukis' (very excellent) blog, with some interesting questions.  My own brief answers are (1) probably, (2) look how Bush's presidency turned out (3) see 1982 midterm elections, (4) I don't think so.  He knows Republicans benefitted mightily from Bush not having a successor, (5) yes, but I don't think they will have an all-white-male ticket again, and (6) 2012.  What do you all think?

1. Was this really the shattering of a glass ceiling?  If George H.W. Bush had won in 1992 and the field were wide open and the economy were in the toilet in 1996, would Obama and the campaign that he ran in 2008 have also won in 1996?  I think so.  What do you think?
2. Why do Democrats still have to answer Republican questions, even when they win the election?  George W. Bush loses the popular vote and governs like he won a mandate.  Obama wins convincingly and he is somehow supposed to take it slow?  Not if he really does want to solidify a realignment.
3. What happens if these new voters from 2008 are unemployed in 2010 or 2012?  I'm guessing they will want change again.  Obama has such a tough road ahead of him.
4. If the Obama administration is going well in 2012, would Obama drop Biden as a running mate to set up a chosen successor for 2016?
5. Will the Democrats ever nominate a white male for the top spot again?
6. When will the Republicans nominate someone for the top spot who is much younger than his Democratic opponent?

As we work on developing our RightRoots, one thing to decide is what aspects of the NetRoots' model are worth adapting, and which are worth jettisoning.  Personally I am skeptical of the 50-state strategy, especially at the Presidential level, and believe that if the stock market hadn't collapsed in September we would be hearing all manner of recriminations about Obama's spending in North Dakota and Montana right now.

But one thing the Netroots have been absolutely 100% spot-on about is the need to put someone on the ballot in all 435 districts.  This isn't to say that it is important to send money to these candidates or strongly support them, but it is to say that Congressmen shouldn't be given a pass, because you can't beat something with nothing.  If there's no one on the ballot, if the incumbent pulls a DeLay, or a Foley, or a Sherwod, or a . . . well, you get the idea, you don't win.

That said, I'm not terribly upset that we didn't have a candidate on the ballot in districts like AL-07 or for that matter in most of the 41 districts the GOP didn't contest (see table below).  But what is unforgiveable is that there were fifteen districts with PVI's of D+10 or less where the GOP didn't put up a candidate.  There were eleven districts with PVI's of D+5 or less where the GOP didn't put up a candidate.

What makes this worse is that many of these districts were in states like Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia, where the Democratic ticket performed horribly this year.  If there was ever a place where an upset of a sleeping Democratic incumbent could occur, these were the places.  Places where Republicans performed reasonably well in 2006 (under the circumstances) (note to self:  your off-the-top-of-your-head memory of margins of victory is not nearly as good as you think) like WV-01 were left empty.

Tom Cole had a tough task recruiting this year because a smart challenger would look at the playing field, look at history, and conclude that 2010 was a much better year to run.  But as we move toward 2010 there are no excuses, and we should make sure someone is on the ballot in all of these races.

Chart  below the fold.

Much has been written already about whether 2008 is a re-aligning election. I suppose that this is a small fraction of what will be written in the coming months. I laid my thoughts out here, here, here, here and here about whether 2008 would be re-aligning, and my answer is still a cautious “no.” I’ll have more to say later on the subject, but without getting too “Karl Popper” on you, I find most of the arguments for emerging re-alignments to be the worst kind of historicist junk. Just as an example, while it is true that the youth vote voted overwhelmingly Democratic, this forgets that eight years ago it was split. There’s nothing to say that four years from now it won’t be split again, especially if Obama has a rough time of things (indeed, a large part of why that generation is heavily Democratic for now is that twenty-somethings’ political memory consists of a competent Democratic President and an incompetent Republican President).

There are certainly arguments to the contrary (for one thing, the left dominates many of the information avenues to these voters, which will probably take more than one or two cycles to remedy), but we have no way of sorting them out with anything other than mere guesswork. In short, I find these arguments about as convincing as I found arguments in 2004 that we were encountering a permanent Republican majority (“We won 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties!!!!”). A re-alignment may be brewing, but we really won’t be able to know until we are well into it.

