Election Day is exactly six months away and things don’t look so great for Democrats this fall. Historically, the president’s party loses seats in midterms, with rare exceptions, but the current polling and indicators don’t suggest this will be one of those. President Obama’s and Congressional Democrats’ approval ratings are down, unemployment is still high, and there’s a 20-point Republican lead among voters most enthusiastic to vote. Not to mention that midterm voters tend to be older and whiter, so a lot of the larger base that went for President Obama in 2008 that included minorities and college kids aren’t going to come out to vote without him on the ballot.

So how bad is it looking? When it comes to Congressional races, it doesn’t quite look like Republicans will gain enough seats to take the House (there doesn’t appear to be enough competitive races for them to take the Senate), but we won’t know until September or October. The Republicans need a 40 seat gain to take the House and a 10 seat gain to take the Senate. The historical average is 24 seats and 4 seats, respectively, but parties can and have often done better. Larry Sabato, who is usually spot on, currently predicts a 27 seat House gain and 7 seat Senate gain for Republicans, though some are predicting a larger gain in the House (it’s certainly possible). He is also predicting a net gain of 7 governorships for the GOP, which would give them a majority in the country.

Chris Cillizza’s The Fix at the Washington Post does a really good job running down the top races in each category:

House

Senate

Gubernatorial

One governor’s race left off “The Line” is our own here in Texas. But the last poll from Rasmussen Reports shows Gov. Rick Perry leading by just four points over Bill White, who is still making himself known. I’ll update on our other statewide races and legislature races as we get closer and more information comes out. Winning the governorship and/or state house would be highly beneficial not just for obvious reasons, but because whomever wins will be in charge of redistricting for the 2012 races (though we may lose out on an extra seat due to low census response).

Anyway, we’ll see how things developed over the next few months. We have a long way to go and political winds can shift either way.