Most of us are expecting at least modest gains in the House and Senate, with a strong chance of Dems taking over at least one chamber, while crossing our fingers for a much larger wave. As we hunker down after long days of GOTV to start watching the election results tomorrow night, there will be some potential early signals as to how the evening will unfold.
It is characteristic of political waves that they tend to play out similarly across the country, regardless of state or district. Thus, if the early returns in the East show exceptional Democratic strength (or not), there's a good chance that the same will occur in the Midwest and West. For that reason, it will be especially interesting to watch several bellwether districts for any early trends.
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As I explained in
this diary, I've developed a database of all the races for the House of Reps, which anyone can download and manipulate according to your own expectations and interests. What this also allows me to do is to sort races geographically and by the degree of competitiveness, so I can look quickly at different races in different regions, and what they may be telling us.
Here are some of the early results to watch most closely for national implications:
(1) Indications of a good night for the Democrats:
We should take the most widely anticipated seats with relative ease. These include:
Mahoney, FL-16 (Foley's seat)
Farrell, CT-04
Murphy, CT-05
Arcuri, NY-24
Sestak, PA-07
Carney, PA-10
The hope is that these races will be called for the Dems early, meaning significant margins of victory. If they drag on into the night, then we may not be seeing as strong a turnout as we'd hope.
On top of these, if we start to see some of these additional Eastern zone seats falling into our column, we can be comfortable that the House is coming over to the Democrats:
Massa, NY-29
Davis, NY-26
Gillibrand, NY-20
Shuler, NC-11
P. Murphy, PA-08
L. Murphy, PA-06
Cranley, OH-01
Hall, NY-19
Yarmuth, KY-03
Klein, FL-22
(2) Indications of a big Democratic wave:
Meanwhile, if a few of these races start coming in on the Democrats' side, especially if any of them get called relatively early in the evening, break out the expensive champagne:
Hodes, NH-02
Kissell, NC-08
Stender, NJ-07
Maffei, NY-25
Kellam, VA-02
Courtney, CT-02
Lucas, KY-04
Busansky, FL-09
Space, OH-18
Wulsin, OH-02
Dertinger, PA-15
Welsh, IN-06
(3) The unthinkable
If there's any chance of a major letdown in terms of House (and overall) results, that trend might also show up in early returns. If any of these current Democratic seats fall to the Republicans, or even are too close to call in the early hours, break out the pitchforks (Repub candidate listed):
Rainville, VT-AL
Burns, GA-12
Robinson, NC-13
Norman, SC-05
Wakim, WV-01
Foltin, OH-13
(4) Dancing in the streets!
So as not to end on an ominous note, here's a few East Coast races to watch that could suggest not merely a Democratic wave, but a true Revolution, if the Dems start picking up a few:
Spivack, DE-AL
Shea-Porter, NH-01
Sexton, NJ-03
Mejias, NY-03
Simpson, FL-10
Siferd, OH-04
Altmire, PA-04
Hurst, VA-11
There are plenty of other potential bellwethers, but I think these provide a pretty strong flavor from House races in the Eastern time zone. Come 8:00 PM EDT, I'm hoping that we start to see a lot of races called for the Dems right away, although the more obvious ones (Spitzer, Patrick, etc.) will get called first. By the time the polls close in the Midwest, let's hope that we've got some solid results from at least a few of those first-tier districts, and perhaps a few tantalizing indicators beyond.
As for predictions, just so that I'm on record somewhere, I'm sticking to my "conservative" outlook, if only to avoid a letdown. I'm calling a 19-seat gain for the Democrats in the House, and 4 Senate seats. Like Markos, I'm virtually always wrong on such predictions, so let's hope I'm way off again tomorrow.