2010 Prognostications
Email This Post
- 
Print This Post
-
Neither Connecticut’s Democrat Senator Chris Dodd or Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) will seek reelection. Dodd is trailing badly in polls.
Nevada’s Democrat Senator Harry Reid is also expected to lose his seat as his popularity there has plummeted.
The party in the White House, with rare exception, lose ground in midterm elections. In 1954 Eisenhower lost 18 House and one Seante seat; In 1962 Kennedy lost 4 house seats but gained 3 senators; in 1970 Nixon lost 12 House seats and gained 2 in Senate; in 1978 Carter dropped 15 house members and 3 in Senate; Reagan lost 26 in the house and gain one Senator; Clinton set the record in 1994 losing 54 house members and 8 Senate seats. Ironically G. W. Bush is the only modern President to gain in the House and Senate adding 8 and 4 respectively in 2002.
Prognosticators predict a shift of at least 30 house seats and as many as 8 Senate seats in this November’s national election. Such loses would not give Republicans control but would shift the power center away from Obama. Republicans have to win 40 house seats and 11 in the Senate to take control – and that is unlikely. All 435 house members, 36 Senators and 37 state houses are up for grabs.
The history of midterm elections does not escape Obama and Democrats which explains what the near panic to push through his agenda before the 2010 campaigns heat up.
The 2010 census will trigger redistricting nation wide setting up major shifts across the nation in 2012 when odds are Obama will run for a second term in the White House in an entirely new political environment either building or reversing the 2010 outcomes.
In most state the filing period has just opened or is about to begin. All candidates for the June primary must file, collect sufficient signatures from citizens who are reghistered to vote in the contested jurisdiction, and pay a fee to run for office.