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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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The House Is Very Much In Play
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| Parent(s) |
Race
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jan 19, 2010 04:20pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Sean Trende |
| News Date | Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "With Scott Brown rushing toward the finish line with Martha Coakley in D+12 Massachusetts, apparently (if the polls are to be believed) ahead by a nose, you’d think that the political establishment would slowly wake up to the fact that we're in a political environment that is at least as bad as 1994. But amazingly, the establishment’s slumber continues. The consensus among the political class remains that the House not only isn’t in play, but that it is crazy talk to suggest that control could flip.
These pundits are absolutely wrong. While I think the most likely scenario right now is that the Republicans will pick up somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 seats, Democratic losses could easily go higher. In fact, I’d say the GOP currently has about a one-in-three chance of getting the 40 seats they need to take back the House, with a bias toward higher gains. Pundits have discussed the economy, health care, and last November’s elections ad nauseam, so I won’t rehash this. I think the real reasons that the House is in play are as follows:
Open Seats
The most prominent reason you will hear from the makers of conventional wisdom as to why the GOP can’t take the House is that there are not enough open seats. The GOP only knocked off 34 incumbents in 1994, while it needed (and presently needs) 40 seats to take the majority. 22 of the 52 seats that it picked up that year came from vulnerable open seats (it also lost four open seats of its own). If you look at Stu Rothenberg’s latest numbers, there are only eight open Democratic House seats rated “tossup” or better for Republicans. That’s obviously a lot less than 22, so Republican chances for big gains are arguably limited.
As a threshold matter, it’s probably worth noting that if the GOP knocks off 34 Democratic incumbents again, and picks up the eight open seats rated as tossups or leaning its way, it would just barely take back the House (even losing the Castle and Cao seats)." |
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