With the results in Louisiana’s three Congressional runoffs going as expected today, the Republicans will have a 54-46 majority in the U.S. Senate in January, and a 247-188 majority in the U.S. House. As expected, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R) easily ousted Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), ending her 18-year tenure in the Senate, and Republicans also handily won runoffs in the heavily Republican 5th and 6th Congressional districts, with Garrett Graves (R) thwarting a comeback bid in the latter race by former governor—and ex-convict—Edwin Edwards (D).
My final predictions prior to the November elections had Republicans taking control of the Senate 53-47 and expanding their majority in the House to 245-190. I missed the final party composition by one seat in the Senate and two in the House, only slightly off of my 2012 performance, when I missed by one seat in each chamber. I was closer in my call on the House results—predicting a GOP pickup of 11 seats—than several leading professional prognosticators, who ranged between +6 and +9 for the GOP in their predictions.
With these results, my averages after five elections are as follows:
Average error in U.S. House predictions: 3.8 seats
Average error in U.S. Senate predictions: 1.4 seats
In the coming days, I will be issuing my first overview of the upcoming 2016 election. Stay tuned.