House Predictions
When I made my first predictions about the battle for the U.S. House of Representatives last spring, I predicted a net gain of 90 seats for the Republican Party. Since that time I realize that my initial prediction was ridiculous....it was far too low. As toxic as electoral conditions were last June, they're infinitely worse now, and every indication is they'll only get worse yet in the next six weeks.
There are a number of factors guiding my theory that things will be far worse for House Democrats than what even the most bullish GOP operatives believe. First and foremost, the national anti-incumbent mood is unprecedented. Recent polls show that voters intend to dump THEIR OWN CONGRESSMAN this year by a nearly 2-1 margin. That tells me that the polls are understating just how bloody of a night November 2 is going to be for the party that holds the most House seats. It also tells me that scores of Congressmen who are being told by everybody that their seats are safe, and who are on virtually nobody's endangered list currently, will be on the receiving end of a stunning upset on election night. Indeed, polls in the last couple of weeks have been released showing several long-thought-safe Democratic incumbents below 50% and holding five-point leads over Republican challengers with 5% name recognition. This represents Armageddon for Democrats, as my list of seats poised to turnover suggests....
Turning Over From Republican to Democrat....
DE-AL (open--Mike Castle)
LA-02 (Joseph Cao)
Hard to imagine Cao can survive in a D+25 district, but I won't even rest on this one until I see polling showing that Cao's an assured goner.
Turning Over From Democrat to Republican....
1. AL-02 (Bobby Bright)
2. AZ-01 (Ann Kirkpatrick)
3. AZ-05 (Harry Mitchell)
4. AZ-08 (Gabrielle Giffords)
5. AR-01 (open--Marion Berry)
6. AR-02 (open--Vic Snyder)
7. AR-04 (Mike Ross)
8. CA-11 (Jerry McNerney)
9. CA-18 (Dennis Cardoza)
10. CA-20 (Jim Costa)
11. CA-39 (Linda Sanchez)
12. CA-47 (Loretta Sanchez)
13. CO-03 (John Salazar)
14. CO-04 (Betsy Markey)
15. CO-07 (Ed Perlmutter)
16. CT-04 (Jim Himes)
17. CT-05 (Chris Murphy)
18. FL-02 (Allen Boyd)
19. FL-08 (Alan Grayson)
20. FL-22 (Ron Klein)
21. FL-24 (Suzanne Kosmas)
22. GA-02 (Sanford Bishop)
23. GA-08 (Jim Marshall)
24. GA-12 (John Barrow)
25. ID-01 (Walt Minnick)
26. IL-03 (Dan Lipinski)
27. IL-08 (Melissa Bean)
28. IL-11 (Debbie Halvorson)
29. IL-14 (Bill Foster)
30. IL-17 (Phil Hare)
31. IN-02 (Joe Donnelly)
32. IN-08 (open--Brad Ellsworth)
33. IN-09 (Baron Hill)
34. IA-01 (Bruce Braley)
35. IA-02 (Dave Loebsack)
36. IA-03 (Leonard Boswell)
37. KS-03 (Dennis Moore)
38. KY-03 (John Yarmuth)
39. KY-06 (Ben Chandler)
40. LA-03 (open--Charlie Melancon)
41. ME-01 (Chelie Pingree)
42. ME-02 (Michael Michaud)
43. MD-01 (Frank Kratovil)
44. MA-05 (Niki Tsongas)
45. MA-06 (John Tierney)
46. MA-10 (open--William Delahunt)
47. MI-01 (open--Bart Stupak)
48. MI-07 (Mark Schauer)
49. MI-08 (Gary Peters)
50. MN-01 (Tim Walz)
51. MN-08 (Jim Oberstar)
52. MS-01 (Travis Childers)
53. MS-04 (Gene Taylor)
54. MO-03 (Russ Carnahan)
55. MO-04 (Ike Skelton)
56. NV-03 (Dina Titus)
57. NH-01 (Carol Shea Porter)
58. NH-02 (open--Paul Hodes)
59. NJ-03 (Jim Adler)
60. NJ-12 (Rush Holt)
61. NM-01 (Martin Heinrich)
62. NM-02 (Harry Teague)
63. NY-01 (Tim Bishop)
64. NY-02 (Steve Israel)
65. NY-13 (Michael McMahon)
66. NY-19 (John Hall)
67. NY-20 (Scott Murphy)
68. NY-23 (Bill Owens)
69. NY-24 (Mike Arcuri)
70. NY-25 (Dan Maffei)
71. NY-29 (open--Eric Massa)
72. NC-02 (Bob Etheridge)
73. NC-07 (Mike McIntyre)
74. NC-08 (Larry Kissell)
75. NC-11 (Heath Shuler)
76. ND-AL (Earl Pomeroy)
77. OH-01 (Steve Dreihaus)
78. OH-06 (Charlie Wilson)
79. OH-10 (Dennis Kucinich)
80. OH-13 (Betty Sutton)
81. OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy)
