THIS is a miserable time to be a Democratic politician in America, especially if you are a member of the House of Representatives. Most non-partisan pollsters and pundits agree that the Democrats can expect a thumping on November 2nd, when all of the 435 seats in the House and 36 of the 100 in the Senate will be up for grabs in the mid-term elections. By general consent the Republicans are unlikely to gain the ten seats they need to capture the Senate from the Democrats. In the House, on the other hand, the Democrats’ majority hangs by a whisker.

A nice indication of how close a race it is comes from a study by Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University. He calculated last month that the Republicans are on track to win 42 House seats currently held by Democrats and lose just three of their own seats. That would give them a net gain of 39, which by coincidence is exactly how many they need to gain control. Nancy Pelosi would then have to surrender the speaker’s gavel she won in 2006 to the Republicans’ John Boehner, who would preside over a majority of 218 to 217—tiny, but enough to make life wretched for the Obama White House.