For now, I’d like to take a close look at how Obama built his map. We note at the beginning his solid, but not overwhelming, majority in the electoral college, which presently looks to be about 364 to 174. Again, this is a solid win, but it is not LBJ 1964. This is fairly remarkable, considering that you have to go back to 1952 or possibly even 1920 to find an open race where the climate was similarly inhospitable to the incumbent party. Both of those resulted in double-digit popular vote wins for the out-party running into the 400s in the Electoral College.

Michael Barone links to a map of how counties voted, courtesy of the Washington Post here. There’s also a cool 3-D map you can click on, though it takes an awfully long time to load. But this isn’t particularly illuminating, as all it shows is the binary choice of Obama/McCain. But the difference between a county or state going 50-49 Obama and 50-49 McCain isn’t as interesting to me as the difference between a county or state going 10-90 McCain as opposed to 10-90 Obama. We need maps that show gradations of red, purple, and blue. A map like this is more useful.

But rather than take the absolute results, what I would like to do is look at the Partisan Voting Index (with a doff of the hat to Charlie Cook for the term) for the states. What this does is take the states and compare them against the candidates’ national average. In other words, if a candidate wins nationally with 55 percent of the two-party vote, and wins a state with 55 percent of the two-party vote, the PVI is zero. This basically allows us to look at what states fall on the right and the left side of the political spectrum as it manifests in a particular election. More importantly, by taking the states and reducing them to the same baseline (e.g. R/D+0), it also allows us to compare elections with very different national results, to see how much the underlying map has changed.

With the amount of spending, advertising, registering, and organizing that occurred in this election, targeted as it was at certain states, we should expect to see significant distortions in the maps. This is especially true if a re-alignment is taking place, as re-alignments are almost always accompanied by substantial regions of the dominant parties electoral coalition breaking off. A classic example here are the 1928 and 1932 elections. Given the substantial upheaval in the electoral college, it should be unsurprising that in 1932, only four states were within a 2 points of their PVI in 1928.

Below are the relative maps for 2004 and 2008. Pure purple means that the state’s PVI is between -2 and 2; slightly bluer means a Dem PVI of 3-4; each gradation means another two points until you hit the darkest blue or red, which means a PVI of 10+.

I will let readers draw their own conclusions, but to me the maps look largely identical. Despite a billion dollars spent between the two candidates in carefully targeting states, each candidate ended up, relatively speaking, within 2.5 points of where their counterparts ended up four years earlier, in thirty-one states.

These include several critical swing states where heavy advertising, organizing, and registering of voters should have moved them more than the national average. In the end NM, NV, VA, and CO moved about as little as did states that were ignored by the campaigns such as VT, IL, CA, and ID. What states moved?

Kid has hand-foot-mouth disease (not a serious illness, but pretty annoying to a 15-month-old), so my longer analysis is going to have to wait a day or two.  I'll have plenty to say, but for the moment, believe it or not, Republicans appear to have dodged a bullet.  More later

For now, congratulations to President-elect Obama.  While I probably agree with about 3% of what you're going to try to do (more on that later), we'll have plenty of time for discussing that over the next four years.  For now, all Americans should enjoy the historic nature of this moment.  It should be a major step forward in race relations (whether the powerful entrenched interests who have a major stake in racial grievance mongering allow that to happen is another thing altogether).  From the time we're young, every child is taught that in America, anyone can grow up to be President.  Not all believe it.  But we've had plenty of proof over the past years that the Presidency is not limited to people born with silver spoons in their mouth, and now we have proof that it is not limited to people with a caucasian phenotype.  In that sense, it is a good day for all of America, and that is change even I can believe in.

Whether it is a good day overall for America in the long run depends on which Barack Obama shows up for the inauguration.  We saw two Obama's over the course of this campaign.  We were introduced to primary candidate Obama in the first half of the year.  This Barack Obama won on promises of hundreds of billions in new spending, a hasty withdrawal from Iraq, unconditional meetings with dictators, revision and/or abandonment of free trade agreements, swift passage of the Freedom of Choice Act, and a repudiation of the Reagan/Clinton/Bush approach to governing the economy.

Then there is the Obama who won the general election.  Based on what I saw through his advertisements in Virginia, this candidate won on promises to protect the right to keep and bear arms, a massive middle class tax cut, a health care plan somewhere in  the middle of a free-market appraoch and government-run health care, a net spending cut and continuous acknowledgement that government doesn't have all the answers to our problems.  This Barack Obama essentially ran as Bill Clinton's third term.

