The American Spectator

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Congressional Prospects for 2010

By Doug Bandow on 9.17.09 @ 4:44AM

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.