2008 Election Landscape

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Days after the New Hampshire Primary, one of the foremost political forecasters in American Politics, Charlie Cook, came to the Center for National Policy to discuss the election landscape for 2008. Some of Mr. Cook’s observations were as follows:

There is no incumbent president or vice president on the ticket for the first time in decades, so this is the most wide-open Presidential campaign in two generations.

Democrats are having a hard time choosing a Presidential candidate and the Republicans are having a hard time settling on someone.

The Democratic Presidential nomination contest is likely to last much longer then the Republican contest due to the winner take all nature of Republican primaries.

Democrats hold a historically wide margin on party preference during a Presidential year. This margin will close dramatically in a general election once the nominees are chosen.

This will be a “very, very, very close” Presidential election in November.

In the United States Senate, Democrats stand a very good chance of gaining two to four seats. Those might include Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and New Hampshire. Republicans have a chance of gaining a seat in Louisiana.

In the United States House of Representatives, Democrats are likely to build on their majority, with a pick up of Congressional seats in the high single digits or low double digits. Democrats won many seats in the last election that were “low hanging fruit”, and it will be difficult to repeat their past success.