The Washington Post’s Election Lab is predicting that Republicans will grow their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives by four seats, including Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.
According to WaPo’s analysis, former State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin has a 64 percent chance of defeating Democratic state Sen. Emily Cain in the race to see who will replace Rep. Michael Michaud, who vacated the seat after 12 years to run for governor.
On the Senate side, WaPo is predicting Republicans will win seven seats and assume the majority.
Here’s what WaPo says about their Election Lab: “Like most forecasting models, Election Lab uses the past to predict the future. To predict House and Senate elections in 2014, we draw on the elections from 1980-2012. We first look at how well key factors were related to outcomes in those past elections. Then, we gather information about those same factors for 2014. Assuming that these factors will be related to election outcomes in 2014 in the same way they were from 1980 to 2012, we can make a prediction about who will win each race.” (You can read more about their methodology here.)
According to the Election Lab analysis, the GOP has an 82 percent chance of taking control of the Senate and a 99 percent chance of retaining control of the House.
While this sounds like good news, I want to urge the voters in CD2 to still get out and vote. There was a similar prediction in CD1 a few years ago and it did not come out well -Chellie Pingree (Nancy Pelosi of the east coast) ended up winning that race-we need people to be sure and turnout and vote. In fact, we need a strong turnout from all Republicans in Maine this year. With that strong effort, we can make the changes needed in this state. I am a candidate in District 80 (Augusta, Vassalboro, Windsor, Somerville, and Hibberts Gore.