I just received an email from the always interesting and often contrarian Bruce Gyory, a longtime New York Democratic strategist. Since his argument is in fact both interesting and contrarian (and since I tend to agree with it!), I asked whether I could post excerpts. So, with his permission, here’s the core of Gyory’s argument:

“I wanted to memorialize a respectful dissent to the conventional wisdom surrounding the midterm elections. That conventional wisdom has shifted from a week ago (the Democrats might not take the House after all and the Republicans will certainly hold the Senate) to where it stands today (the Democrats will probably take the House, but narrowly with a net gain of under 35 seats and the Republicans will hold the Senate).

Conventional wisdom in both iterations presumes that this as a base election. I am not sure of what happens, but I believe that the outcome will ultimately be determined not by either party’s base, but by how independent voters break and by what margin. This is not a base election, in my view, instead it is a hybrid election where the winning side must both mobilize their base, but also win the lion’s share of the swing vote (10-15% of the total electorate nationally). “