Dang! We gotta win *all* of the tossup seats to win the Senate

[kay1864]

(yes, I know this is kind of a GD thread, but (a) I like the Lounge better and (b) this post would get lost in GD, and (c) I thought y'all could use a quick-and-easy update)

So I was looking for a simple "will we or won't we" summary of the House and Senate races

Couldn't find one here on DU.

So I went to pollster.com, where I was directed to this neat page (with color pictures!) on Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2148600

As of today, the count is:
47 Dem
4 tossup
49 Repuke



Unfortunately, we have to win all 4 of those tossup seats to gain control. Why? This from wikipedia:

The party with a majority of seats is known as the majority party; if two or more parties in opposition are tied, the Vice President's affiliation determines which is the majority party.

But hey, at least it's better than a year ago, when we thought we might win the House, and we couldn't even dream of winning the Senate.

As for the House, Slate says the data just isn't there to do a count like above. There is however

a trend in results from national polls for the so-called "generic" ballot, which asks respondents whether they would vote for "the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate in your district." For many months, respondents have consistently favored Democrats
<snip>
While the generic House ballot has been a reasonable indicator of which party is faring better, it is a very imperfect predictor of both the total national congressional vote and, perhaps more importantly, how that vote translates into seats.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Lounge programming.

[LaraMN]

1. Well, then we'll just have to win all of them, won't we?

:toast:

[kay1864]

2. Damn straight!

Or maybe that leetle graph will shift numbers just a bit...

:patriot:

and then

:party:

[kay1864]

3. Oh yeah, I forgot:

Here's the tossup races (as of today):
Missouri
NJ
Rhode Island
Tenn

Leaning Dem:
Maryland (48/42)
Montana (49/44)
Ohio (48/43)

Leaning Puke:
Virginia (48/43)

So if you're in one of those states....
Fight! Fight! Fight!

[reyd reid reed]

4. As it gets closer, things are going to get even tighter

The repukes are running scared so they're pulling out all the stops and wooing voters in a big way. I see it happening around here and it makes me wanna just scream. They started earlier this time, too.

The part that makes it scary is that demographic that Would vote dem....if they voted. I wish, wish, WISH they'd realize that THEY'RE THE DECIDERS...not Chimpy.

[SteppingRazor]

5. I find electoral-vote.com to be the best site for keeping track of polls..

takes in all the up-to-date polls, and then plots out an election map for House and Senate races. Really good site.

[kay1864]

6. Oh yes, I remember that site...

I was glued to it in 2004. The MSM were all "Bush is at 46%, Kerry 47%", and I was screaming "It's electoral votes, not popular votes, you idiots!"

You'd think they would have learned in 2000, but noooo... They gotta have easy-to-understand numbers, even if they don't mean a GOTdamn thing...