Watching for a Wave

Strategists from both parties think that the Democrats will make big gains in the House and the Senate. Mike Madden starts with a historical comparison before listing key House seats and Senate races to watch for on election night.

That year, Franklin Roosevelt swept into office, and along with him came 97 new Democratic House members and 12 new Democratic senators. What's remarkable about that, besides the staggering numbers -- a pickup of nearly 25 percent of the House in one fell swoop -- is that two years prior, Democrats had gained 52 House seats and eight Senate seats, as an unpopular Republican president dragged down GOP incumbents during tough economic times. (It sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?)

Those two cycles in the Depression era were the last time the country saw two Democratic "wave" elections in a row in Congress. More typically, after a midterm election like the one in 1930 -- or in 2006 -- a party gives back a bunch of the seats in the next presidential election, especially in the House; taking 30 new seats, as the Democrats did two years ago, means defending brand-new incumbents in districts that may lean Republican by nature.

Expensive Plans

John McCain's new ad titled "Expensive Plans" reinforces previous attacks about Obama being a tax-and-spend liberal. The new tactic in this ad is to try and link Obama to Congressional Democrats. The McCain camp is hoping that the historically low approval rates for the Congress will hurt Obama. I think the case falls flat on a couple of fronts -- John McCain has been in the Senate way longer than Obama so he isn't exactly immune to the low approval ratings. Secondly, the voters do not seem to blame the Democrats for the gridlock in the D.C. In generic ballots Democrats outperform the Republicans by large margins. The ad itself isn't as good as some of the previous ones. What's with featuring Senate Democrats like Dodd, Reid, Leahy, and Schumer in the ad? Do most people even recognize these guys?

And Polis Makes Three

As the winner of the Democratic primary in Colorado’s second congressional district, Jared Polis is all but assured of a win in the general election. Polis is poised to join Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin as the third openly gay member of Congress.

An interesting aside -- Polis will also be the first out freshman to be elected to the House. Gerry Studds, Barney Frank, and Jim Kolbe all came out after they had been elected.