Political Junkie, Part 2

It's 12:40 am on Election Day 2006. This political junkie is taking a last look around the Internet for the final public polls. The pollsters have stopped by now. Hopefully, the robocalls aren't keeping anyone up. Candidates and their loyalists will shake any last hand they can; make every last contact; check and re-check on whatever may be needed for the rest of today. Sleep won't be a priority. Sleep won't get you that one last vote.

I checked with a couple of fellow political scientists for their predictions on the election. One predicted a poor Democratic performance with only +8 in the House and +2 in the Senate. The other was closer to my prediction with +20 for Democrats in the House and +5 in the Senate. By the way, they both lean to Democrats so the predictions are not being driven by ideology.

These predictions are all from junkies with expertise but no claims to any political science methodology to back it up. If you want to see a real political science model, you can read a summary of Alan Abramowitz's prediction based upon his empirical model. Alan was one of my grad school professors and is an expert on voting behavior who is brave enough to publish pre-election predictions. Lots of political scientists stick to the safer course of just testing models based on past elections and avoid the prediction of anything yet to happen. Alan does both and does a good job explaining his model without getting into the minutiae of data and methods required for a academic journal.

Please vote wherever you are if you haven't done so already. Later today I'll walk to the Lutheran Church down the street from my house and cast my vote. I'll proudly wear my little "I voted" sticker though I'll pass on the offer from the local strip joint to use it get in free tomorrow night. Look for more from the junkie tomorrow and well into Wednesday morning if the election requires it.