Delphi on Election 2004.

Wow, what a great election. Over the next week we will look at the election results and break down how everything came out, basically this much input, that much output.

We almost called the Senate race exactly, (and with such a simple model; Democratic vote percent increases by 3.5% during Prez election cycles, always add 7.5% to GOP vote percent for polling errors, blam you get a net positive of 4% for the GOP candidate) the 2008 race should be great, we are looking at an open GOP seat (Allard won't be running) and a open Prez race.

The House races had no real surprises. Even with Jared Polis, the twenty something internet millionare, pouring money into ads against Beauprez and Musgrave, the Democrats only picked up the 3rd (Walcher surged at the end, but our initial projection was almost spot on, goes to show that you shouldn't tweak a econometric model with soft variables, such as our "surge factor" that pushed the 3rd into the toss-up category. We still called all the races correctly.

The State Senate was within our predicted range. Look for a huge battle in two years to take back the chamber by the GOP. The lesson must be learned that Colorado voters split tickets, they vote for the person, not the party. The GOP cannot afford to underfund their State Senate candidates. Our initial numbers on these races show that the Democrats outspent the GOP by a margin of 2:1, and for that they only gained a cumulative win differential (Dem vote % - GOP vote %) of 1.2%. They will have some massive fights ahead if they hope to keep the State Senate for longer than two years.

The State House was a complete surprise. We forcasted a 2 seat pickup, not a five seat loss. Haven't even started to crunch the numbers. But we are going to find a way to account for all the independent group numbers.

What to look for in 2006, the Governor's seat, State Senate and State House.

Our early projections will start this spring.

Watch for some major gridlock this spring, as the GOP minority and Governor Owens will try to force the Dems to push more radical bills that will be vetoed and used in 2006 as campaign fodder.