Our Campaigns Blog - Jason's Blog

Takeover Predictions for the U.S. House - 2010
Posted October 16, 2010 at 04:00am by Jason

First, let me note that this is the first blog entry I've written anywhere on the internet. I decided to break the habit if only to allow easy access to this point of potential discussion, so as to keep a record of my thoughts instead of allowing it to be buried in the annals of site history in another thread. This way I'm opening myself to scrutiny, and would appreciate this post sticking around as a humbling reminder should my predictions turn out to be very wrong from whatever comes to fruition over the next three weeks.

Ever since the height of the BP oil spill (more specifically, Obama's lackluster televised "address" on the matter) I've been very confident that the Republicans would take over at least the House, gradually finding more ways for them to do so. While the cliché "the only poll that matters is election day" remains as true as ever, I feel confident enough to post my mostly finalized predictions for the U.S. House of Representatives, with maybe a handful of amendments as the clock runs out.

I've decided to rank every House seat that I expect to flip over to the opposing party, and then further placed these seats into groups for the purposes of adding commentary. Starting with Democratic pickups:

Democratic Takeovers: 2

1. DE-AL (Castle)
2. LA-02 (Cao)

These have been consensus favorites for a while now.

Democratic Possibilities: 4

3. HI-01 (Djou)

On paper, Djou should be the Bill Redmond of this cycle. By running against an opponent who doesn't even live inside the district, Djou is facing a different scenario. Combine that with the lack of serious pro-Democratic coattails elsewhere (Abercrombie is leading in the polls in the Gubernatorial race, but not overwhelmingly so), plus the perception of being dedicated to nonpartisan constituent service, and Djou is easily in a better position than Redmond was. A more favorable climate for Democrats will put Djou's career in jeopardy, but for now he should scrape by.

4. IL-10 (Kirk)

Polling is very mixed on this one. Either Dold or Seals leads by double digits depending on whom you believe. The sketchy Anzalone Liszt Research has been the most generous firm for Seals, a pollster which also greatly overestimated his support in the primary (reporting a 55-point margin of victory that shrank to 2 on election day), while the equally questionable ccAdvertising projects a 10-point lead for Dold as of early October.

At the end of the day, Seals is still a two-time failure in very favorable years for Democrats, and trailed a whopping 28 points behind Obama in 2008. In spite of whatever Democratic leanings this district may have, it hasn't translated into support for Seals with the same fervor. With Bill Brady on top of the ticket and favorite son Mark Kirk carrying the district by a substantial margin in the Senate race, Dold should have enough of a tailwind behind him to get swept into the seat. 2012 may be much more difficult for him, but that's crystal balling a bit further into the future than I'd like.

5. FL-25 (Diaz-Balart)
6. FL-12 (Putnam)

Not really convinced that either of the two Florida districts will be all that close in the end, but polling has been somewhat encouraging. Beyond the six seats above, I'm just not seeing any other districts where the Democrats are credible challengers.

Republican Takeovers: 72

Group 1

1. TN-06 (Gordon)
2. LA-03 (Melancon)
3. AR-02 (Snyder)
4. FL-02 (Boyd)
5. TX-17 (Edwards)
6. NY-29 (Massa)
7. OH-01 (Driehaus)
8. IN-08 (Ellsworth)
9. OH-15 (Kilroy)
10. KS-03 (Moore)
11. OH-18 (Space)
12. PA-07 (Sestak)
13. WA-03 (Baird)
14. MI-07 (Schauer)
15. ND-AL (Pomeroy)
16. NH-02 (Hodes)
17. VA-05 (Perriello)
18. IL-14 (Foster)
19. PA-11 (Kanjorski)
20. NM-02 (Teague)
21. CO-04 (Markey)
22. FL-24 (Kosmas)
23. WI-08 (Kagen)
24. MD-01 (Kratovil)
25. GA-08 (Marshall)
26. NY-24 (Arcuri)
27. MI-01 (Stupak)
28. IL-11 (Halvorson)
29. AR-01 (Berry)
30. SD-AL (Herseth-Sandlin)
31. TN-08 (Tanner)
32. VA-02 (Nye)
33. MS-01 (Childers)
34. OH-16 (Boccieri)
35. PA-03 (Dahlkemper)
36. AZ-05 (Mitchell)
37. IN-09 (Hill)
38. FL-22 (Klein)
39. NY-23 (Owens)
40. PA-10 (Carney)

The magic number for the Republicans to hit a majority is 218, or a 39-seat net gain. These first forty are the most obvious path to House control, although sometimes the most obvious pickup opportunities end up becoming duds: see CT-05 or PA-06 in 2006. With that in mind, these rankings I've provided are in order of how likely I see each seat is to flip, but not necessarily the margin of victory for the Republican candidate or whether or not X will truly precede Y. Such things are impossible to know, but in general these top forty are, based on district voting trends and individual race dynamics, a good rough guide of what kinds of seats are in the most danger.

