{"id":2119,"date":"2006-10-19T12:44:06","date_gmt":"2006-10-19T16:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2006\/10\/comparing_the_0\/"},"modified":"2006-10-19T12:44:06","modified_gmt":"2006-10-19T16:44:06","slug":"comparing_the_0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2006\/10\/comparing_the_0\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparing The ’06 And ’94 Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

With talk of the Democrats potentially picking up control of Congress, many people have been asking if we are about to experience a watershed election, like 1994. Chuck Todd offers five similarities and five differences<\/a> between 2006 and 1994.
\nIt’s an interesting analysis, though I did laugh out loud at this line: “Voters are taking their political decisions very seriously, and that means there could be hesitation toward change.” Yes, one only need watch a few of the intellectual campaign commercials this season to realize we have entered the new age of the “serious” voter. Heh.
\nI don’t have a firm expectation on what we’ll see November 7. Many Democratic-leaning blogs are making a big deal out of yesterday’s NBC\/WSJ poll<\/a>, which has Congressional approval at the lowest level since 1992. I don’t take much from this for two reasons:
\n(1) generic ballot polls are pretty worthless. People only vote in their local race, not a national one. And, in most cases, they end up voting for their incumbent even if they disapprove of Congress at large.
\n(2) I’m suspect of polling in general. What kind of turnout will we have November 7? Is the general population more interested in this election than a typical mid-term? Are religious rightists sufficiently turned off that they will stay home this year? No one really knows. And thus the sampling methodology is largely guesswork.
\nIf I had to bet today what will happen, I’d predict that the Democrats will win a narrow majority in the House, and pick up three or four seats in the Senate. Of course if I was good at making predictions, I’d be much richer than I am today, so that’s not worth much.
\nInterestingly, in recent years the Senate has been more of the bell weather in shakeup elections, i.e., it’s the chamber more likely to change hands. Odds seem against Democrats picking up the Senate without the House, but history says it’s possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With talk of the Democrats potentially picking up control of Congress, many people have been asking if we are about to experience a watershed election, like 1994. Chuck Todd offers five similarities and five differences between 2006 and 1994. It’s an interesting analysis, though I did laugh out loud at this line: “Voters are taking […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}