Sotomayor Vote Count

This morning the Intrade market figured out that Sotomayor is not going to get 75 votes.



The news prompting this crash was the announcement by John Cornyn and Orrin Hatch that they would not be voting for Sotomayor. In my initial count of Sotomayor votes, I figured Cornyn as a tossup, and Hatch as a probable Yes. Hatch in particular generally defers to Presidential nominees, and voted in favor of Sotomayor for her position on the Appeals Court, so this No vote is something of a surprise.

Yesterday the Chamber of Commerce and the NRA offered their endorsements, the former in favor and the latter against. The NRA went so far as to say it would count the Sotomayor vote in its political scorecard. The scorecard helps determine where the NRA funnels money, and Republicans generally do their best to stay on the NRA's good side.

With this in mind, I've revised my vote estimates. 0 and 10 indicate that a senator has publicly opposed or supported Sotomayor; intermediate numbers are my estimates of the likelihood of a Yes vote.

0 Jeff Sessions
0 Pat Roberts
0 Jim Inhofe
0 Sam Brownback
0 Mitch McConnell
0 Jim Bunning
0 Roger Wicker
0 John Thune
0 Robert Foster Bennett
0 Jon Kyl
0 John Cornyn
0 Orrin Hatch
1 Tom Coburn
1 Mike Crapo
1 Jim Risch
1 Mike Johanns
1 John Ensign
1 Jim DeMint
1 Mike Enzi
1 John Barrasso
2 Richard Shelby
2 David Vitter
3 John McCain
3 Bob Corker
3 Kay Bailey Hutchison
3 Saxby Chambliss
3 Johnny Isakson
4 Chuck Grassley
4 Richard Burr
4 Thad Cochran
6 Kit Bond
7 Lamar Alexander
7 Lisa Murkowski
8 Judd Gregg
8 George Voinovich
10 Lindsey Graham
10 Richard Lugar
10 Mel Martinez
10 Olympia Snowe
10 Susan Collins

Judd Gregg and George Voinovich have never been great friends of the NRA, and they will probably vote to support. I count 9 probable Yes votes, and 4 tossups. At this point the focus should be on whether Sotomayor will get 70 votes.

My positions:
+70 -47 lots @ 80.0
+75 -482 lots @ 60.3
+80 -265 lots @ 22.1