Stuart’s Final Election Predictions

by Stuart Shapiro

First, a few resources:

— The indispensable Nate Silver has an hour-by-hour guide to key races in the House to keep by your side while watching the returns tomorrow night.

— For a liberal perspective, Daily Kos has the same thing but in a format designed to look at things from the left.  For the House, click here, and for the Senate and gubernatorial races click here.

Now keep in mind that there is more uncertainty in this election than any in recent memory.  Any result from the Democrats holding the House to the Republicans winning the Senate and picking up a 20-seat edge in the House is within the margins of error and hence should surprise no one.  I tend to think that Democrats will do better than projected, but that may be naive optimism on my part.

In the Senate, I think they will have 53 seats on Wednesday (or whenever Alaska gets counted).  They will win in CA, WA, WV, CO, and IL and lose in PA, NV, WI, and in all seats currently held by Republicans (Murkowski will win in Alaska).

In the House, I think the GOP takes over with a razor-thin majority of less than 10 seats.  This would still mean a swing of over 40 seats in their direction.

In the governor races, I think the Dems win the big states (CA, NY, and FL) but lose the rust belt (PA, WI, OH, IL, and IA) with the exception of Minnesota.  They also hold on in Oregon.

Put your predictions in the comments.  I’ll try to go against my nature and congratulate those who do better than me on Wednesday.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.