As routine as elections may seem, they are the seminal events in the life of a democracy. Campaigns and elections not only set the direction of the Republic, they also shed light on America's political health. Every November we have the opportunity to take stock of what we did at the polls, and what that says about the status of the 232-year-old American experiment.

These are our 2008 election projections as of Thursday, October 30. We will make final adjustments and tweaks on Monday afternoon, November 3, and post them to the website. At that point, we will attempt to call the few remaining toss-ups.

Every week it seems to get worse for House Republicans. As we will demonstrate below, we have expanded the number of possible to likely net gains for Democrats from our previous 15 to 20 to a new and rather astounding 22 to 27 seats.

Back in 2002 and 2004, the Crystal Ball brought misery to Democrats and joy to Republicans, as we projected the solid GOP victories that occurred in those years. The cycle of politics is not to be denied, and so in 2006 and now in 2008, there is a role reversal.

The good news just keeps on coming for Democrats. As we discussed last week, presidential nominee Barack Obama is the clear favorite to win a substantial victory in the race for the White House

John McCain's position in the Electoral College continued to deteriorate in the previous seven days. We are making the following adjustments, accordingly.

There are just eleven governorships up for grabs from coast to coast, six currently held the Democrats and five by the Republicans.

All season, political observers have been speculating when, if ever, the Electoral College and the state and national polls would reflect the basic pro-Democratic fundamentals of the presidential election year.

There are a few changes to report in the nation's Senate races since we last reviewed them in July-almost all of them in favor of the Democratic candidates. Yet the fundamental outlook hasn't changed terribly much. The Democrats will pick up a fair number of seats to pad their slim 51-to-49 margin. They are defending a mere 12 seats, and all their incumbents are running again. The Republicans have drawn the short straw, trying to protect 23 seats with five incumbents retiring in a tough political environment for the GOP.

In early summer, the Crystal Ball took its first look at the likely November 4th Electoral College map. Our assessment was that, in the College at least, the contest appeared close. John McCain had 174 solid or likely electoral votes to Barack Obama's 200 solid or likely. The lead switched once we added in states that were "leaning" to one or the other: McCain had 227 votes to Obama's 212, with 270 needed for election. Fully 99 electoral votes in eight other states (CO, MI, NH, NV, OH, PA, VA, and WI) remained in the toss-up category.