82. OH-16 (John Boccieri)
83. OH-18 (Zack Space)
84. OR-04 (Peter DeFazio)
85. OR-05 (Kurt Schrader)
86. PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper)
87. PA-04 (Jason Altmire)
88. PA-07 (open--Joe Sestak)
89. PA-08 (Patrick Murphy)
90. PA-10 (Chris Carney)
91. PA-11 (Paul Kanjorski)
92. PA-12 (Mark Critz)
93. PA-17 (Tim Holden)
94. RI-01 (open--Patrick Kennedy)
95. RI-02 (Jim Langevin)
96. SC-05 (John Spratt)
97. SD-AL (Stephanie Herseth Sandlin)
98. TN-04 (Lincoln Davis)
99. TN-06 (open--Bart Gordon)
100. TN-08 (John Tanner)
101. TX-17 (Chet Edwards)
102. TX-23 (Ciro Rodriguez)
103. UT-02 (Jim Matheson)
104. VA-02 (Glenn Nye)
105. VA-05 (Tom Perriello)
106. VA-09 (Rick Boucher)
107. VA-11 (Gerry Connolly)
108. WA-02 (Rick Larsen)
109. WA-03 (open--Brian Baird)
110. WV-01 (open--Alan Mollohan)
111. WV-03 (Nick Rahall)
112. WI-03 (Ron Kind)
113. WI-07 (open--David Obey)
114. WI-08 (Steve Kagen)
So there you go. A net loss of the Democrats of 112 seats. And frankly I suspect they'll hang on by the skin of their teeth in a number of other races, including Blue Dogs Collin Peterson and Dan Boren in their respective districts, along with a number of incumbents that are in only modestly Democratic districts and probably think right now, erroneously, that November 2 will be smooth sailing for them....incumbents like Raul Grijalva, Adam Smith, and Anthony Weiner. They'll survive...but barely.
Obviously these losses will be the result of a once-in-a-lifetime tsunami. A good many of these seats will revert back to the Democrats in 2012, but of course a number of them will stay in Republican hands forever. Whatever the case, I suspect the bleak picture I paint will become clearer as the final weeks of the campaign approach. More and more polls will come out showing increasing numbers of House Democrats in imminent peril, many of them who fancied themselves untouchable.
And for those who believe that the tide will turn back the other way in a mere six weeks, the only example I can think of where that has happened was 1998 in the midst of the Clinton impeachment scandal when the GOP overreached. Generally speaking, when a party loses momentum in the final weeks before an election, the damage is done. Recall how in 2006 it was still unclear in mid-September whether Democrats would even be able to win the 15 seats needed to take back the House let alone the Senate. But in the week before the election, virtually nobody believed the Republicans would still be able to hang onto the House as a number of seats that were in question moved dramatically against them in the final days. We're starting seeing the same thing happening in polls across the country right now, and things are almost certain to get dramatically worse.
There are a number of factors guiding my theory that things will be far worse for House Democrats than what even the most bullish GOP operatives believe. First and foremost, the national anti-incumbent mood is unprecedented. Recent polls show that voters intend to dump THEIR OWN CONGRESSMAN this year by a nearly 2-1 margin. That tells me that the polls are understating just how bloody of a night November 2 is going to be for the party that holds the most House seats. It also tells me that scores of Congressmen who are being told by everybody that their seats are safe, and who are on virtually nobody's endangered list currently, will be on the receiving end of a stunning upset on election night. Indeed, polls in the last couple of weeks have been released showing several long-thought-safe Democratic incumbents below 50% and holding five-point leads over Republican challengers with 5% name recognition. This represents Armageddon for Democrats, as my list of seats poised to turnover suggests....
Turning Over From Republican to Democrat....
