Election Predictions

It seems that the national spotlight keeps shifting. Due to the Iraq war, scandals, and budget deficits, the Republican situation has been getting increasingly serious during the past year. In September there was slight upturn for the Republicans when the spotlight shifted to falling gasoline prices and progress with terrorism. At the end of September, the attention shifted again as problems in Iraq exponentially increased and scandals continued to emerge such as the one involving Mark Foley. According to Charlie Cook, a political forecaster, if there is a spotlight shift right before the election it has to be severe enough to pull public attention away from the multitude of factors that are attributed to the potential freefall for the Republicans.

Furthermore, Cook observes that the Democrats seem much more excited to cast their votes than the Republicans, and a potential higher voter turn out for Democrats could be an influencing factor in this election.