Demagogue

Many liberals are encouraged by recent public opinion polls showing Democrats leading Republicans in the generic question about voters' preference for Congress. In the two most recent national polls, voters favor Dems by 10 points and 15 points respectively. Good news, right?

At the risk of being the mosquito at the picnic, these overarching numbers have little relevance to the Dems' goal of taking back the House, the Senate or both.

Only a relatively small handful of House and Senate seats will truly be in play. The reason for this is the post-2000 census redistricting by state legislatures, which generally opted to create "safe" House seats in their states. Even in the case of the Senate, overarching numbers can paint a misleading picture. Consider these tidbits from February's Harper's Index:

Margin by which total votes for Democrats in the last three Senate elections exceeded those for Republicans ...... 2,900,000

Number of seats won by Democrats and Republicans, respectively ....... 46, 56