Tsunami

Gallup's final polling before Tuesday's election has Republicans up by fifteen points in the generic Congressional ballot.   According to their modeling, that translates into Republicans picking up something like 60 seats, which would give them a substantial working majority of something like 240-195.   But Gallup adds this note:

It should be noted, however, that this year's 15-point gap in favor of the Republican candidates among likely voters is unprecedented in Gallup polling and could result in the largest Republican margin in House voting in several generations. This means that seat projections have moved into uncharted territory, in which past relationships between the national two-party vote and the number of seats won may not be maintained.

The New York Times' Nate Silver has posted a useful compendium of final polling data, organized by the time on Tuesday evening that polls will close in states moving from East to West.  If, as I think will happen, Republicans ride an unbelievable, unprecedented wave on Tuesday -- a political tsunami -- they will win every race in which they are at all close.  If they win every race where they trail by 4 points or fewer, I count them winning 77 seats.   That would give them a margin of 257-178 in the House, a huge majority.  

I think that's exactly what will happen.   What has happened in the past year regarding the Democratic Party of Barack Obama is what is known in sociology as a "preference cascade."   Once a few people started feeling that it was safe to say out loud what everyone was thinking -- that Obama is a hard leftist and an incompetent to boot -- soon everyone felt comfortable stating the obvious.  

Put differently, the Democratic Party has tied itself to an Emperor Without Clothes.   Tuesday is not going to be pretty for them, but it's going to be beautiful.   Like this: