Despite spending more than $142 million of her own money on her campaign for governor of California, Republican Meg Whitman ’77, a former University trustee, is in a tight battle with former governor and current state attorney general Jerry Brown.
Though she was considered a slight favorite as recently as September, her popularity has since slipped. She now has an estimated 5.4 percent chance of winning, according to The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight election prediction model, which also projects that she will lose by 8 percentage points.
The FiveThirtyEight model weights polls individually according to the credibility of the organization conducting the poll, as judged by polling analyst Nate Silver, and also incorporates national polling and economic conditions. It is the source for all statistical projections in this article.
The California governor’s race has focused on which candidate would better stabilize the state’s $19 billion budget deficit. Whitman has highlighted her experience as chief executive of eBay, while Brown has pointed to his performance as governor of the state from 1975 to 1983.
In the gubernatorial race in Maryland, Republican Robert Ehrlich '79 is challenging incumbent Martin O'Malley. Ehrlich was elected governor in 2002, becoming the first Republican to hold that position in 40 years, but lost his bid for reelection to O'Malley in 2006. Ehrlich has an estimated 5 percent chance of winning and is projected to lose the race by 9 points.
Republican Kenneth Buck ’81 is also in a close race in Colorado, where he is in a Senate battle that has seen nearly $25 million spent by outside organizations, the highest total nationwide.
Buck is trying to unseat Michael Bennet, a Democrat who was appointed to the Senate in 2009 to replace Kenneth Salazar after Salazar was named secretary of the interior.
Polling has flipped between Bennet and Buck for months, and Buck is now projected to win by a single percentage point, with a 60.4 percent chance of winning.
Like races throughout the country, the Colorado Senate race has focused on national issues, with Republicans attacking President Barack Obama’s agenda.
The anti-Democratic mood is likely to sweep at least one alumnus, four-term representative Jim Marshall ’72, from office.
Republican Austin Scott has criticized Marshall for voting for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as speaker of the House in 2008, a support Marshall has said he would not repeat if reelected in Georgia’s 8th Congressional District.
Scott has a 94.2 percent chance of winning the race, which he is projected to win by 10 percentage points.
Incumbents John Sarbanes ’84 and Jared Polis ’96, each from strongly Democratic districts, have fared much better in the polls.
Sarbanes, a two-term congressman from Maryland’s 3rd District, is facing a challenge from Republican Jim Wilhelm. Sarbanes is given a 99.9 percent chance of winning the race and is projected to win by 30 percentage points.
In 2008, Polis became the first openly gay person elected to Congress to represent Colorado’s 2nd District. He has a 99.6 percent chance of beating Republican challenger Stephen Bailey and is projected to win by 24 points.
Republican Leonard Lance GS ’82 has a 99.6 percent chance of winning a second term in New Jersey’s 7th district against Democrat Ed Potosnak, and he is projected to win by 24 percentage points.
Five alumni are also hoping to join the House of Representatives.
Democrat Terri Sewell ’86 is given a 100 percent chance of winning the race for Alabama’s heavily Democratic 7th District, which he is expected to win by 48 percentage points. If elected, Sewell, a public-finance lawyer, would become the state’s first black woman elected to Congress.
Republican Nan Hayworth ’81 is in a tight race for New York’s 19th District. She has a 68.4 percent chance of winning and is projected to win by 2 percentage points. Hayworth, a retired opthamologist, is hoping to unseat two-term incumbent Democrat John Hall in a toss-up district.
While Republican Randy Altschuler ’93 has been behind in recent polls, he still has a 28.3 percent chance of unseating four-term incumbent Democrat Timothy Bishop in New York’s 1st Congressional District. Altschuler, a businessman, has attacked Bishop for voting with Democrats on major legislation. He is projected to lose by 4 percentage points.
The district has been narrowly contested in recent years, with Obama carrying the district in 2008 and George W. Bush winning by less than 1 percentage point in 2004.
Democrat Ravi Sangisetty ’03 is running to defeat Republican Jeff Landry in Louisiana’s 3rd District, a seat vacated by three-term Democratic representative Charlie Melancon, who retired to run for the Senate. Melancon ran unopposed in 2008 and won by 15 percentage points in 2006, but national Democrats have effectively conceded the race this year and have not included the district in their list of targets for campaign spending. Sangisetty has a 7 percent change of winning the race, which he is projected to lose by 12 points.
Timothy vanBlommesteyn ’75 is running in New Hampshire’s 2nd District as an Independent. VanBlommesteyn may play a role in the race as a spoiler, since the Democratic and Republican candidates are projected to take 48.8 percent and 48.6 percent of the votes, respectively.
Editor's Note: Information about the gubernatorial campaign of Robert Erlich '79 has been added to the online version of this article.
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