Over the past few months, I continuously pinched myself as the race for the House of Representatives developed. Recruitments, polls and Republican primary results against incumbenets such as Indiana’s Dan Burton sent signal after signal that we could be in for another big year. Now, a Democracy Corps poll as reported at Talking Points Memo indicate to pollster Stan Greenberg that we could be in for an even bigger year than 2006.
Are House Democrats on the verge of an unprecedented second “wave election” in a row — one that could win them up to another 45 House seats?
That’s the astonishing finding of a new survey by the Democracy Corps, the Democratic polling firm run by Stan Greenberg and James Carville.
The new survey polled 1,600 people across 45 GOP-held districts, ranging from the competitive Tier 1 to harder-to-reach Tier 2 with the named incumbents and their opponents used instead of generic match-ups. The aggregate results showed the Democratic candidate winning the Tier 1 races 51%-42%, and the edging out the GOP 48%-45% in the Tier 2 match-ups, though they trailed 43%-51% in the “rural/small town” category.
During a conference call with reporters, Greenberg was bullish on the Dems’ chances this Fall, predicting a second wave on top of the one from 2006: “It’s certainly reasonable to think that of these 45 seats, half these seats could go to the Democrat if the trend holds.”
In June I think it is a stretch to be so bulling and cling to my prediction of about 20-21 seats, but I am doing so in the face of evidence to the contrary. Certainly we have the money, candidates and energy to blow this election wide open. Let’s make it happen.
[UPDATE]
In my excitement, I missed where Greenberg suggested HALF of the 45 could flip. Regardless, we’re in for a big year.
which would mean 23 or so.
An additional 20 would be fantastic. Really gut the Republican ability to block stuff.
Their is defiantly potential to get to 45 seats. We would have to run the table though.
Half of 45 seems about right. Maybe 30.
I don’t know whether we have 45 candidates that really would do us good to have in the House. But having 225 elected good ones would be wonderful indeed!
in a lot more races than people think – races where little to no public polling has been done. Look at the 3 special elections Dems already won this year in solid red districts.
25 seats? Yes.
40 seats? Probably.
More than 40? You never know. People are already mad about Iraq, and now the economy is making people desperate. Think big.
The message of this polling extends beyond the 45 districts that they examined.
If the numbers look like this in tier one and tier two races, this means that there are also tier three races that will be in play and be winnable if we don’t do the stupid thing and focus on a handful of districts.
And by widening the playing field, we make it harder and harder for Republicans to put scarce resources into a few focused races.
We need to play offense in every Republican held district so no one will make their contributions into the NRCC and there’s no money for the threatened incumbents to withdraw.