Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Rothenberg predicting major House gains

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Rothenberg is just out with his latest house forecast, and predicts a gain of 25-30 seats.

But his individual ratings don't really add up to 25-30.

Using the DemConWatch House Forecast number, we quantify the new projection as a gain of 15.6 seats, vs 9.5 seats on 9/30. If we give the Dems all the Dem and Dem-Lean seats, that's a pickup of 8 seats. Assume we pick up no Rep-Lean seats. That leaves 36 Tossups, of which 9 are current Dem, and 27 are current Rep. To get to a total gain of 25, we have to pickup 17 additional seats from the Tossups, or a total of (9+17) 26 of the 36 Tossups. Certainly doable, but his ratings don't really support that kind of pickup. And they clearly don't support a pickup of 30, which would require winning 31 of the 36 tossups.

Lets hope the overall 25-30 seat pickup ends up being correct.