DE-AL (open--Mike Castle)
LA-02 (Joseph Cao)
Hard to imagine Cao can survive in a D+25 district, but I won't even rest on this one until I see polling showing that Cao's an assured goner.
Turning Over From Democrat to Republican....
1. AL-02 (Bobby Bright)
2. AZ-01 (Ann Kirkpatrick)
3. AZ-05 (Harry Mitchell)
4. AZ-08 (Gabrielle Giffords)
5. AR-01 (open--Marion Berry)
6. AR-02 (open--Vic Snyder)
7. AR-04 (Mike Ross)
8. CA-11 (Jerry McNerney)
9. CA-18 (Dennis Cardoza)
10. CA-20 (Jim Costa)
11. CA-39 (Linda Sanchez)
12. CA-47 (Loretta Sanchez)
13. CO-03 (John Salazar)
14. CO-04 (Betsy Markey)
15. CO-07 (Ed Perlmutter)
16. CT-04 (Jim Himes)
17. CT-05 (Chris Murphy)
18. FL-02 (Allen Boyd)
19. FL-08 (Alan Grayson)
20. FL-22 (Ron Klein)
21. FL-24 (Suzanne Kosmas)
22. GA-02 (Sanford Bishop)
23. GA-08 (Jim Marshall)
24. GA-12 (John Barrow)
25. ID-01 (Walt Minnick)
26. IL-03 (Dan Lipinski)
27. IL-08 (Melissa Bean)
28. IL-11 (Debbie Halvorson)
29. IL-14 (Bill Foster)
30. IL-17 (Phil Hare)
31. IN-02 (Joe Donnelly)
32. IN-08 (open--Brad Ellsworth)
33. IN-09 (Baron Hill)
34. IA-01 (Bruce Braley)
35. IA-02 (Dave Loebsack)
36. IA-03 (Leonard Boswell)
37. KS-03 (Dennis Moore)
38. KY-03 (John Yarmuth)
39. KY-06 (Ben Chandler)
40. LA-03 (open--Charlie Melancon)
41. ME-01 (Chelie Pingree)
42. ME-02 (Michael Michaud)
43. MD-01 (Frank Kratovil)
44. MA-05 (Niki Tsongas)
45. MA-06 (John Tierney)
46. MA-10 (open--William Delahunt)
47. MI-01 (open--Bart Stupak)
48. MI-07 (Mark Schauer)
49. MI-08 (Gary Peters)
50. MN-01 (Tim Walz)
51. MN-08 (Jim Oberstar)
52. MS-01 (Travis Childers)
53. MS-04 (Gene Taylor)
54. MO-03 (Russ Carnahan)
55. MO-04 (Ike Skelton)
56. NV-03 (Dina Titus)
57. NH-01 (Carol Shea Porter)
58. NH-02 (open--Paul Hodes)
59. NJ-03 (Jim Adler)
60. NJ-12 (Rush Holt)
61. NM-01 (Martin Heinrich)
62. NM-02 (Harry Teague)
63. NY-01 (Tim Bishop)
64. NY-02 (Steve Israel)
65. NY-13 (Michael McMahon)
66. NY-19 (John Hall)
67. NY-20 (Scott Murphy)
68. NY-23 (Bill Owens)
69. NY-24 (Mike Arcuri)
70. NY-25 (Dan Maffei)
71. NY-29 (open--Eric Massa)
72. NC-02 (Bob Etheridge)
73. NC-07 (Mike McIntyre)
74. NC-08 (Larry Kissell)
75. NC-11 (Heath Shuler)
76. ND-AL (Earl Pomeroy)
77. OH-01 (Steve Dreihaus)
78. OH-06 (Charlie Wilson)
79. OH-10 (Dennis Kucinich)
80. OH-13 (Betty Sutton)
81. OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy)
82. OH-16 (John Boccieri)
83. OH-18 (Zack Space)
84. OR-04 (Peter DeFazio)
85. OR-05 (Kurt Schrader)
86. PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper)
87. PA-04 (Jason Altmire)
88. PA-07 (open--Joe Sestak)
89. PA-08 (Patrick Murphy)
90. PA-10 (Chris Carney)
91. PA-11 (Paul Kanjorski)
92. PA-12 (Mark Critz)
93. PA-17 (Tim Holden)
94. RI-01 (open--Patrick Kennedy)
95. RI-02 (Jim Langevin)
96. SC-05 (John Spratt)
97. SD-AL (Stephanie Herseth Sandlin)
98. TN-04 (Lincoln Davis)
99. TN-06 (open--Bart Gordon)
100. TN-08 (John Tanner)
101. TX-17 (Chet Edwards)
102. TX-23 (Ciro Rodriguez)
103. UT-02 (Jim Matheson)
104. VA-02 (Glenn Nye)
105. VA-05 (Tom Perriello)
106. VA-09 (Rick Boucher)
107. VA-11 (Gerry Connolly)
108. WA-02 (Rick Larsen)
109. WA-03 (open--Brian Baird)
110. WV-01 (open--Alan Mollohan)
111. WV-03 (Nick Rahall)
112. WI-03 (Ron Kind)
113. WI-07 (open--David Obey)
114. WI-08 (Steve Kagen)
So there you go. A net loss of the Democrats of 112 seats. And frankly I suspect they'll hang on by the skin of their teeth in a number of other races, including Blue Dogs Collin Peterson and Dan Boren in their respective districts, along with a number of incumbents that are in only modestly Democratic districts and probably think right now, erroneously, that November 2 will be smooth sailing for them....incumbents like Raul Grijalva, Adam Smith, and Anthony Weiner. They'll survive...but barely.
