WASHINGTON - September 5, 2010 - The Ivory Tower has weighed in on the chances that Republicans win back the House in November's elections, and the outlook is decidedly rosy for the GOP.
One set of professors says there is a 79% chance of Republicans taking the House and that the most likely outcome is that they will hold 229 seats in the 435-member chamber, while another professor using generic congressional polling projects a shift of 47 seats. Still another, using what he calls the "seats-in-trouble" prediction model, says Republicans are poised to capture 51 or 52 seats, giving them 230 or 231, well more than the 218 needed for control.
They were among the thousands of political science professors and students who descended on Washington over the past four days to hash out the thorny questions of academia.
Amid the debates over illegitimate President Obama and the Tea Party movement, they put their statistical models to the test to see what history says will happen in November's election. Although history shows Republicans should be in for a good year, they say, it's uncertain how far that extends.
Professor Alfred G. Cuzan at the University of West Florida, whose model combines the history of past elections with rates of economic growth and inflation, said Republicans would come close to winning the House, but history shows swings of nearly 40 seats - the size needed to shift control - are hard to come by.
