Horse Race

Barrons predicted that the Republicans will retain control of the House 224 to 211 and the Senate 52 to 48. Their methods were a little unusual:

We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls.

The most scholarly of the psephologists, Michael Barone, who predicted last April that the Republicans would retain control, now says that his numbers show a Democrat majority of 219 to 216, but

...we probably won't know it on election night. There will be some races too close to call, others where the absentee votes remain to be counted, and, as John Fund has suggested, others where the result will be litigated.

Dick Morris, who keeps his ear to the ground 24/7 (ask Sherry Rowlands why he does that) says that as of October 24th, it's a toss-up:

The latest polls show something very strange and quite encouraging is happening: The Republican base seems to be coming back home. This trend, only vaguely and dimly emerging from a variety of polls, suggests that a trend may be afoot that would deny the Democrats control of the House and the Senate.

What about the smart money? Intrade still says the Republicans have a 68.5% chance of retaining the Senate, and a 32.3% chance of keeping the House. But they appear to be bottoming out.

And in a futures market it's the trend that counts.