Something to keep in mind on election night, especially since so many pundits are predicting small margins of victory, is that winning control that night doesn't mean you'll have it for a full two years. We saw this most recently in 2001 when Senator Jefford left the Republican Party and switched control to the Democrats. But perhaps the best example of this in the last 100 years was what happened in the US Senate in 1953 and 1954 when not one, not two, not three, but nine senators died during that Congress (and another one resigned). In fact both senators from Nebraska died within 3 months of each other. Now I'm not predicting something like this will happen (and I'm surely not hoping for it), but it's just something to keep in mind. Narrow margins of control don't always hold, even in fixed-term election systems.
Posted by armand at October 25, 2006 11:54 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics