All House races:  GOP 203 - DEM 232.

Decided races:  GOP 201 - DEM 232 - last updated at 11:30am 11/30/06.

Update (3:15pm 11/14):  Reichert wins Washington CD-8

Update (10:20pm 11/14):  Courtney wins Connecticut CD-2

Update (10:20pm 11/14):  Cubin looks to have won Wyoming CD-AL

Update (11:50pm 11/15):  I've added one more House race to the undecided list.  The race in Florida's 13th district is too close to call.  An automatic recount has been completed, but the results are close enough to require a manual recount.

Update (12:35pm 11/16):  Barrow wins Georgia CD-12

Update (4:45pm 11/20):  Wilson wins New Mexico CD-1

Update (12:50pm 11/22):  Schmidt wins Ohio CD-2

Update (9:55am 11/28):  Pryce looks to have won Ohio CD-15

Update (11:30am 11/30):  Hayes wins North Carolina CD-8

As these races are decided, I will remove them from the list and update the decided race tally denoted above.  I will also add a post to the blog any time this table is updated.

Regarding the House, someone else appears to be in the business of making edicts of sorts.  Rep. Joe Barton, running for Minority Leader in the House, has guaranteed that the GOP will regain the House in the next three cycles or he won't seek the Minority Leaders position after that.  I hope the electorate pays him more attention than they paid to me!

Hat Tip:  Taegan Goddard

Update:  And this.

If the world wouldn't be a better place if everyone were just like you, maybe you should consider self-improvement!

I do want to discuss the House, however, where I fear the outlook may be equally gloomy.  Looking at the seats lost yesterday and the margin we must overcome to regain the House, it is easy to foresee an extended period of Demcratic majority in the lower chamber as well.  Of the 29 seats we lost - assuming all things stand as they are right now - many seem to be destined to stay blue for a while.  Here's a rundown of all 29, and the prospects of taking them back.

One-term wonders (10)
     These are seats which should come back to the red column in two years - especially, in some cases, if the defeated incumbent runs again.

One phenomenon we've seen over the last few years is the growth of power of the Kos kids and other more radical liberal elements of our society within the Democratic party.  Some of my GOP friends have wished for the Democratic party to move ever-further to the left.  Their idea is that the GOP will find victory easier the more out of the mainstream the Democrats drift.  In a sense, that is true, however, the unwanted side-effect to that is the natural gravitation of our own party to the center to fill the void.  In other words, as the Democrats have become more liberal, so has the GOP.  With so many new faces set to take their place in Washington early next year, the face of the Democratic party has become noticeably less liberal.

In addition, several of the GOP losers were of a more moderate stripe.  Ironically, as one talking head pointed out last night as the outcome was becoming clear, we now have a more conservative Democratic caucus and a more conservative Republican caucus on Capitol Hill.  In my view, that's a positive development for conservatism and for America.  And Joseph Lieberman's decisive repudiation of the ultra-liberal anti-war crowd in Connecticut is but another indication that liberalism floundered last night even as the Democrats won big.

The return of the swing voter - Despite all the talk about the importance of turning out the base - much of it in this blog - independents spoke with the loudest impact yesterday.  In recent elections, turning out the base for both liberals and conservatives was paramount.  With independents more evenly split, effort to gain votes was better spent on getting out one's own.  This time around, due mostly to the war in Iraq, independents broke significantly toward the Democrats.  No matter how the base turns out, it is hard to overcome a 2 to 1 deficit among these swing voters.

The war in Iraq was THE issue - Exit polls are famously inaccurate tools to predict the winners in these elections.  However, they are somewhat more useful in determining what motivates voters.  Clearly yesterday, Iraq was at the top of many people's lists.  There is no way to measure how many House and Senate seats the war in Iraq cost the GOP, but there is no doubt that issue played a major role in several of them.

Whether the escalating violence was, as some have asserted, the terrorits' attempt to effect the mid-terms here in the U.S. or just an unfortunate growing pain for that fledgling democracy cannot be known for sure.  However, the truth cannot be ignored.  Al Qaeda and its murderous partners in terror would like nothing more than to run us out of Iraq before the Iraqi people have gained the ability to protect and govern themselves.  The biggest concern for me now that the Democrats pull the purse strings in Congress is that we will indeed pull out prematurely and leave Iraq to deteriorate into anarchy and all-out civil war.  May that never happen.

