Peter Wehner writes about some new polling data released by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg that shows the Democrats could be in even deeper trouble in 2012 than they were in 2010. Here is the National Journal story about the new data that surveys 60 Republican-held battleground House districts. The data indicates continuing poor approval ratings for the President, but the current incumbents aren't terribly popular, either. Still, it does not seem to be a generally anti-incumbent feeling. Currently I am researching the phenomenon of mid-term loss (the President's party almost always loses House seats in a mid-term election) and I am now heading down the path of looking specifically at how and why realigning elections happen, specifically when the House changes hands and remains in one party's control for a decade or more. It appears that these changes often happen over a multi-election cycle. After the stock market crash of 1929 the Democrats made big gains in 1930, falling just short of winning control of the House. Then, famously, FDR and the Democrats gained a crushing landslide victory in 1932. But the wave continued even into 1934 with the Democrats gaining a few more House seats, the first time since the Civil War that the President's party won seats in a midterm election. 2010 could be just the first in a series of GOP wave elections that might hand them control in Washington for the next decade or more.

Sean Trende examines the U.S. Senate electoral landscape for 2012 and finds the odds seem to favor a GOP takeover. If I am correct and 2012 continues the 2010 wave, then the GOP may end up with a 55-45 split or better.

Jay Cost gives us a history lesson about the Southern realignment.