The Coming GOP Victory

Barron's has a very interesting piece in which they make their predictions for Nov. 7th, and boy are they in variance with what is now considered the "conventional wisdom" (h/t Powerline):

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years -- and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don't see it.

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

We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls. Thus, our conclusions about individual races often differ from the conventional wisdom.

So, how do they come up with their predictions and how accurate have the been in the past?

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. Look at House races back to 1972 and you'll find the candidate with the most money has won about 93% of the time. And that's closer to 98% in more recent years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Polls can be far less reliable. Remember, they all but declared John Kerry president on Election Day 2004.

Our method isn't quite as accurate in Senate races: The cash advantage has spelled victory about 89% of the time since 1996. The reason appears to be that with more money spent on Senate races, you need a multi-million-dollar advantage to really dominate in advertising, and that's hard to come by.

But even 89% accuracy is high compared with other gauges. Tracking each candidate's funding is "exceptionally valuable because it tells you who has support," says William Morgan, executive director of the renowned Mid-West Political Science Association in Bloomington, Ind. The cognoscenti, he says, give the most money to the candidate they believe has a good chance of winning.

Could this just be wishful thinking? Sure, but I wouldn't expect a magazine with the reputation of Barron's to throw something like this out there lightly, knowing that they could be very embarrassed on Nov. 7th.

My own prediction, as shown in this post, is a loss of 9 seats in the House and 3 in the Senate, though the more I look at the Senate numbers I think the GOP could actually gain a seat. The GOP Senate incumbents are looking better every day, except Chafee in Rhode Island, and there's a good possibility that the GOP could pick up New Jersey and Maryland. It ain't over yet, no matter what the media spin might be.

And boy, oh boy, will there be a lot of red faces out there if Barron's turns out to be right.