I firmly believe from past associations, voting records, and the various unscripted comments made over the course of the campaign that "primary candidate Obama" is the "real" Obama.  If that President Obama shows up, the economy, already sapped by the financial crisis and the cyclical close of a lengthy expansion, will not improve, the country will remain divided, and his party will have a rough election in 2010.  For all the talk of the desire for a new approach, exit polling shows the country to be barely more liberal than it has been since 1972.  If "Presidential candidate" Obama shows up to govern in spite of his instincts (much as Bill Clinton did for his second term), there could be a solidified political re-alignment in American politics.  We'll see what happens, but I hope for the good of the country that "Presidential candidate" Obama is who shows up. 

I guess I should also note that there has been "running from behind/coming under fire" Obama.  This is the Obama of "lipstick on a pig/old dead fish/you're likeable enough."  We only saw glimpses of this Obama, because there were so few moments where he didn't look to be on a course of winning his campaign.  But with Democrats firmly in control of the executive and legislative branches, at some point in the next year, Obama is going to be in bad political shape.  If "coming under fire" Obama looks anything like it did during the campaign, it will get very ugly.

In the meantime, I went over to Obama's tax calculator and was pleased to see that I am entitled to a $1,500 tax reduction.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.

In 2004, the 5pm exit polls had Kerry up 1 in FL, up 5 in OH, up 16 in PA, down 6 in NC.

Drudge is reporting that exits have Obama up 15 in PA, and "too close to call" in FL, IN, and OH.  Gawker (I know) is reporting exits showing Obama up 4 in PA, up 2 in VA, down 2 in NC, up 1 in FL, and up 1 in OH. 

If these are actually the early exits, Obama looks to be performing about as well as Kerry was in 2004, if not a little worse.  Maybe the exit poll consortium has fixed the problem it had in 2002 and 2004.  Maybe.

Okay, that's what I get for listening to Gawker.  I'm stuck with this post, but won't stick the front page with it.

A bunch of people have asked me what to pay attention to as polls close.  My answer is simple:  Watch Indiana.  If the polls close there and McCain is winning by 4 or more points (roughly), we'll have some indicators that the Obama blowout scenario is unlikely to occur, and that the RNC has done a good job of matching Obama's GOTV effort, and has likely improved upon its outstanding 2004 performance.  If it looks like McCain is losing, then the worst case scenario -- Obama inching up toward 400 EVs -- is upon us.  If we're in a protracted count, then we're somewhere in the middle, which probably isn't good for McCain.  Probably not a blowout, but probably not a win.

The reason I say Indiana and not Virginia is that Virginia is an atypical state.  There aren't too many other states that have something akin to Fairfax County, and not with such high of a percentage of African American voters.  Virginia might give us some insight into North Carolina, but I think Indiana will give us a good look at what to expect in OH and PA (ie it will be somewhere to the right of those states).

And if Mark E. Souder is losing in IN-03, say hello to a really massive Democratic House majority.

UPDATE:  This isn't good.  Looking at the counties that are more-or-less in, McCain is running consistently about 10 points behind Bush's 2004 results.  Of course, running 11 points behind Bush statewide means McCain loses.  And this doesn't count any votes from Lake or Marion county.  I have a hard time seeing how McCain wins.

On the plus side, Mark Souder is running ahead of his 2006 turnout.  This isn't great news, but it is good.

UPDATE2:  Wow.  Virgil Goode looks like he might lose.  Not good(e).

Now for the big enchilada.  In 2004 I predicted all 538 electoral votes in each state, and predicted Bush's percentage in 45 states within 2% of the actual results (curse you, AL, MS, ND, RI, and VT!).  So keep in mind that if you think I'm showing pro- or anti- McCain bias, my real incentive here is not to lose my bragging rights.

The state polling is interesting.  The OxMethod weighted polling, then re-weighted by state population to make a national sample, shows a 50.9-43.7 Obama lead.  This is akin to what the RCP average of national polling is showing right now.

The OxMethod polling presently shows Obama with a 353 to 185 electoral vote lead.  What is interesting is that to get to electoral vote 269, McCain would only have to shift the country 5.7 points to the right.  To get electoral vote 270 (and 271-274 as it happens), McCain would only have to shift the country 6 points to the right. 

