Can The Democrats Take Back The House?

by Stuart Shapiro

While we’ve all focused on the presidency and various contortions of the electoral landscape, there are many other elections in November.  Both houses of Congress are in play.  Nate Silver writes about the race for the House:

In short, the signs so far are that Republican incumbents are holding up well enough in the House, and that there is not much of a wave breaking in either direction. But, it is quite early, and I do not think we have a keen sense yet of how anti-Congressional sentiment might translate into individual races. Betting markets give Democrats about 4-to-1 odds against re-claiming the House. This is not completely out of line, but I might take Democrats’ side of the bet just on the general principle of long uncertainty early in a political cycle.

Meanwhile, Silver has the Senate as a tossup (with Democratic odds improving because of the recent nomination of Richard Mourdock in Indiana).  The House and Senate will most likely break in the same direction, but it is not out of the question that we could have the very odd result of both chambers switching parties.

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.