No Democratic incumbent has been voted out of the Senate in the last two cycles, the first time this has been accomplished since the direct election of senators was established in 1908. MyDD asks the obvious question: can the Dems three-peat? The prognosis is good, as only Nevada's Harry Reid seems especially vulnerable and his state just went blue.

Meanwhile, Salon has tough talk for the GOP.

The painful truth for conservatives is that the dogs aren't eating their dog food -- and every national trend indicates that they will never eat it again. Which means the GOP faces a wrenching choice: remain true to its increasingly irrelevant and rejected ideology and fade into political insignificance, or remake itself as essentially a more moderate version of the Democratic Party.

...

In the coming years we will witness a war between conservatism's pragmatists and its true believers. If the pragmatists win, America will have finally arrived at the era of broad political consensus that pundits erroneously forecast after Lyndon Johnson's demolition of Barry Goldwater in 1964. If the true believers win, we may witness a Palin candidacy in 2012 -- and a likely electoral landslide that will bury the GOP so deeply it may never dig out.

The final SurveyUSA polls predict Obama victories in Pennsylvania and Florida, a loss in either of which probably spells the end for John McCain.

PA: Obama 52%, McCain 43%
FL: Obama 50%, McCain 47%

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post says "When it comes to predicting elections, head down to your local betting hall and talk to some gamblers. They have a much better record at forecasting elections." As of right now, the bookies put the odds at a 93-7 Obama advantage...

Predictions. Who's got them? Leave 'em in the comments.

I was on Poli-Sci-Fi Radio yesterday (podcast forthcoming) and they cajoled us all into making predictions. Unexpectedly, I was among the most optimistic people on the show, expecting Obama to cross 360 electoral votes and over 50% in the popular vote. I stand by this. To the extent that the polls are wrong, I (honestly) believe they will be wrong in our favor, underreporting Obama's depth of support and his GOTV operation and underestimating the level of Republican demoralization and widespread discomfort, in different registers, with Bush, Palin, and McCain all.

I've been predicting / hoping for a Reaganesque landslide since January—it was one of the biggest early factors in my decision to support Obama in the primaries in the first place—and I think that outcome is finally at hand. If things go the way I think / hope they will tomorrow, 2008 will come to be seen as a realignment election along the lines of 1980 or 1932.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I've been very wrong before—but that's my prediction.

So let's have two numbers, the EV spread and the popular vote spread. (Use 270towin to calculate the electoral votes.)

I'll go first with what will surely be way-too-high estimates of 397 EVs and eight points in the popular vote, 52%-44%. In my heart of hearts, I think we'll run the table, including taking Omaha.



But of course I'll be just as happy scrapping by with 269...

Sports Determinism Watch: The Phillies only win the Series during realignment elections. That's not me talking, that's science.

Sunday politics.

* Conservative stalwart David Frum throws in the towel on John McCain.

In these last days before the vote, Republicans need to face some strategic realities. Our resources are limited, and our message is failing. We cannot fight on all fronts. We are cannibalizing races that we must win and probably can win in order to help a national campaign that is almost certainly lost. In these final 10 days, our goal should be: senators first.

* Kos wonders who, if anyone, will be the Howard Dean of the right.

* The Field posits that Chicago is the ideal location from which to launch a presidential campaign.

Surrounding Senator Obama's state of Illinois and its 21 Electoral Votes are three states won by George W. Bush four years ago: Indiana and Missouri (each with 11 EVs), and Iowa (7 EVs). The McCain-Palin ticket has made multiple visits to those and other surrounding states that it claimed would be in play: Michigan (17), Wisconsin (10) and Minnesota (10), where the Republicans held their national convention last month.

Chicago may just be the best city in the country to base your presidential campaign - in terms of the Electoral College - if you count with a cadre of well-trained organizers and volunteers ready to travel a short ways to register voters, knock on doors and help get out the vote in the neighboring swing states: Add 39 contiguous Electoral Votes in play and another 27 in battleground states close enough for day trips, and the region holds a whopping electoral prize of 87 EVs. That's more than the 73 on the West Coast or the 74 in Greater NY (with PA, NJ and CT).

* And Sir Charles of Cogitamus alongside the New York Times's "Week in Review" explores the "disastrous demographic bets" the Republican Party has made, bringing us to the point where even an eventual Whig-like implosion does not seem outside the realm of possibility...

"Senator John McCain will not win Georgia," predicts Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party nominee for president. "His shrinking poll numbers are an indication that McCain is losing touch with the American public as we get closer to November 4th."

Landslide watch: InsiderAdvantage puts Obama up by a point in Georgia.

Larry Sabato writes the McCain campaign appears to have had a "death wish" in Virginia.

Of the two shifts, by far the most significant is VIRGINIA, which we are moving from pure toss-up to LEANS OBAMA. We have been very cautious about the Old Dominion, in part because it's been our home for the better part of six decades. More than most, we know how tough this state can be for a Democratic presidential candidate. But while we continue to disbelieve the national polls showing Obama winning Virginia by 10 percentage points, we now believe that Obama has built a small edge of two or three points in the state. The reasons are clear: Bush, the disastrous economy, the demographic growth of Northern Virginia and its strong Democratic tilt, the momentum built up by recent Democratic victories (Mark Warner in 2001 and soon 2008, Tim Kaine in 2005, and Jim Webb in 2006), and the remarkable voter registration and voter contact efforts of a literal army of Obama staffers and volunteers in the state for a full year.

But it is more than that. The McCain campaign and the state GOP appear to have had a death wish. McCain's staff refused to believe Virginia was truly competitive for too long, and the McCain-Palin visits were few. McCain's brother called Northern Virginians "Commies" and one of McCain's most prominent spokespersons said they were not the "real Virginia." Generally, it is difficult to win the votes of people you are insulting.