In other words, the tipping point for the electoral and popular votes do not match up.  If McCain ends up losing the popular vote by around two points, he could still pull an electoral college upset.  In other words, if Tarrance has it right, we could be looking at a situation that makes 2000 look like child's play.  What makes this possible is a candidate who excites key Democratic demographics on the coasts and in the deep south, but not enough to flip that many electoral votes given some weaknesses he has in some the interior swing states.  I don't think Tarrance probably has it right, but more on that later.

The number one factor in analyzing this election has been that no one -- NO ONE -- really knows what the electorate will look like.  We've seen some turnout scenarios that look pretty implausible, such as Virginia flipping from slightly +R in 2006 to +10D in some SurveyUSA polling.  But we can't really discount the possibility, given the historic nature of the Democrats' candidacy, and the external factors dragging down the Republican ticket.  We hear anecdotal evidence going both ways on exit polling of early voters, and there's really no way to sort this out.

And we have a candidate on the Democratic side who has some history of underperforming the polls.  Will it translate to the general election?  We don't know yet.  We know much about the Democratic turnout machine, just like in 2004.   Will it perform (as it did in 2004), but find itself outmatched by an under-the-radar Republican effort (like 2004)?  Will college students in Richmond and Philly get out of bed to brave a pretty crummy day?  Will their increased numbers be swamped by the naturally increasing 65+ demographic?  And how much are polls already "baking in" a massive, unmatched Obama turnout that may or may not occur.

We can't know the answer to these questions ahead of time, and it makes predicting things all the more difficult.  The one bright side is that the last-minute swing in undecideds that was picked up in the national polling the last couple days can't be replicated in state polling.  This is because the state polling generally does a better job of pushing undecideds, so there are fewer leaners to allocate.

Without further adieu, here's my breakdown, with analysis when helpful:

AL:  63-37 McCain (9, 0)

AK: 59-41 McCain (12, 0)

AZ: Undecideds here break against the well-known McCain for a 52-48 win.  A major Republican headache in future years.  (22, 0)

AR: 54-46 McCain (28, 0)

CA: 62-38 Obama (28, 55)

CO: This is an interesting state.  As Geraghty has discussed, the Democrats' early voting edge has not been through the roof here -- it is improved to be sure, but not overwhelming.  How much are pollsters already counting on such an edge for Obama?  Call it a surprsingly narrow 52-48 win for Obama.  (28, 64).

CT: 58-42 Obama (28, 71). 

DE: 64-36 Biden (28, 74).

FL: I had a really hard time picking this state.  The OxMethod has Obama at 48.85%, and McCain at 46.8%.  But Bush overperformed the state by over five points in 2004, and McCain has the momentum.  Obama leads in early voting, but so did Kerry.  Of course, early voters probably make up a larger portion of the electorate, making it harder to overcome the deficit  I pick an upset for McCain here, 50.5-49.5%.  (55, 74)

GA: Closing quickly, but not quickly enough.  A surprising squeeker here.  Apparently populist conservatives don't like Wall Street Bailouts much.  McCain, 52-48% (70, 74)

HI: 70-30 native son.  (70, 78)

ID: Too bad Romney isn't on the ticket to push McCain to 80% here.  66-34 McCAin (74, 74).

IL: 61-39 Obama (74, 99)

IN: An Obama upset here isn't out of the question, but in the end the state is just too red for him to overcome.  52.5-47.5 McCain (85, 99)

IA: It's odd that both campaigns have been here of late, given that Obama is up 54-39 in the polling.  57-43 Obama (85, 106)

KS: McCain 59-41 (91, 106)

KY: Obama doesn't get too many undecideds here.  59-41 McCain (99, 106)

LA: A big AA turnout is already baked into the polls.  55-45 McCain (108, 106)

ME: 57-43 Obama (108, 110)

MD: 62-38 Obama (108, 120)

MA: Surprisingly poor performance for Obama, given the national mood.  61-39 Obama (108, 132)

MI: People blame McCain's slide on his abandoning the state, but this puts the cart before the horse.  56-44 Obama (108, 149)

MN: SUSA poll looks like an outlier, but hopefully it isn't.  But if I were about hope, I guess I'd be voting for the other guy.  55-45 Obama (108, 159)

MS: AA turnout keeps this surprisingly close.  54-46 McCain (114, 159)

MO: Close one in the polls.  This is a gut call, but I give McCain the tiniest of edges.  Possible litigation here if other states end up close.  50.3-49.7 (125, 159)

MT: Some cash and organizers close the gap, but not enough.  53-47 McCain (128, 159)

NE: See MT.  58-42 McCain.  Keep an eye on the second district (133, 159).

