Decision Day 2014 has arrived, and the mid-term election results are predicted by the left-leaning New York Times to bring a 70% chance of a Republican take over of the U.S. Senate. CNN  puts those odds at 95%, the Washington Post at 97%. Early voting patterns and a wide range of polls are all factors being pointed to by experts and pundits that suggest Republicans could control of both houses of Congress once mid-term election results are tabulated.

As association affiliated-and-engaged manufactured home professionals know, manufactured housing is viewed as a truly bi-partisan issue. Affordable housing is a basic human necessity, and no one else provides that domestically quite like our industry does.

Still, on legislation such as S 1828, the Senate companion bill to HR 1779 which would change Dodd-Frank in ways more favorable to MH lending, a Republican sweep that mirrors what happened to the out-of-power party in prior mid-terms such as 2006, could bring forward movement for those bills in the lame duck session. More likely, such a legislative advance would occur once the new Congress is seated.

But close races in states from AL to NC – and billions of dollars in campaign spending – suggest it won’t be until tonight – or perhaps in the case of run-offs, until January 2015, that we will know where control of the U.S. Senate will rest. MHI’s election analysis in September predicted a 3-8 seat pick up in the Senate by Republicans.  Stay tuned. ##

Related article on campaign spending linked here.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/MHProNews.)