With all the well deserved attention on the 2008 races, this diary looks at the electoral scenarios in 2010 and 2012.
Tom Delay and his ilk once boasted about creating a "Permanent Republican Majority". Like many others before who forecast permanent one party rule, that prediction did not survive the decade.
What does the future hold for both houses of Congress?
For what it's worth, (I am not a well known political prognosticator like Cook or Sabato), so take that cum grano salis, but I predict 2-4 net seats gained by the Democrats in the Senate in 2008, but most likely a net loss of a handful of seats in the house, but to still retain their majority.
After 2008, the 2010 elections could go either way in the Senate because of the number of Senators who would be retiring (I would guess about 10, if some of them don't die in the interim because of their advanced age), but I think the Democrats will retain the majority in both houses albeit with smaller numbers.
Here is the Wikipedia page on 2010 Senate. http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The real battles in the House will come in 2012 after districts are redrawn.
Based on population estimates compiled last year which can be found here: http://www.polidata.org/..., the house delegations will change in the following manner:
Texas +4
Florida +2
Arizona +2
Georgia +1
Utah +1
Nevada +1
Oregon +1
Washington +1
New York -2
Ohio -2
Mass. -1
Penn. -1
Michigan -1
Illinois -1
Minnesota -1
Iowa -1
Missouri -1
New Jersey -1
Louisiana -1
With those changes, it is not looking good, as some very Republican states are gaining a sizable number of house seats, though probably not enough to flip the chamber, in my estimation, because some of the states losing seats will end up pitting incumbent Republican against incumbent Republican in a primary battle thereby blunting some of the impact.
Based on the makeup of the state legislatures and governship in each state mentioned, I invite the readers of this diary in the comments to hypothesize on which states will have D v. D battles and which will have R v. R battles if neither incumbent retires.