Elected Democrats, suffering from plummeting approval ratings in polls and rowdy town hall meetings over healthcare in recent weeks, may endure double-digit House seat losses in 2010. Republicans might not win the 40 slots needed to give them a majority, but they could come close.
Charlie Cook, a top political analyst, wrote to clients recently that “the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats,” Politico reports.
"Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu,” Cook writes.
Consensus is building that Democrats might lose more than 20 seats.
Nate Silver, a Democratic analyst whose forecasts have proved prescient, said at a convention this month that Republicans will capture between 20 and 50 seats next year, Politico reports. He also put Republican chances of recapturing control of the House at 25 percent to 33 percent.
“A lot of Democratic freshmen and sophomores will be running in a much tougher environment than in 2006 and 2008 and some will adapt to it, but a lot of others will inevitably freak out and end up losing,” Silver told Politico.
“Complacency is another factor: We have volunteers who worked really hard in 2006 and in 2008 for Obama but it’s less compelling (for them) to preserve the majority.”
As for history, during the past five decades, the party out of power has picked up seats in 10 of the 12 mid-term elections.
Survey data indicate that trend will continue. A whopping 70 percent of independents now disapprove of how the Democrat-controlled Congress is doing its job, according to a recent Gallup Poll, cited on Fox News.
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