Trust the numbers - Personally, I learned a valuable lesson which should serve me and Election Projections's audience well in future elections.  Regardless of what I feel to be the undercurrents guiding an election, I have learned to trust the numbers as I project them.  In 2004, even while my projections were almost exactly right, I felt President Bush would do much better than he did.  This year, I again felt the GOP's performance would exceed my projections.  So sure was I that I issued a bone-headed disclaimer regarding my own projections, effectively disregarding them.  As it turned out, the 2006 edition of the projections was once again extremely accurate.  Mark my words...never again will I question my own work!  Henceforth, I will have one picture of future elections, and that picture will be the outcome resulting from my projection formulas.

Update(6:15pm):  For a great list of poll closings check out this site.  Early indicators will be in Kentucky and Indiana where polls close comparatively early.  Check out Senate race results here and House results here.  Governor race results can be found here.

Update(6:45pm):  The Senate scorecard is now posted.

Update(7:00pm):  Indiana results here.

Update(8:10pm):  I'll probably be spending more time updating the scorecards than commenting in this post.

Update(8:30pm):  The Democrats are off to a great start this election night.  One factor I may have missed is the fact that all those GOPers who got out to vote may not have voted for the GOP...oops!

Update(10:05pm):  So what does crow taste like anyway?  Does anybody know?3

Update(11:30pm):  The House goes to the Democrats, and the crow goes in the oven. (That darn disclaimer!)

Update(12:00am):  I take my hat off to Stuart Rothenberg.

Update(2:30am):  Note to self:  TRUST THE NUMBERS!!  Loss of 6 in the Senate, 24 in the House, and 7 Governors - sounds pretty good about now, doesn't it?

In Election Projection's case, I firmly believe neither condition was met this year, especially in the House.  Polling data was very scarce, and the polls that were available were largely suspect in my view.  Moreover, the political pundits on whom I relied heavily in my House projections see a much gloomier outlook than I believe is warranted.  Combine those two factors and you have a some heavily skewed projections.

So here is The Blogging Caesar's official position on these mid-term elections.  I predict the GOP will lose a net 11 seats in the House and a net 3 seats in the Senate.  At most, I say the GOP loses 18 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate.  That's where I stand.  Furthermore, if my projection turns out to be on the money, I will mark it down as dumb luck and a lesson learned and consider myself wrong about Election 2006.

Warning to my liberal and Democratic friends - the following link leads to a partisan page.  As a courtesy to you, I've moved this post to another page.

It is coming down to the wire.  If you want the GOP to hold the House and the Senate please click here to read how you can help make that a reality.

Update:  Thanks for the response everyone!  You're willingness to get involved has landed The Bogging Caesar on the Get-on-the-phone leaderboard.  The recognition is nice, but so much more important are the calls being made to your fellow Americans.  Please click here and get involved.

Most pundit scenarios, including mine, depend on all those angry liberals and Democrats actually getting out there and voting.  This is just a thought, but what happens if the Democrats have a down day tomorrow in terms of voter turnout?  I believe GOP turnout will be strong for a mid-term, even approaching 2002 when the GOP took the majority in the Senate and added a few seats to their majority in the House.  If that is the case, the Democrats will need a monstrous effort to fulfill the promise thought to be in hand just a little while ago.

Do I sound over-confident?  I assure you I am not.  Given the political climate facing the GOP, an outcome much closer to Stuart Rothenberg's prediction than to mine is certainly possible, and we will need a herculean GOTV effort in these last few hours to avert it.  On the other hand, I think all this talk of an electorate itching to banish all things Bush may be just that - talk.

Update:  "Right now, nobody should rule anything out" - Jim Geraghty.  Indeed.

Stuart Rothenberg, whose projections of doom for the GOP are loud and severe, is standing by his prediction that the GOP will lose between 34 and 40 seats in the House.  If you've read this blog for long, you know that I decreed that the GOP would keep both the House and the Senate.  I have never retracted those edicts during these past six months - even when they appeared to be complete fantasy.  Indeed, to the likes of Mr. Rothenberg, they undoubtedly still are.

However, with so many races within just a point or two of going in either direction, I just don't see the kinds of gains my more professional colleague does.  Right now, my projection forecasts a loss of 24 GOP House seats on Tuesday (that's from the latest daily update).  This is 10 more than the GOP can afford to lose and retain the House.  Yet of these, no less than fourteen are within two points.  Given the momentum moving in the Republicans' direction and the track record of election conventional wisdom, I'd say the GOP actually has a fair chance of proving The Blogging Caesar right.  Even if the House is lost, I will be very surprised if the Democrats gain more than 17 to 19 seats.

Well, there you have it.  Either Stuart Rothenberg or yours truly is going to look really bad in just a couple of days!

For those who haven't subscribed, I do want to give you a clue about what's been happening to the projections since the last Weekly Projection Update on October 28.  Here's the clue:  It ain't good for the GOP.

Check it out here".