Count All You Like But They Ain't Hatched Yet

     I'll repeat that headline to Democrats and Republicans alike: the chickens of 2025 have barely come home to roost, and while there's plenty of frantic shuffling around of the prospective eggs of U. S. House seats, those eggs have barely been laid, yet alone hatched.

     Long-time Indiana Democrat political figure Ann Delaney, speaking about the failed GOP redistricting push this morning on Indiana Week In Review, suggested the Republicans are looking at a 50-seat loss in the House; elsewhere, the Republican national party chairman is warning his state parties that victory in 2026 is crucial.

     Well, okay, but we haven't even seen primaries yet -- and meanwhile, it looks very much as if time has run out for the Federal subsidies that kept ACA health insurance affordable for many Americans.  What I'm hearing is that House and Senate Republicans are of the opinion that most of the people who benefited were Democrats, if they bothered to vote at all, so why worry?  It's a gamble; a lot self-employed people and workers at small businesses rely on buying their own lower-cost insurance, and I'd be surprised if they were a solid block for the Dems.

     Nor can we be sure where the economy is headed.  I'm not going to rehash all the competing claims, or try to sort out which are fantasy and which have some basis in fact.  "Indications Are Unclear" is what my Magic 8-Ball keeps turning up; what's going to matter is how things are going right before the primaries and in the run-up to the general election.

     Anyone chortling "We've got him now" or that MAGA is a lock-in should be gently discouraged from putting any money down.  It's too soon to even make a good guess, and much too soon for helmet fires.  The trend among pollsters and pundits at present leaves the House and Senate balanced on a knife edge after the 2026 elections -- and those bodies haven't shown any great talent for the Sabre Dance so far.  It is a difficult piece, but they keep sawing the basses in half before the thing is even over....