Among these forty districts are long-time incumbents trailing badly in polls (Boyd, Edwards), incumbents who have cast risky votes in hostile territory, flash-in-the-pan newbies who had no business winning their current seats, and open seats in traditionally Republican territory. With the assumption that some Democrats will pull off freakshow surprises, the Republicans should lose no more than five of these forty seats if they are to take back the House.

Group 2

41. AZ-01 (Kirkpatrick)
42. NY-20 (Murphy)
43. FL-08 (Grayson)
44. SC-05 (Spratt)
45. IL-08 (Bean)
46. NV-03 (Titus)
47. PA-17 (Holden)
48. NC-02 (Etheridge)
49. NH-01 (Shea-Porter)
50. CO-03 (Salazar)
51. TX-23 (Rodriguez)
52. CA-11 (McNerney)
53. NY-19 (Hall)
54. AZ-08 (Giffords)
55. PA-08 (Murphy)
56. NC-08 (Shuler)

These sixteen seats are either marginal or Republican-leaning at the federal level, and should probably flip given the current climate. However, among these seats are those that could stay in Democratic hands due to the incumbents' personal popularity, history of outperforming polls, aggressive campaigning, or fortune of running against underwhelming Republican candidates. This is where the GOP will be able to make up for anomalies in Group 1 and lost seats in Delaware and Louisiana. If the Democrats retain more than half of these seats, control of the House will be uncertain well into the night.

Group 3

57. NC-08 (Kissell)
58. NY-01 (Bishop)
59. WI-07 (Obey)
60. MI-09 (Peters)
61. CT-05 (Murphy)

These districts are as even as you can expect, but each have a different narrative behind them that embodies some aspect of the 2010 election season. There are three 2008 freshmen running in a political climate opposite of the one that elected them. Another is a long-time incumbent caught off guard with a serious challenge for the first time in many cycles. Lastly, there's a district that has been safely in Democratic hands for decades, but has opened up at the most opportune moment for the GOP.

I would go as far as saying that if the Republicans pick up any of the five seats listed above, they are guaranteed to take over the House.

Group 4

62. IA-03 (Boswell)
63. NJ-03 (Adler)
64. OH-06 (Wilson)
65. OR-05 (Schrader)
66. OH-10 (Kucinich)
67. IL-17 (Hare)
68. CT-04 (Himes)
69. CA-20 (Costa)
70. VA-09 (Boucher)
71. ME-01 (Pingree)
72. MA-10 (Delahunt)

These last districts are the ones that will indicate a crushing wave election. If the Democrats lose any of these seats, they are in for a reaming beyond what even insider Democratic strategists are likely expecting: The largest Republican majority since 1946.

Group 5: Democratic Holds

AS-Delegate (Faleomavaega)
CNMI-Delegate (Sablan)
AL-02 (Bright)
AR-04 (Ross)
AZ-07 (Grijalva)
CA-47 (Sanchez)
CO-07 (Perlmutter)
ID-01 (Minnick)
IN-02 (Donnelly)
KY-03 (Yarmuth)
KY-06 (Chandler)
ME-02 (Michaud)
MI-15 (Dingell)
MN-01 (Walz)
MN-07 (Peterson)
MN-08 (Oberstar)
MO-04 (Skelton)
NC-07 (McIntyre)
NJ-12 (Holt)
NM-01 (Heinrich)
NY-15 (Rangel)
PA-04 (Altmire)
PA-12 (Critz)
RI-01 (Kennedy)
TN-04 (Davis)
TN-05 (Cooper)
UT-02 (Matheson)
WA-02 (Larsen)
WA-09 (Smith)
WI-03 (Kind)
WV-01 (Mollohan)
WV-03 (Rahall)

The seats listed above are those that I could see flipping over to the GOP, but for one reason or another am leaving in the Democratic column, be it favorable polling for incumbents (Altmire, Boucher, Bright, Chandler, Minnick) or just a general lack of information to support whatever theories I may be tossing around in my head.

CA-10 (Garamendi)
CA-18 (Cardoza)
CT-02 (Courtney)
IA-01 (Braley)
IA-02 (Loebsack)
MA-05 (Tsongas)
MA-06 (Tierney)
MD-05 (Hoyer)
MI-05 (Kildee)
MO-03 (Carnahan)
NC-13 (Miller)
NY-04 (McCarthy)
NY-13 (McMahon)
NY-21 (Tonko)
NY-22 (Hinchey)
OH-13 (Sutton)
OR-01 (Wu)
OR-05 (DeFazio)
PA-13 (Schwartz)
TX-17 (Ortiz)
VA-11 (Connolly)

These last several districts are those that have some kind of rumblings behind them or resemble those that do. However, little of this speculation appears to be substantiated by polling. Still, many of these districts are less than securely blue.

If the Democrats start losing districts like these, the Republican wave would likely be so large that the remainder of Obama's first term could be paralyzed with gridlock and possibly compromise his re-election bid as a result.

DISCUSSION