More signs of Democratic gains to come

(will be posted on daily Kos on Tuesday)

A big hat tip to Benawu for gathering a lot of this info.

One truism is that you can’t win an election if you aren’t in an election.  In the upcoming congressional elections, Democrats are contesting a lot more Republican seats than vice versa.  That’s good.  But it’s only the beginning.

More below the fold

The current House has 230 Democrats and 204 Republicans (one seat is open).

Of the 204 R seats, there are confirmed challengers in 119 (58%), with 2 more Democrats expected to run, and 24 where there are rumors. Only 59 (29%) have no challengers or rumors.

Of the 230 D seats, on the other hand, there are confirmed challengers in only 72 (31%) and there are 134 with no challengers or rumors.

Let’s make a little table (sorry for the formatting, HTML tables are rough, and then dailyKos seems to add its own stuff)

Current party     Confirmed    Expected   Rumored   None   Total

Democratic            72          4         20       134    230

Republican           119          2         24        59    203

But that’s just the beginning!

Where are the ‘unchallenged’ seats?

I’m all for the 50 state, 435 district strategy, but there are seats that are more or less likely to switch.  So…

Of the 59 Republican seats with no challengers or rumors, not one has a Cook PVI favoring Democrats.  14 of the 59 have Cook PVI of R + 15 or more.  These are districts where we are unlikely to win.

But of the 134 Democratic seats with no challengers or rumors, 19 have Cook PVI favoring Republicans.

Not only are they running in fewer places, they’re choosing those places badly!

Let’s redo the above table, counting only ‘competitive’ districts, which I arbitrarily say are those with Cook of less than 15, one way or the other.

In competitve districts:

Current party     Confirmed    Expected   Rumored   None   Total

Democratic            57          3         13        80    143

Republican           102          1         14        45    162  

Not only are more Republican districts competitive (despite the fact that there are fewer overall) but there are a lot more challengers.

What about a tighter definition?  Let’s re-do it for those with Cook PVI under 5

Current party     Confirmed    Expected   Rumored   None   Total

Democratic            23          2          6        22     53

Republican            40          0          8         4     52

That is, in almost 80% of the the Republican held hyper-competitive districts, there is a confirmed Democratic challenger, but this is so in only about 43% of Democratic districts.

And I haven’t yet looked at retirements!  Take a look at DCpolitical report.  Although there are 33 possible open Democratic seats, and only 32 possible open Republican seats, that’s misleading.  Of the 33 Democrats listed, only 7 are definitely retiring.  16 Republicans are listed that way.  Where are they?

Definite Democratic retirements:  CO-02 (D +8)    

                                 IN-07 (D +9)     confirmed challenger

                                 LA-02 (D +28),

                                 ME-01 (D +6)     confirmed challenger

                                 NM-03 (D +6)

                                 NY-21 (D + 9)

                                 OH-10 (D + 8)    confirmed challenger  

Definite Republican retirements:  AL-02 (R + 13)

                                 AZ-01 (R + 2)    confirmed challenger

                                 CO-06 (R + 10)   confirmed challenger

                                 IL-14 (R + 5)    confirmed challenger

                                 IL-18 (R + 5)    confirmed challenger

                                 MN-03 (R + 1)    confirmed challenger

                                 MS-03 (R + 14)

                                 NJ-03 (D + 3)    confirmed challenger

                                 NJ-07 (R + 1)    confirmed challenger

                                 NM-01 (D + 2)    confirmed challenger  

                                 NM-02 (R + 6)    confirmed challenger  

                                 OH-07 (R + 6)    confirmed challenger

                                 OH-15 (R + 1)    confirmed challenger

                                 OH-16 (R + 4)    confirmed challenger

                                 TX-14 (R + 14)

                                 WY-AL (R + 19)   confirmed challenger  

Notice that no* Democrat is retiring in a district that has less than D + 6; but *nine Republicans are.  

So, where does that leave the big picture?

I’ll guess we win 5 districts where a Repub is retiring, and they win none where a D is.  That’s +5.  Of the 23 highly competitive, Democratic-held districts with a confirmed  challenger…. let’s say the Repubs take a quarter, rounding up to 6.  That’s -1.  Of the 34 highly competitive, Republican-held districts with a confirmed  challenger……well, let’s give the Democrats a quarter, rounding up, or 9.  That’s +8.  Of the somewhat competitive districts with a confirmed challenger let’s say 10% switch each way, so the Republicans gain 3 and the Democrats 6.  So the net is +11.

But that’s without counting the Democrats’ fundraising edge, or the coattails of the president….