NV: Geraghty makes a fine case for a McCain win, but I just don't see it.  If Jon Porter hangs on in NV-03, look for him to be the next junior Senator from Nevada.  52-48 Obama (133, 164).

NH: Well, you have a primary come-from-behind win for McCain, and a primary collapse for Obama.  Don't see it repeating here.  54-46 Obama (133, 168)

NJ: 58-42 Obama (133, 183)

NM: Neighboring state once looked good for McCain.  Not any more.  Still, I think he gets some undecideds here.  54-46 Obama (133, 188)

NY:  This will not end well.  68-32 Obama (133, 219)

NC:  Another close one, but Obama seems to have a ceiling at 49%.  Incidentally, early voting here shows the limits of early voting analysis.  The first day showed a huge AA turnout, which tapered over time.  This indicated that it might be more of a case of AA's excited to vote for Obama and turning out really early than something that will be sustained into regular voting.  51-49 McCain (148, 219).  It's not really an upset, but it is going against the .3% edge Obama has in weighted polling (problem is that the trend has been against him, so earlier polling is probably artificially inflating his present standing).

ND:  See MT.  Also note that Bush's performance in these states is probably inflated by cultural affinity that McCain (and Bob Dole, who nearly lost SD in '96) don't share.  52, 48 McCain (151, 219)

OH: Recent polling trend favors McCain heavily here, and Obama is generally stuck below 50%.  I really want to call this one McCain, but I'm going to call it 48-52 Obama (151, 219)

OK: My home state comes through for J Mac, 63-37 (158, 219). 

OR: No longer a swing state.  57-43 Obama (158, 246)

PA: If you watched the Morning Call tracking poll cut Obama's lead in half in the last week, you'll understand why McCain is spending so much time there.  And that poll uses D+10 for its model; it was D+5 in 2006.  SUSA has Obama +9 and barely above 50% in a D+13 model).  An upset isn't impossible, but I still have to say 53-47 Obama. (158, 267)

RI: 60-40 Obama (158, 271)

SC: 54-46 McCain (166, 271)

SD: 53-47 McCain (169, 271)

DC: Forgot about this.  90-10 Obama (169, 274)

TN: 58-42 McCain (180, 274)

TX: 55-45 McCain (214, 274)

UT: See ID.  62-38 McCain (219, 274)

VT: 66-34 Obama.  (219, 277)

VA: The partisan breakdown of the polling gives me pause, but I still have to go with Obama here.  53-47.  (219, 290)

WA: 57-43 Obama (219, 301)

WV:  55-45 McCain  (224, 301)

WI: Same day voter fraud won't be the difference maker this year.  56-44 Obama (224, 311)

WY: 60-40 McCain (227, 311)

National total: Obama 53.4%, McCain 46.6%

All totals are 2PV

Before Sunday, McCain was actually in a better poll position than many imagined.  Not that he was in a good poll position, but it wasn't hopeless.  The tracking poll range was about a 2 to 9 point lead for Obama, which was actually the final ranges for Bush against Gore.  As we know Gore ended up winning the popular vote, and about half the country is convinced he won the electoral vote as well.  There was also a good case for McCain getting the lion's share of the undecideds, given their demographic makeup and the fact that Obama had spent three quarters of a billion dollars and had still not won them over.  Add into that the fact that the difference between the 2-point poll and the 9-point poll appeared to be structural, having more to do with the model for likely voter turnout than simply arising from random variance, and you had at least a straight-faced argument for McCain winning.

Sunday night, that changed.  All the the tracking polls moved toward Obama.  Even IBD and Battleground, the two polls whose models seemed to be the most favorable toward McCain, shifted from 2-point races to 4- or 5-point races.  At that point, even under the best-case McCain turnout scenario, it became much harder to argue that undecideds and error margins could result in a McCain electoral win.

At that point the only hope was that this would be a one-day blip.  That's part of the reason that I've held off doing electoral college projections -- I wanted to see what the trackers did today.

I'll tell you, it ain't pretty.  Zogby has gone from an 8-point Obama lead to a 13.5-point Obama lead.  IBD/TIPP went from O+4.5% to O+7%.  Given that tracking polls are rolling averages, and are therefore "sticky," the move is probably even more pronounced than we are seeing.  In other words, undecideds seem to be breaking heavily for Obama.

