Election 2010 Post Mortem

In hindsight, my projections were just a hair too optimistic for the Republicans. It was still a good night, but a few things didn't quite break the way I thought they might. There are still 9 House races that are undecided but if they hold as they currently stand, the Republicans will finish with 243 seats to the Democrats 192 seats. This would be a 64-seat pick-up (or about 6 short of what I projected).

I did worse in the Senate. My gut was wrong about WV where Manchin surged ahead and Harry Reid overcame polling showing him down anywhere from 2-4 points to win by 5. Washington, Colorado, and Alaska are undecided as of yet. In Washington, Murray (D) is ahead by about 14,000 votes at the moment but only 65% of precincts are counted. Bennett (D) is holding on by his fingernails (7,500 votes with 88% of the precincts counted). In Alaska it appears that Murkowski's write-in campaign succeeded but there is a lengthy review process so it may be late November before she is officially certified as the winner. Whether her or Miller, Alaska will stay Republican. As such, if Murray and Bennett win, Democrats will have 53 seats to the Republican's 47 (a gain of 6 seats or 3 short of my prediction).

Ohio on the other hand, went Republican. Republicans swept the state offices and Democrats only retained 5 of 18 House seats (OH-9, 10, 11, 13, 17). With Ohio slated to lose 2 congressional districts next year, expect some serious squashing of these 5 districts to try and force at least one if not two more Democrats out of the House.