Obviously these losses will be the result of a once-in-a-lifetime tsunami. A good many of these seats will revert back to the Democrats in 2012, but of course a number of them will stay in Republican hands forever. Whatever the case, I suspect the bleak picture I paint will become clearer as the final weeks of the campaign approach. More and more polls will come out showing increasing numbers of House Democrats in imminent peril, many of them who fancied themselves untouchable.
And for those who believe that the tide will turn back the other way in a mere six weeks, the only example I can think of where that has happened was 1998 in the midst of the Clinton impeachment scandal when the GOP overreached. Generally speaking, when a party loses momentum in the final weeks before an election, the damage is done. Recall how in 2006 it was still unclear in mid-September whether Democrats would even be able to win the 15 seats needed to take back the House let alone the Senate. But in the week before the election, virtually nobody believed the Republicans would still be able to hang onto the House as a number of seats that were in question moved dramatically against them in the final days. We're starting seeing the same thing happening in polls across the country right now, and things are almost certain to get dramatically worse.
posted by Mark at 4:33 PM
5 Comments:
Really, Democrats being pushed down to a record low of 33% of the House seats? If that is the case, I expect that Obama wont even be President anymore by January.
The party will make him step down if losses are over 60.
I'm curious as to why you think Dan Boren will retain his seat. Granted, OK2 is traditionally a Democratic seat, but the one time that it wasn't was when Tom Coburn was elected in 1994. I think the atmosphere now is comparable to '94.
Facebook: Charles Thompson for Congress
Twitter: @Thompson4D2
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Charles, my sense is that Boren has innoculated himself from the national Democratic Party enough to eke by even in the most Republican of years in the most Republican of states. In any other Oklahoma district, Boren would be taken out this year, but I'm thinking he'll survive in OK-02.
The poll showing Harry Mitchell ahead of David Schweikert in Arizona by one point was a partisan push-poll. The Schweikert campaign released a press release about a week ago about a pretty dirty push-poll that was occurring, now we know what it was. Harstad Strategic Research is run by Democrats; Paul Harstad was the campaign pollster for Obama and Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. You can read more about how they've gotten paid to smear Republicans here - http://fayettecountyrepublicanpartyiowa.blogspot.com/2010/07/democrat-group-behind-smear-ads.html
All other polls in this race show Schweikert trouncing Mitchell -- including a recent poll that showed him 12 points ahead. The NRCC, Club for Growth, and the 60 Plus Association are all pouring money into the race to help Schweikert - and the DCCC and AFL-CIO have decided not to waste any money in Arizona, due to the terrible polls. The Democrats will try to spin it the other way, but when you're running more TV ads than your opponent, like Schweikert is, and you're polling double digits ahead of your opponent, you can't disguise the truth. There's a great analysis by one of the local bloggers in Arizona here - http://www.espressopundit.com/2010/09/brutal-triage-indeed.html
Congratulations Republicans. By screwing up the economy and forcing Obama's election and Democrats to own the whole government in 2008, you have made sure that the Democratic party will never control the House again.
Congratulations, you thought strategically and about the long term, which is something Democrats failed to do in 2008.
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