Obviously when your candidate is down two to nine points to begin with, this is not a good thing.  At this point, the polls would have to be catastrophically wrong for Obama to lose.  Polls have been substantially wrong before.  They might be now.  If you want to help make them wrong, you have to get out and vote!

Electoral College predictions by 1pm Tuesday.  For now, the other races.

Governor (D+1)

There are eleven Governor's races this year:  WA, MT, UT, ND, MO, IN, WV, NC, DE, VT,and NH.  Only five are of interest.

MO: This race became interesting when incumbent Matt Blunt decided not to run for re-election.  That set up a primary runoff between Sarah Steelman (who if elected could have run with Sarah Palin in 2012/2016 on my "all impure thoughts" ticket) and Kenny Hulshof.  Republicans picked Hulshof.  Apparently choosing a member of the most unpopular legislative body since Cromwell's Long Parliament wasn't a winning strategy, as he is being walloped in the polls by a Democratic candidate who generally loses his top-of-the-ticket statewide races.   Nixon 56, Hulshof 44.

IN:  Gov. Mitch Daniels looked vulnerable for most of his term, but has turned it around and leads former Congressman Jill Long Thompson by a wide margin.  Daniels 59, Thompson 41.

VT:  Gov. Jim Douglas (R) will win his 3-way race.  The problem is, if he doesn't get to 50%, it goes to the (heavily Democratic) legislature.  Most observers think that since Douglas will likely win by 20+ points the legislature will keep him.   I'm not so certain.

NC: In a normal year, Pat McCrory (R) would beat Bev Perdue running away.  He's out campaigned her, out debated her, and out worked her ("I can out-learn you. I can out-read you. I can out-think you. And I can out-philosophize you. ").  Plus, Democrats have held the Governor's mansion for almost 20 years, a run which is unusual for either party in any state.  But as everyone knows, this is not a normal year.  The polls are tight, but most polls show movement toward Perdue, though both are under 50%.  Look for Perdue to squeek this out, 51.5-48.5.

WA: Similar story as NC.  Rossi is a great candidate, and the polls have been close, but with Gov. Gregoire hovering around 50%.  In a normal year, he'd win, but I think she'll win surprisingly easily this year, 53-47%. 

House (D+22)

This is hard to predict, and this is really more of a guess than anything.  In 2006 we had a plethora of good district-by-district polling.  This year, we're left with pretty intermittant SUSA polling, campaign polls, and Kos/R2K polls (which even Jerome Armstrong has labeled as not salvageable, at least in the national iteration).  And weird things are going on.  For one thing, as I've noted before Democrats are not performing in the generic balloting as they would if you expected them to pick up another 30 seats.  Stu Rothenberg is my favorite House handicapper, but SUSA has races like NY-26, and KY-2 as double-digit Republican leads, even as he classifies them as tossups. 

On the other hand, the NRCC sure is spending and cutting from races as if it expects a debacle, and Virgil Goode is running negative ads against his opponent here in Richmond, a sure sign he expects a closer race than he normally gets. 

So here's what I think.  Republicans pick up FL-16, TX-22, NH-01, PA-11, LA-06, and AL-05.  Democrats get AK-AL, AZ-01, FL-24, NY-13, NY-25, OH-16, VA-11, NC-08, NM-01, NM-02, MI-09, IL-11, CO-04, PA-03, OH-15 (too bad), NY-29, NE-02, CT-04, FL-21, MD-01, MI-07, and WA-08.  I'll also say that there are an additional 6 seats they will pickup where sleepy incumbents did not erect a sufficient defence, for a net pickup of 22.  But it's mostly guesswork here at this point.  I wouldnt' be shocked if they hit 30, and quite frankly I wouldn't be shocked to see more limited gains.

Senate (D+7)

The big storyline is whether Democrats can get to 60.  It's a false storyline, because Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe will join with Democrats on many issues to break filibusters, and more than a few Democrats will join with Republicans on issues to keep them (I'm looking at you, Ben Nelson).  But it makes for good theatre.  Onwards!

We'll set aside the eleven seats for each party generally regarded as safe.

