What a difference a day makes

[Pab Sungenis]

As recently as yesterday morning, everything looked like doom and gloom for the Democrats. We were certain to lose the House. We could even lose the Senate. It was going to be a Republican sweep to rival even that of 1994. We were dead in a water.

Well, what a difference a day makes. Especially an election day.

The upset victory of Christine O'Donnell over long-time (and very popular) Republican Congressman Mike Castle in the Delaware Senate primary has deprived the Republicans of their best pickup opportunity. Everyone had written Delaware off, assuming that Castle would walk to victory in November. After all, he had never lost an election in his life, especially a statewide election. Now, with O'Donnell edging him out, the race has been moved from "Strong Republican" to "Strong Democratic"; even Republican-biased Rasmussen polls show her 11 points behind Chris Coons.

Meanwhile, Barbara Boxer has pulled back ahead of Carly Fiorina. Harry Reid is still holding his own in Nevada, a race that until recently he couldn't possibly (and probably didn't deserve to) win. Democrats are still struggling in Illinois, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and North Dakota and Arkansas are all but guaranteed losses. But even giving the Republicans all of those borderline states, the Democrats are now likely to win 50 seats in November under a worst-case scenario. Add Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders to that number, and the 51 to keep control is solid. Joe Lieberman could make official what has been painfully obvious for years and caucus with the Republicans, and the Democrats would still hold the Senate.

Then there's the matter of New York. Carl Paladino's equally shocking come from behind victory over longtime party hack and perpetual candidate Rick Lazio in the Gubernatorial primary may not have changed the likely outcome in that race (Andrew Cuomo has been prohibitively ahead of both Republicans) but it could spell disaster for the Republicans in downticket races. Paladino, who is notorious for the forwarding of racist and pornographic E-mails (including ones depicting bestiality) and who has suggested putting all welfare recipients into prisons, is not the kind of candidate that encourages moderate Republicans to want to push the button in November. A good number of moderate Republicans, who are the swing constituency in a good number of House and legislative races, are now more likely to stay home than to hold their nose and vote for such a bad candidate. That could make the difference in more than one election, letting the Democrats hold on to a number of shaky House seats upstate and maybe even give the Democrats solid control of the State Senate. None of this was likely yesterday, but today it's more than feasible.

Best of all, Christine O'Donnell and Carl Paladino are effectively the new face of the Republican party. All of the press today is about their incredible upset victories and the power of the Tea Party, but the more exposure they get the more people will hear about Paladino's E-mail problem and O'Donnell's masturbation fixation. And as they hit the stump and expose more and more of their radical and moderate-repelling proposals, the Republicans are less likely to seem a feasible alternative for the Democrats when swing voters step into the booths in November.

This morning over at electoral-vote.com, a compilation of individual polls gives the Democrats the edge in 220 House races, compared to 184 Republicans and 31 too close to call. Nate Silver's analysis at FiveThirtyEight.com is still using numbers from September 9th, and it will be interesting to see which direction his analysis swings as new numbers start to come in after today.

What a difference a day makes.

[Historic NY]

1. Invigerating for Democrats.

[Javaman]

2. While this gives me hope...

I never under estimate the power of teh stupid.

Still six weeks away and a lot of stupid can happen between then an now.