Barron's Predicts GOP Retention

Based on the statistic that, in the House, the candidate with more money wins 98% of the time.

As others have pointed out, though, that's largely because there are so few races in play lately, so of course the virtually-unchallenged incumbent will have more money than his unserious candidate (or no opposing candidate at all).

There now just shy of 50 contested House seats, though, way up from the usual 30.

From Stop the ACLU's exercpt:

Our analysis — based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data — suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber’s 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party’s loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three...

Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years.

Barron's theory isn't so much that money moves elections via advertising, but that it's a better proxy for true public support than polling.

posted by Ace at 04:11 PM

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