AK: Most polls show a surprisingly close race for a Senator just convicted of eight felonies.  Interestingly, Lisa Murkowski led in all of one poll in 2004 before pulling it out.  Won't happen here.  Begich 56, Stevens 44.  Thanks Ted.

CO: Mark Udall is way to the left of this state (co-sponsor of the Department of Peace?), but it doesn't matter in a year like this.  Schaffer's never been above 44 percent in a poll.  Udall 57, Schaffer 43.

GA:  Saxby, you shouldn't have voted for the bailout bill when you were up for re-election in this populist state.  Chambliss 49, Martin 48, and it heads to a runoff which Chambliss wins.

KY:  McConnell's numbers have improved, and Obama isn't going to help Lunsford any here.  McConnell 54, Lunsford 46.

LA:  Polls have shown a tightening, and Jindal has cut an ad for Kennedy, indicating he doesn't think it is hopeless.  Still, it probably isn't enough, and a huge black turnout will crush Kennedy's hopes.  Landrieu 52, Kennedy 48, but don't rule out an upset here.

ME:  One of the Democrats' best hopes early on never really panned out.  Collins 56 Allen 44.

MN:  One of the toughest races to call.  Only the Strib poll has Franken ahead, and it historically tilts Democratic.  Independent Dean Barkley is a wildcard here, since they tend to underperform nationally, but overperform in MN.  Still, I gotta say Coleman 52, Franken 48 (2PV).

MS:  Wicker seems to be pulling away in this special election.  On the one hand, high African American turnout could help Musgrove, on the other hand, the fact that candidates don't run with party labels could diminish the impact of this somewhat.  Wicker 54, Musgrove 46.

NH:  An interesting race.  Sununu is waaaaay down, which is never a good sign.  But Shaheen is dancing around 50%, and the case can be made that she is the incumbent for all intents and purposes in this race.  But not a strong one.  Shaheen 55, Sununu 45.  Too bad.  Sununu is a good Senator.

NM:  See CO.  Udall is too far to the left for the state, but he'll still win walking away.  Udall 57, Pearce 43.

NC:  This is one where the DSCC's cash edge really hurt.  Mason Dixon has Dole up 1, but the difference is the number of undecideds; Dole's 46% doesn't inspire confidence.  Hagan 52/48.

OR:  The interesting thing is that the voting is basically done in this mail-in state.  Merkley hasn't ever cracked 50% in non-partisan polling, but only Rasmussen has Smith above 43%.  I hope Rasmussen knows something the rest of us don't, because Smith is a good Senator as well.  Merkley 54%, Smith 46%

VA:  Will Mark Warner top 60%?  My guess is he will.  Warner's career will be interesting to watch, as he ran and governed as moderate Republican, quite frankly.  Will he get on board with the Obama plan?  Will he be able to win 60% next in this purple state with a voting record on the left of the Senate?  Time will tell.  Warner 63%, Gilmore 37%.  Time for Virginia Republicans to start rebuilding.

Even though this isn't my bailiwick, I thought I'd throw my two cents in on the debate on defining the next right.  In one sense this is probably the most pessimistic post being bandied about, because it doesn't lend itself to an easy solution.  Nonetheless, to find the correct solution one must first properly identify the disease, and I think this goes a long way toward identifying the disease.

Quite frankly, the Right is in many ways a victim of its successes.  This is by no means unique to the Right, as the left was similarly victimized from 1938-1964, and from 1966 to the present.  The public in democracies has never been particularly generous to parties or candidates once they fulfil the goals that they were elected to achieve; there's a reason Winston Churchill lost his post-World War II election.

When one looks back on what the Right was initially installed to do, at various times from 1968-2004, it becomes clear that it has achieved the vast majority of what is was sent to do (this does not equate with what it wants to do).  Communism is more-or-less wiped from the place of the Earth.  Al Qaeda has been largely dismantled, and Iraq has stabilized.  Tax rates are well off their Post-World War II highs of 90%, and are even well below the rates brought about after Reagan's initial tax cuts; our present debate is over whether the top rate should be 35% or 39% and whether capital gains should be taxed at 15% or 20%.  The crime spike of the 1960s and 70s is over, and now even a true-believing leftist like Obama professes support for the death penalty.  The Warren Court excesses are reigned in -- while the Court hasn't moved as far to the right as many on the Right would like, it doesn't seem primed to recognize shopping malls as state actors again any time soon.

