The Democrats wake up Wednesday morning with a 20-25 seat majority in the House. The happiest result of the night will come from Arizona, where dim bulb J.D. Hayworth will loose by about five points. Unfortunately, he won’t be unemployed for long. It’ll be about three months before he gets his own cable TV shout show, and that ugly, blow-dried mug dishes witless talking points every night on the tee-vee.

As for the Senate:

Arizona; John Kyl wins, but only by 3-5 points, thanks in part to the Green Felt Revolution. GOP holds, but it’s a lot closer than anyone expected.

Connecticut: Lieberman, unfortunately. By 8-10 points. Which raises some very interesting questions if the Senate ends up tied, or with the Dems up by two seats. Dems hold. Sort of.

Maryland: Ben Cardin, by about eight points. Dems hold.

Minnesota: Klobuchar, by about 15. Dems hold.

Missouri: Tough call. McCaskill seems to be slightly pulling ahead. I say she wins by less than one percent, possibly leading weeks of recounts. At the very least, it’ll be a long, long night. But in the end, the Dems pick one up, here.

Montana: Conrad Burns seems to be closing, and fast. I’d love to see Tester win, both because he took a principled stand against the PATRIOT Act, and because Burns is a corrupt old fool. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. In a last-minute flurry, this very red state will stay red. Burns wins by about 5. GOP holds.

Nebraska: Nelson by 20. Dems hold.

New Jersey: In of the few races in the country where the GOP actually deserves to win, they probably won’t. The ethically-challenged Menendez beats Kean by 2-4 points. Dems hold.

Ohio: DeWine is another Republican who is probably unjustly getting caught up in the anti-GOP storm, both nationally and in Ohio, where the party’s been implicated in all sorts of corruption scandals. Brown wins, by about six. Dems pick up two.

Pennsylvania: In a victory for all that is good and decent in the world, Rick Santorum is soundly defeated, by about twelve points. Dems, frothing with joy, pick up three.

Rhode Island: It looked for a few days last week like Chafee was closing. But Whitehouse is back to polling double digit leads. Whitehouse by 10. Dems pick up four.

Tennessee: Looks like Corker is pulling ahead. I’m actually a little surprised. Ford has run a terrific campaign. Politics is a dirty business, though, and the RNC’s vaguely racist ad campaign seem to have worked. Corker wins by about six. GOP holds, and is rewarded for its lack of shame.

Virginia: This one’s a tough call. My guess is that things will look very good for Webb early Tuesday night, then Allen will come storming back as returns from the western part of the state start rolling in. The question is whether Webb can build enough of a lead in Northern Virginia to overcome that. It’s possible. Mark Warner did it, and he did without the populism Webb’s been spewing. But despite Allen’s horrendous campaign, he still was once a popular governor here. So regretfully, I’m going to predict an Allen victory. In four, maybe two years, I think Webb wins this race by 4-5 points, as what is called “Northern Virginia” browns, and expands beyond the Rappahannock. But not yet. Virginia is still a pretty red state. Allen wins by 2-3 points. But the close victory dashes his presidential hopes. If Allen wins, that means Question 1 will also pass. Probably by a lot. I’ll say 12 points.

Washington: Maria Cantwell, by about six. Cantwell’s a weak candidate, and a weaker Senator. But this state is growing blue, and she doesn’t suck enough to lose in an anti-GOP year in a blueing state. Dems hold.

That means I think the Dems will pick up four seats, but that the GOP will retain the Senate, by a 51-49 margin.

But here’s my bold prediction: Joe Lieberman will switch parties — a couple of months into the next Congress. He’ll do it with an eye on 2008, possibly as a presidential candidate. At the very least, he won’t caucus with the Democrats, perhaps in anticipation of an independent McCain-Lieberman ticket. The press will fawn over the possibility. Libertarians will weep.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 4th, 2006 at 5:08 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.