The Virginia Republican party is also completely outclassed by the state's Democrats in money and organization. The GOP is being run by a very young, fire-breathing chairman who publicly drew an absurd link between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden--drawing angry rebukes from the top echelon of the McCain campaign as well as virtually all the senior Republican elected officials in the state. Republicans in Virginia have simply not adapted to the new moderate reality of this Mid-Atlantic state, the twelfth largest in the nation. They insist on running too far to the right, as though this were the Virginia of the Old South. It's not selling anymore.

Sabato's crystal ball also moves North Dakota to "toss-up" this week.

The Quinnipiac and Big 10 Battleground polls have terrible news for McCaniacs. We can't really be this far ahead, can we? Via Daily Kos.

The highlights:

Florida (Quinnipiac)
Obama 49
McCain 44

Indiana (Big 10)
Obama 51
McCain 41

Ohio (Big 10)
Obama 53
McCain 41

Ohio (Quinnippiac):
Obama 52
McCain 38

Pennsylvania (Big 10)
Obama 52
McCain 41

Pennsylvania (Quinnippiac)
Obama 53
McCain 40

Six reasons Obama will win at National Journal Online, via electoral-vote.com.

1. No candidate this far back two weeks out has ever won.
2. Early voting is going strong and even if something big happens, those votes are already cast.
3. The Democrats have a 10% advantage in party registration; in 2004 it was even.
4. Obama is outspending McCain 4 to 1 in many states.
5. There is no evidence for the so-called Bradley effect in the past 15 years.
6. Obama is safe in all the Kerry states and ahead in half a dozen states Bush won.

I remember the glorious afternoon and heartbreaking evening of November 2, 2004, well enough to know not to count America's chickens before they come home to roost.

McCain's "barnstorming" Pennsylvania today, giving credence to yesterday's reports that he's going "all in" on PA. Meanwhile, Barack Obama is officially the president of newspaper endorsements, lots of people are early voting and most of them are Democrats, a before-and-after debate poll shows McCain hemorrhaging support, and Democrats are still looking unbelievably strong in North Carolina. Happy days are here again.

Landslide watch, North Carolina edition.

Across the state, Democrats showed the most first-day enthusiasm. Of the nearly 114,000 first-day voters, 64 percent were Democrats, 21 percent Republicans and 15 percent unaffiliateds.

African American turnout was up significantly. Black voters, who make up about 22 percent of registered voters, were 36 percent of Thursday's early voters.

In 2004, blacks made up 18.6 percent of voters.

Details on where and how to early vote in Durham here.

UPDATE: More at WRAL.

The number shattered the previous record by about 40 percent, said Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections.

"We were expecting long lines from the beginning," Bartlett said. "I do not think it will thin out. I think it will increase, especially during the last week and a half. I believe that there will be continuous lines."

In Wake County, 7,917 people cast ballots Thursday, including 2,088 at Cary Town Center and 1,975 at Triangle Town Center. Lines snaked around both malls, as people waited for up to 30 minutes to vote, officials said.

Durham County elections officials said 6,264 votes were cast Thursday, up 40 percent from the highest daily total in 2004.

Better still are these numbers from a Daily Kos diary:

2008
Unaffiliated 15.50%
Republican 20.26%
Libertarian 0.05%
Democratic 64.41%

2004
Unaffiliated 12.23%
Republican 38.35%
Libertarian 0.15%
Democratic 49.21%

Obama wins! At least as far as Ireland's biggest bookmaker is concerned.

Ireland's biggest bookmaker Paddy Power said Thursday it would pay out early more than 1 million euros (782,776) on bets that Barack Obama will be the next U.S. president, three weeks ahead of the election.

The Dublin-based bookmaker said it made the "unprecedented decision" to pay on bets taken so far, following Wednesday's final campaign debate between Obama and his Republican rival John McCain, which polls judged the Democrat to have won.

"We declare this race well and truly over and congratulate all those who backed Obama," Power said.

On behalf of the Obama Nation, I accept.

Obama is weighing broadening a map that already appears big and red into four more states. A top adviser, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, said Obama is considering expanding his active campaign back into North Dakota and Georgia, from which he’d shifted resources, and into the Appalachian heartland of West Virginia and Kentucky.

But if that makes you happy, Obama's got just two words for you: New Hampshire.

Another good sign: John McCain is pulling out of Michigan.

That map from down the page is not just my usual wishful thinking—as Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com projects, "if you only give Obama the states he is projected to win by more than five points, that is enough to get him an Electoral College tie, which is essentially the same as a win."



Nate goes on to say:

As of this morning before today's polls update, we project Obama victories in Virginia (4.4%), New Hampshire (3.4%), Ohio (2.4%), Florida (2.4%), and Nevada (2.1%), with Indiana a tie. Give all these states to McCain, it’s 269-269 and an Obama presidency. Allocated by lead, it’s Obama 338, McCain 189, 11 tossup. McCain also projects precarious wins in North Carolina (0.1%) and Missouri (0.4%).

This does not include ground game, which is about the effectiveness of each side turning out voters who are reporting their presidential preferences over the phone to pollsters. Nor do all pollsters effectively capture the cellphone effect.

This makes john's bet with his dad that Obama will hit 270 before the polls in California close look at least possible. If Obama takes NH and all the big swing states and one of NC, IN, and MO NC or IN and MO, he's at 271 without WA, OR, NV, or CA. (UPDATE: Whoops! I was counting Hawaii.)



Don't get overconfident, get to work.

A good sign: The Florida GOP has begun to panic.