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Likely bad for the Dems, but just how bad?  Charlie Cook writes:

As the political environment for Democrats has turned ugly, it is widely assumed the party will sustain losses in next year's midterm elections. The operative question is: How bad will those losses be?

With a little over 13 months to go, that's impossible to know. Democrats desperately hope the next year will provide them with opportunities to reverse the tide and minimize losses, possibly by picking up GOP-held House and Senate seats to offset losses elsewhere. But they also fear the 13 months might give matters a chance to snowball and get worse. If Democrats go 0-2 in this year's gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, that will only dampen party morale more.

The post-World War II average for first-term presidents is a midterm loss of 16 House seats. In the Senate, interestingly, the norm is a wash.

But with Democrats having picked up 54 House seats from the GOP in the last two elections -- elections with near-perfect conditions for Democratic candidates in virtually every state -- and holding 84 seats in districts carried by either former President George W. Bush in 2004 or Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last year -- including 48 won by both -- the number of seats at risk exceeds their 39-seat majority.

Cook emphasizes the election is 13 months off.  But a lot of Democrats have to be looking over their shoulders as they consider the administration's and their leadership's expensive big government proposals.

View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

Hoping Against Hope| 9.17.09 @ 8:33AM

Please, please, please, please, please, let Nancy Pelosi lose her speakership. PLEASE!

Tim| 9.17.09 @ 10:28AM

What a great fantasy! Republicans take it all back and then Obama goes down in 2012, YAY!
Maybe Jeb Bush can be President! It'll be 2000 all over again, the dawn of a golden era of Republican domination.

Unless the GOP is going to actually deliver the goods it shouldn't matter to anybody how many D's and R's are in DC.

Spicy Joker| 9.17.09 @ 11:44AM

The election is over a year away. The Repubics are deluding themselves into thinking it's over for the Democraps. Let's see the Repubics put their money where their mouths are for a change. They can start by standing up for conservatives like Joe Wilson instead of running for the hills whenever Obama and company play the race card.

Amor de Cosmos| 9.17.09 @ 11:51AM

Fiscal conservatives will win in 2010. By election day the Administration and Congress will have racked up more debt than any other for less purpose than any other.

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More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/09/17/congressional-prospects-for-20

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