Don't Believe the Hype. There Are Still Vulnerable Democrats

The recent spate of favorable generic polling data has made Democrats overconfident and mainstream media horserace analysts prematurely eager to write the GOP obituary. One of the most frequently repeated talking points is that there are not likely to be any Democratic incumbents defeated in the House of Representatives. I'm planning on making my final predictions for Senate, House, and gubernatorial races either this weekend or next, so I won't tip my hand and make calls on any races here tonight, but I will point to a number of Democratic-held House seats that are still very much battlegrounds and are likely to be right up until election day.

Perhaps some of these political handicappers know something I don't, such as internal polling data for these various districts. Even so, the Republican rhetoric will hit fever pitch in the next 26 days, and many conservative voters who are on the fence, or currently disgruntled with Republicans, will ultimately retreat back to their partisan trenches out of fear of what the "other side" could have in store for them. The most likely victims, in no particular order....

Leonard Boswell--Long considered the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the country due to his questionable health and his top-tier opponent, Jeff Lamberti, but the power of incumbency and the anti-Republican climate have helped Boswell maintain a comfortable lead in public and private polls. However, I have seen first-hand the number of largely unanswered anti-Boswell attack ads being funded by the RCCC, and have also seen Boswell's unspectacular performances in two televised debates against the youthful Lamberti. Given that metropolitan Des Moines is still fairly new territory to Boswell who had represented southeastern Iowa before the 2002 reapportionment, the prospect of a Lamberti upset is by no means out of the question.

Charlie Melancon--The conventional wisdom is that the freshman Congressman from southern Louisiana will handily best his Republican opponent, but the overconfidence seems to be supported more by wishful thinking than any hard evidence. I have yet to see a public poll on the race, and nobody knows which voters continue to live in Louisiana's 3rd district post-Katrina, and which voters have been permanently displaced. It won't be until election night that we find out officially.

Jim Marshall--Surprisingly, polls have indicated that Democrat Marshall hangs onto a commanding lead over former Republican Congressman Mac Collins in this recently-reconfigured central Georgia district that went for George Bush with 61% of the vote in 2004. That has made Democrats breathe a little easier about what they once suspected was their most vulnerable seat....perhaps breathe a little too easy. Bush just held a huge fundraiser for Collins in an area where he is still pretty popular. The looming "threat" of a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives could be enough to turn many of those currently satisfied with the conservative Democrat Marshall to the side of the "real" conservative in the race.

John Barrow--Also fighting for his political life in a recently gerrymandered eastern Georgia district that's less Democratic than it was two years ago, Barrow also has a top-tier challenger in Max Burns, the former Congressman who won this seat in 2002 within the old district lines, before narrowly losing to Barrow two years later. This is still favorable turf for Democrats, but Barrow's incumbency is very weak and the district's new voters make this contest very unpredictable. At this point, polling indicates that Barrow is more vulnerable than Marshall in central Georgia, something few would have expected last year at this time.

Melissa Bean--Despite her robust fundraising and securing the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce for having her head up big business' ass in this affluent district in exurban Chicago, Bean is nonetheless considered by many to be the only House Democrat capable of being defeated by Republicans. Having unpopular Governor Rod Blagojevich at the top of the Illinois ticket in 2006, as opposed to wildly popular Barack Obama in 2004, will certainly not help Bean's cause.

Chet Edwards--There are more than 200 Congressional districts in the country represented by Democrats in the House of Representatives, but none that went for George Bush by a wider margin in 2004 than the central Texas district represented by Chet Edwards. Edwards was the only Texas Democrat who survived Tom DeLay's gerrymander, but Edwards' success was almost entirely the product of running against an absolutely awful opponent in 2004, whom he beat by less than four percentage points. In 2006, he faces Iraq war veteran and TX-17 carpetbagger Van Taylor. Say what you will about Taylor, who is not shaping up to be as great of a candidate as national Republicans had hoped, he is not an awful candidate. Perhaps not being awful and having an (R) next to your name is enough to win in TX-17, even against the skilled political survivor Chet Edwards.

With all this in mind, do yourself a favor and ignore the bluster of Democratic pollyannas and media know-it-alls about invincible Democrats. Instead, heed the warning signs in these races and be mindful of potential vulnerabilities elsewhere. The Democrats are very lucky in their ability to almost exclusively play offense this cycle. But I'm concerned that they are not taking seriously enough the flimsy hold they have on their weakest links. We can't allow the GOP to hold the House by one or two seats because they were able to pick off one or two Democratic incumbents.