Flip This House Delegation

It’s that time of the year when people start contemplating “Oh, no! What if there’s a tie in the Electoral College?” (It’s actually not that far-fetched. Take the Kerry states, add Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico, subtract New Hampshire and you get 269 each.)

As you might or might not be aware, the 12th Amendment states that in the event of a tie (or no one getting a majority because of a 3rd party), the House of Representatives decides who becomes President. However… it’s not done by individual votes. Instead, each state delegation gets one vote. So, let’s assume there’s no horse trading going on behind the scenes, or strangely principled decisions to honor the will of the state’s voters rather than one’s party designation, and see which party controls which party delegation: the Dems control 27, the GOP controls 21, and there are 2 ties. (This is already a dramatic improvement over the situation going into the 2006 elections, when the GOP controlled 30, Dems controlled 17, and there were 3 ties.)

Dems: Arkansas (3-1), California (34-19), Colorado (4-3), Connecticut (4-1), Hawaii (2-0), Illinois (11-8), Indiana (5-4), Iowa (3-2), Maine (2-0), Maryland (6-2), Massachusetts (10-0), Minnesota (5-3), Mississippi (3-1), New Hampshire (2-0), New Jersey (7-6), New York (23-6), North Carolina (7-6), North Dakota (1-0), Oregon (4-1), Pennsylvania (11-8), Rhode Island (2-0), South Dakota (1-0), Tennessee (5-4), Vermont (1-0), Washington (6-3), West Virginia (2-1), and Wisconsin (5-3)

GOP: Alabama (5-2), Alaska (1-0), Delaware (1-0), Florida (16-9), Georgia (7-6), Idaho (2-0), Kentucky (4-2), Louisiana (4-3), Michigan (9-6), Missouri (5-4), Montana (1-0), Nebraska (3-0), Nevada (2-1), New Mexico (2-1), Ohio (11-7), Oklahoma (4-1), South Carolina (4-2), Texas (19-13), Utah (2-1), Virginia (8-3), and Wyoming (1-0)

Ties: Arizona (4-4) and Kansas (2-2)

So which are the likeliest delegations to flip? Turning to Swing State Project’s competitive House race ratings, I’ve tried to rank the likelihood of delegations moving from majority-R (or a tie) to majority-D. Ordinarily, I’d suggest this be the basis for some consideration as to how to allocate our House race resources… but considering that we’re already up 27-21 and looking to flip more delegations without a lot of strategic targeting, simply by virtue of how much the playing field is tilted in our direction this year, this serves more as a conversation piece this year. In short, we can move the margin to 30-19 by winning all our toss-ups, and we can move it as far as 35-14 by winning all our lean Rs as well.

Alaska: 1 to flip. AK-AL is a toss-up, previously rated Lean D. The biggest threat to our fortunes in this seat would be if Don Young doesn’t make it out of his primary.

Arizona: 1 to break tie. AZ-01 is an open scandal seat, rated toss-up.

New Mexico: 1 to flip. Rated toss-up, NM-01 is an open seat in a D+2 district, although the Republicans recruited a solid contender here. (Plus, NM-02 is a likely R.)

Nevada: 1 to flip. NV-03 is lean R. Although there was some weirdness with a candidate swap last month, Dina Titus may actually be an upgrade. NV-02 is also likely R.

Ohio: 2 to tie, 3 to flip. We’re getting into table-running territory here, but we can do it by picking up OH-15 (toss-up), OH-16 (toss-up), and one of OH-01 (lean R) and OH-02 (lean R). For good measure, there are OH-07 and OH-14 (races to watch).

Missouri: 1 to flip. MO-06 (lean R) looks promising, with a former Kansas City mayor on our side. MO-09 (likely R) presents another opportunity.

Louisiana: 1 to flip. LA-04 (lean R) doesn’t seem so out of reach given our special election victory in LA-06.

Michigan: 2 to flip. MI-07 and MI-09 are both rated lean R. (And MI-07 may actually be our best shot at an incumbent.)

Wyoming: 1 to flip. WY-AL is likely R, although we’d have better odds if we were facing the retiring incumbent instead of someone new.

Further down the list, there’s Virginia (3 to flip: VA-11 is toss-up, VA-02 and VA-10 are likely R, VA-05 is a race to watch), Florida (a herculean 4 to flip, but FL-08, FL-13, FL-15, FL-18, FL-21, FL-24, and FL-25 are all likely R), Idaho (1 to tie, 2 to flip: ID-01 is likely R), Alabama (2 to flip: AL-02 is likely R and AL-03 is a race to watch), Kentucky (1 to tie, 2 to flip: KY-02 is likely R), Montana (1 to flip: MT-AL is a race to watch), Kansas (1 to break tie: KS-04 is a race to watch), South Carolina (1 to tie, 2 to flip: SC-01 and SC-02 are races to watch), Nebraska (2 to flip: NE-02 is a race to watch), and Texas (3 to tie, 4 to flip: TX-07 and TX-10 are races to watch). There’s no action to speak of in Delaware (1 to flip), Georgia (1 to flip), Oklahoma (2 to flip), or Utah (1 to flip).

OK, what about worst case scenario time? I’m not sure what could make the Democratic brand more toxic than the spoiled dog food that the Republicans are currently peddling, but suppose it happens (and Obama wouldn’t be tying the electoral vote in the general under those circumstances anyway, so this is mostly academic). Suppose the Democrats pick nothing up, and also lose every toss-up? That still doesn’t flip a single delegation back to the Republicans. The Democrats would also have to lose every lean D seat in order for the Republicans to pick up a 25-21 edge (by flipping Indiana, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, breaking the tie in Kansas, and knocking Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Mississippi back to ties).

Kansas: 1 to break tie. KS-02 is lean D, KS-03 is likely D.

Indiana: 1 to flip. IN-09 (the 4th Hill/Sodrel go-round) is ranked lean D, plus IN-02 and IN-08 aren’t out of the woods at likely D.

Arizona: 1 to break tie. AZ-05 and AZ-08 are both lean D.

Pennsylvania: 2 to flip. PA-04 and PA-10 are lean D, plus PA-08 and PA-11 are likely D.

Wisconsin: 1 to tie, 2 to flip. WI-08 is lean D.

New Hampshire: 1 to tie, 2 to flip. NH-01 is lean D, and NH-02 is likely D.

Mississippi: 1 to tie, 2 to flip. MS-01 is lean D.

Further down the list, there’s also Illinois (2 to flip: IL-14 is lean D and IL-08 is likely D), North Carolina (1 to flip: NC-11 is likely D), Minnesota (1 to tie, 2 to flip: MN-01 is likely D), Connecticut (2 to flip: CT-02 and CT-05 are likely D), and Tennessee (1 to flip: TN-04 is a race to watch). For the rest of the Dem states, there’s no path to a flip.