A little lesson in combinatorics might be in order. What's the likelihood of event A AND event B AND event C, etc.?

As I've thought for some time I think there's a possibility that Democrats will retake the House and Senate. Even now I don't think it's a likelihood: too many races would have to break just their way. Larry Sabato's most recent take, basically, supports that view. There seem to be quite a few (at least in the blogosphere) who think it's a dead cert.

If the Democrats retake neither the House nor the Senate what will the political climate be like?

Myself, I don't see the Dems retaking either house. At best (from my Dem p.o.v.), filibusters in the Senate will get easier, and the Dems will be a little emboldened.

But the framing of 2006 as "retaking Congress!" of course will make even an impressive Dem victory at the polls into a failure, "because they didn't retake Congress."

Dave,

I think the left might want to take a lesson in expectation management. Lamont was seen as a double digit leader in the primary, so a sub-4% win is a win, but loses a little luster. The more the expectation is that the democrats will take both chambers, the more the republicans retaining control of either or both chambers will be seen as a GOP victory.

Right now, the GOP is at a 75 year high in the house and senate in terms of seats held. Unless you are stuck in a late 90s view of the stock market as only going up, there will undoubtedly be reductions from that high going forward. Just as the GOP lost the senate six times and won it six times in the last 75 years, the current majority is not going to last forever. In the house the chamber has only seen the republicans lose three times and win three times in the last 75 years.

If you take Daly's political maxim to watch the races where the incumbent is consistently polling below 40% (because the undecideds have had years to get to know the incumbent and if they aren't for them now they aren't likely to break for the incumbent on election day) you see an interesting race dynamic.

Republican seats with the incumbent averaging below 40%
Talent
Burns
DeWine
Santorum
Chaffee

Democratic seats with the incumbent averaging below 40%
Lieberman (special case I agree)
Stabenow
Menendez
Cantwell

Open seats with both candidates averaging under 50%
Maryland (open D seat)
Minnesota (open D seat)
Tennessee (open R seat)

So while there are five republican seats with incumbents in trouble because they are polling below 50%, there are also three democratic seats where the incumbent can't poll consistently above 50% (plus CT which is likely to be won by a democrat in any case).

The open seats look to be held by their respective parties, but none have candidates that have closed the deal.

I find myself agreeing with the analysis from both of the commenters who followed me completely.

Steve: thanks for the update. My quick mental calculation suggested it was low but not quite that low. Don't they teach combinatorials in prob/stat any more?

Dave,

Beats me, they did back when I did...about 18 years ago.

You never can tell. Since I took the Probability and Statistics sequence more than 30 years ago a lot has changed in higher education.

Doesn't your calculation require that each election is an indepepndent event? If there are national issues that means that each election is not an independent event your propabilities do not hold.

Spencer,

I forget if it was Chicago machine boss Daley or Tip O'Neil, but all elections are local. Even if you crank the odds up to 90% for every election where one side or the other isn't consistently polling above 50% to go in the democratic favor (5 republican incumbents, 3 democratic incumbents and 3 open seats), you still only get a 31% chance of success. And you really have to be drinking the koolaid to think each of those races has a 90% chance of the democrat winning.

If they must lose control of the Senate -do we get to decide who gets fired? I have a long list and every last name on it begins with RINO!