It's fairly uncommon for high-profile media figures to make election predictions. Getting it wrong is obviously problematic--see Dick Morris. So when Karl Rove makes some bold predictions, it's noteworthy, particularly since he isn't the relentless self-promoter Dick Morris is. Nevertheless, in my opinion, he is sometimes overly cautious, and in some cases just plain wrong.

• Republicans will keep the U.S. House, albeit with their 25-seat majority slightly reduced. In the 10 presidential re-elections since 1936, the party in control of the White House has added House seats in seven contests and lost them in three. The average gain has been 12 seats. The largest pickup was 24 seats in 1944—but President Barack Obama is no FDR, despite what he said in his recent "60 Minutes" interview.

A safe and not particularly daring prediction. I would go out on a limb here and say that Republicans will actually gain seats. I base that conclusion on the problem any Democrat has in running with a President who has the kind of disapproval ratings Barack Obama does, as well the coat tail principle. In a change election like this one, it's unlikely that people will vote for a Republican president and a representative from the opposing party.

• Republicans will take the U.S. Senate. Of the 23 Democratic seats up in 2012, there are at least five vulnerable incumbents (Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Pennsylvania): The GOP takes two or three of these. With the announcement on Tuesday that Nebraska's Ben Nelson will retire, there are now seven open Democratic seats (Connecticut, Hawaii, North Dakota, New Mexico, Virginia, Wisconsin): The GOP takes three or four. Even if Republicans lose one of the 10 seats they have up, they will have a net pickup of four to six seats, for a majority of 51 to 53.

I think this is probably right, although as we saw in 2008, the normal election calculus tends to skew towards the 'change'. Democrats won all the close races in 2008. It is likely that Republicans would benefit from that dynamic this time around.

• Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid or both will leave the Democratic leadership by the end of 2012. Speaker John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell will continue directing the GOP in their respective chambers.

Rove does not elaborate, but the only way Pelosi and Reed, both ideological stalwarts and skilled congressional operators, are persuaded to leave is if the Democrat party basically concedes that the Progressive agenda is a loser. I just don't see that happening before the election, and possibly not at all. In an election loss, surviving Democrats are collectively going to be more left-wing, and more senior than previously. Left-wing extremism is likely to be even more influential in the party than it has been. There is no reason to believe that either Reed or Pelosi will find themselves ideologically out-of-step after the election. Pelosi in particular, survived the loss of the Democrat's majority in the House. She will leave when she feels like it, and not before. Considering that she had an opportunity to retire and didn't take it, I would assume she will feel the same way next year. Reed just beat back an extremely difficult reelection challenge, so it's hard to see him throwing in the towel either. Frankly, Reed is the buffer between some pretty big Senate egos, and I expect that the party will want to keep him in place just to avoid the bloodbath that would ensue should he retire too soon.

• This will be the fourth presidential election in a row in which turnout increases. This has happened just once since 1828, from 1928 through 1940.

• In 2008, voters told the Pew Poll that they got more election information from the Internet than from daily newspapers. Next year, that advantage will grow as the Internet closes in on television as America's principal source of campaign news.

These are gimmes.

• After failing to win the GOP presidential nomination, Ron Paul will not run as a third-party candidate because that would put his son, Rand Paul, in an untenable position: Does the Republican senator from Kentucky support his father and effectively re-elect Mr. Obama, or back his party and defeat him?

I'd agree with this, but for different reasons. Paul wins big even if he loses. A good showing in the primaries makes him a king-maker, while a third party run is just a terrible idea. Third party efforts usually require the kind of egomania that Paul simply does not have. Regardless of whether you agree with his foreign policy ideas, he is clearly an intelligent and principled man. He undoubtedly knows that a heterodox Republican president is better than an orthodox Democrat. I don't think he is motivated by dynastic considerations, however, a noble loss is of more benefit to Rand Paul's future, and thus to the principles Paul espouses and promotes.

• Mr. Obama's signature health-care overhaul, already deeply unpopular, will become even more so by Election Day. Women voters are particularly opposed to ObamaCare, feeling it threatens their family's health.

• Mr. Obama may propose tax reform, attempting to use it to appeal both to his liberal base (a question of fairness) and independents (a reform to spur economic growth). This will fail, but not before boosting Mr. Obama's poll numbers.

• The Obama campaign won't corral high-profile Republican endorsements—as it did in 2008 with former Secretary of State Colin Powell—with the unimportant possible exception of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel. It will also make a special effort to diminish the GOP's advantage among military families, veterans and evangelicals, with the last a special target if Republicans nominate Mitt Romney.

These are no-brainers as well.

• Despite an extraordinary amount of presidential time and involvement, Team Obama will fall as much as $200 million short of its $1 billion combined fund-raising target for the campaign and Democratic National Committee. Even so, Mr. Obama and Democrats will outspend the GOP nominee and Republicans. This won't necessarily translate into victory: John Kerry and Democrats outspent President George W. Bush and Republicans in 2004 by $124 million. Groups like American Crossroads (which I helped found) will narrow the Democratic money advantage.

A little self-promotion here ;-) Nevertheless, Rove is probably right. Of course, this is a party that can spend a trillion dollars and actually see the economy do worse than if they had done nothing. Total spending never tells the real story, which isn't how much a party spends, but how well. Frankly, if Mitt Romney wins the nomination, I would expect that his value for money spent will exceed that of Democrats by a factor of three or more.

• Scandals surrounding the now-bankrupt Solyndra, Fannie and Freddie, MF Global and administration insider deals still to emerge will metastasize, demolishing the president's image as a political outsider. By the election, the impression will harden that Mr. Obama is a modern Chicago-style patronage politician, using taxpayer dollars to reward political allies (like unions) and contributors (like Obama fund-raiser and Solyndra investor George Kaiser).

• To intimidate critics and provoke higher black turnout, Democrats will play the race card more than in any election since 1948. Witness Attorney General Eric Holder's recent charge that criticism of him and the president was "both due to the nature of our relationship and . . . the fact that we're both African-Americans."

• The economic recovery will continue to be anemic, leaving both unemployment and concerns about whether the president is up to the job high on Election Day. Because of this, Mr. Obama will lose as his margins drop among five groups essential to his 2008 victory—independents, women, Latinos, young people and Jews. While he will win a majority from at least three of these groups, he won't win them by as much as he did last time.

These aren't particularly difficult predictions to make. As far as the scandals go, the Republican establishment will have to make a significant effort to drive these stories into the mainstream, and only then will the Times, the Post and other bastions of Obama support, actually throw him under the bus to preserve what journalistic credibility they can.

I'm not sure the Obama reelection campaign has to play the race card particularly furiously. The simple fact that the President is black is probably all the race card they need to play. Blacks that are susceptible to race politics will have already inferred that anything short of acclamation is a KKK plot. If they do play it, it suggests that they've already lost black support that can't be recalled with race-baiting.

On the final prediction, I defer to Mr. Rove's superior access to polling data.

UPDATE: On the other hand...

During a telephone interview, Ms. Pelosi–speaking from a friend’s home in New York City–described her mother’s predicament:

She would retire right now, if the donors she has didn’t want her to stay so badly. They know she wants to leave, though. They think she’s destined for the wilderness. She has very few days left. She’s 71, she wants to have a life, she’s done. It’s obligation, that’s all I’m saying.

Pelosi’s revelation is significant, given that her mother pushed to serve as Minority Leader after the Democrats’ historic losses in the 2010 midterm elections, and that many Democrats–including President Barack Obama–are campaigning on the expectation that she will be restored as Speaker if they can retake the House in 2012.