Infinitive Splitter

For some reason, this feels like it might be a lucky day for me, which means — naturally — that it’s a good day to make my official predictions for the composition of the 110th Congress.

Get your popcorn ready.

We’ll start with the Senate, since handicapping House races is about 13 times harder. (There are 435 House elections on November 7, compared with just 33 Senate elections. Never mind how many of each are actually contested; you can look those numbers up on your own.)

Most of these 33 races are already decided, whether because of a total lack of opposition (Lugar in Indiana); a lack of strong opposition (Clinton in New York, Hatch in Utah, and so on); or a lack of sane opposition (Nelson in Florida should defeat Katherine Harris by a comfortable margin). Here are my picks for those that remain, assuming that the incumbent or the incumbent’s party wins for the races I omit:

The incumbent or candidate from the incumbent’s party is listed in bold, and states with open-seat races are marked with asterisks.

• Connecticut: Lieberman (?) over Lamont (D)
• Maryland*: Cardin (D) over Steele (R)
• Missouri: McCaskill (D) over Talent (R)
  
• Montana: Tester (D) over Burns (R)
• New Jersey: Menendez (D) over Kean (R)
• Ohio: Brown (D) over Dewine (R)
• Pennsylvania: Casey (D) over Santorum (R)
• Rhode Island: Whitehouse (D) over Chafee (R)
• Tennessee*: Corker (R) over Ford (D)
• Virginia: Allen (R) over Webb (D)

If you haven’t been keeping track, that comes to a total of 50 Republicans; 48 Democrats; 1 Independent voting with Democrats (Bernie Sanders will take over for Jim Jeffords, who is retiring); and one Joe Lieberman, who I think will probably vote for Democratic leadership. In a 50-50 Senate, the vice president casts the tiebreaker, so Republicans will maintain control.

Now to the House of Representatives. I was guessing pretty wildly about the Senate; my House picks are based on little more than a cursory look at some old polls and some gut feeling. Also, if you think I’m going to list my specific picks on even a tenth of these, you’re mistaken. (I do have a list, but who wants to read lists?)

Here’s a haphazard collection of thoughts on a random selection of competitive races.

• I’ll take Murphy (D) over Gerlach (R) in Pennsylvania’s 6th, but not Murphy (D) over Fitzpatrick (R) in PA-8 or Murphy (D) over Johnson (R) in Connecticut’s 5th. Murphy (R) is not facing a serious challenge from Kluko (D) in PA-18. Two for four.
• Weldon (R) has got some significant problems. I like Sestak (D) in PA-7.
• Delay (R) and Foley (R), who will appear on ballots in TX-22 and FL-16, respectively, are likely to be defeated.
• I like former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler (D) over African dictator Charles Taylor (R) in NC-11. For the record, this Shuler really is the former quarterback, but the incumbent congressman from western North Carolina is not a Liberian war criminal.
• Barring the disclosure of his own affair involving strangled mistresses, Carney (D) should unseat Sherwood (R) in PA-10.
• “Congressman Hill on Capitol Hill” isn’t as good as “Whitehouse White House,” which is what we’d have if Rhode Island’s Democratic Senate challenger someday won the presidency, but it’s good enough. I’ll take Hill (D) over Sodrel (R) in IN-9, Ellsworth (D) over Hostettler (R) in IN-8, and Donnelly (D) over Chris “Count” Chocola (R) in IN-2.

That’s about enough. None of these races — and indeed none of the races on the list from which I plucked these examples — involve incumbent Democrats. This is very good news for incumbent Democrats.

Final projected House tally: 237 Democrats and 198 Republicans.