Even on things such as global warming and health care, the debate has moved sharply to the right.  The solution to global warming is not a flat ban on emissions; instead it is a cap-and-trade system similar to that imposed in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.  Setting aside debate regarding the need for such a system in the first place (because that debate really bores me anymore), one must recall that thirty years ago the notion of government creating a market for pollution was a pretty radical one; even in my late 90s law school property class many of my classmates were appalled at the notionn.

In health care, we've gone from the left advocating single payer in the 1970s to a government HMO in the 1990s, to assisting people with obtaining private insurance.  The fact that all three Democrats' plans were basically more regulated versions of RomneyCare in Massachuetts tells us much about the present frame of the debate.

What does that leave the Right with?  Taxes can only come down so much, and I think most people intuitively accept that with a trillion dollar deficit coming down the pike, further tax cuts are unreasonable in the near term.  Government  can only ban gay marriage once (well, two or three times in some states if you count the law, constitutional amendments and statements of public policy, but you get my drift).  Partial birth abortion was banned with substantial Democratic support, most states have parental notification laws, public funding for abortion is effectively off the table (sorry, but FOCA is going nowhere in this Congress, even if Democrats get a filibuster-proof majority), and Roe's strict trimester approach has been abandoned in favor of a regime that has pushed back the threshold for increased regulation substantially, and will continue to do so as medical science improves.

Instead the Right is left with policies which may make good sense, but are so radical that they are nearly impossible to sell to the American people.  Things like school vouchers and private social security accounts are just tough sells, as witnessed by the defeat of a school voucher program in Utah of all places.  I think private social security accounts will come in one form or another, but until we have a President who can spell 401(k), I think the idea is pretty well dead.  The American people have never been broadly supportive of long-term foreign adventures, such as, well Iraq.

The trouble is that on these issues the Right is not being conservative in the sense that most Americans tend to be skeptical of change.  It is being profoundly radical, something it is not good at, and which sets the American people on edge when either party tries it.  Indeed this is Right's major challenge: It has picked the low- and even medium-hanging fruit, and is now left with issues where it is the agent of change, and Democrats are, in effect, conservatives, defending generations-old social programs.

And so that's the challenge facing conservatives.  Having accomplished most of what modern conservatism set out to do, the Right is left with issues with a pretty narrow range of appeal.  It may be that incremental approaches on things like private accounts may work -- accepting the Democrats' offer in 2005 for private accounts outside of social security to get more people used to the idea of investing, is probably a good start, but obviously that will have to wait for the stock market to rebound, which will take some time. 

But by and large, the next few years are going to be spent fighting a rear-guard action to keep our gains from being eroded too heavily, and waiting for the Democrats to hand us issues on which to run (like we did for them with corruption, out-of-control spending, and Iraq).  I don't think it will take that long, as I don't think 2008 is the massive mandate for liberal change that many Democrats envision, and while there may be an emerging Democratic majority, there is an enduring conservative majority; the lingering association of the New Democrats of the 1990s with the latter is one of the major driving forces for the former.  Nonetheless, the fact that we're basically left defending our most popular efforts doesn't really lend itself to a strong strategy going forward.

One other thought on the netroots and the direction of the rightroots.  The effect of 50-state strategies or Kos-supported candidates in bringing about years like 2006 and 2008 are grossly overstated.  Candidates like Jim Webb and Joe Sestak didn't win because Kos funnelled some cash their way.  They won because the netroots succeeded in a different goal of theirs:  Creating their own noise machine.  The "culture of corruption" motif didn't get pinned on the GOP by accident; due diligence done by the left-o-sphere was instrumental in this effor, both in terms of framing arguments for supporters, and in terms of getting stories to the MSM.  Heck, if an intrepid young Democrat with ties to Not Larry Sabato hadn't been following George Allen around wtih a videocamera, Republicans would almost certainly still control the Senate. 

In other words, Jon has hit the nail on the head with his post here.  The Rightroots' goal in the short term needs to developing effective communication and organizational tools.  The rise of sites such as Redstate and, yes, TheNextRight, are important steps in this direction. 

The internet has always been the msot successful for groups in the wildernss.  It's the reason that the Left found such fertile territory there in the wake of the last six years of the Clinton Administration,and its the reason that Ron Paul was so successful online.  With time in the wilderness looming for conservative Republicans regardless of who wins the White House, the time to begin organizing is, well, yesterday.