I just sent off my final predictions to the editors; unfortunately, there’s no short or easy way to summarize 509 race predictions (435 House races, 37 Senate races, 37 gubernatorial races).
In the House, I played it generally conservative in my assessment of the GOP wave, and still ended up with a number bigger than Rothenberg and Cook and Sabato, and on the higher end of their possible projections. I also had Democrats winning a handful of currently GOP-held seats, including a few beyond the usual suspects.
One where I worried I was a bit too optimistic was predicting a John Loughlin win in Rhode Island’s 1st district, where Patrick Kennedy is retiring. Now I’m less worried:
Democrat David Cicilline and Republican John Loughlin are in a dead heat in the race to succeed Patrick Kennedy in Congress, according to a NBC 10-Quest Research poll released Thursday night.
The poll asked the preferences of 486 likely voters in the 1st Congressional District. It has a margin of error of about 4.5 percent. The NBC 10-Quest Research poll is part of WJAR’s election year partnership with Rhode Island College and the American Democracy Project.
Forty-two percent said they would vote for Cicilline, the Providence mayor, or were leaning that way. Forty percent said they would vote Loughlin. The results are within the poll’s margin of error.
Independent candidates Gregory Raposa and Ken Capalbo had 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively. Nine percent said they were undecided or had no answer.
When a Democrat is at 42 percent in a D+13 district, and the president is doing an event there in the final week of the campaign, it’s trouble.