2010 House Defense: Can Republicans take control?

76 thoughts on “2010 House Defense: Can Republicans take control?”

1. This is a somewhat reassuring exercise, though it probably does miss a decent number of vulnerable seats.

   My first big concern is the people who owe their wins by and large to changes in normal turnout patterns that came with 2008 lose with a return to normal patterns, let alone a situation where dispirited Dems fail to turn out. VA-02, VA-05, OH-01, OH-15, FL-24, NC-08, IL-11 all spring to mind.

   Wave elections are funny in that they usually spare a decent number of the obviously vulnerable – either they’re too firmly entrenched or they’ve been taking enough precautionary measures (either distancing themselves from party leaders, aggressive fundraising, stepping up constituent services) as to secure their survival. At the same time, such cycles tend to trip up a fair number of people who thought they were reasonably safe and didn’t notice the ground shift beneath them until it was too late.

   I do wonder when the next one is due, since both 2006/08 and 1994 were also driven in large part by a large of number of “wrong party” seats and there seem to be fewer of those than is usually the case. ’94 cleared out a large number of the Boll Weevil Democrats, either through defeats or retirements. ’06/08 did the same for a lot of Republicans representing metropolitan suburban seats and/or Rust Belt districts. There are a few Dems in the South or para-South who represent red areas, but not nearly as many as there were back in 1993.      

2. Much as everyone seems to think that being an incumbent is horrible, even in a year that was a disaster for Republican incumbents (2006), they still only lost 11% of their incumbents running in the general (the Republicans lost 22 incumbents out of 204 running their respective general elections). In 2008 (which, while not as bad as 2006 was for them, was still a really bad year) they lost about 5% of their incumbents (the Democrats lost about 2% of theirs). If another wave hit in the Republicans direction in 2010 (something I doubt), even then I’d still say that the absolute worst the Democrats will do is to lose 20-30 seats. In a neutral year, I doubt the Democrats lose more than 15, and probably fewer than 10, unless there are a rash of open seats on the Democratic side (in relatively competitive districts, of course).

3. Will also play a role.  Democrats will be competitive in the IL-10, PA-06, PA-15, WA-08, LA-02, and a gaggle of California seats.  Usually in a wave year it is almost impossible for the opposition party to win back any seats unless there are extenuating circumstances (ie bad incumbents – Boyda, Mahoney, and Jefferson I’m looking at you).  But in this case it wouldn’t be surprising for Team Blue to pick up a number of seats to offset their losses elsewhere, which will minimize the damage.  Using those numbers, the GOP will have to win probably 45 or more seats to truly guarantee they’d have a majority.

   The lack of retirements for the Democrats will probably save us a few seats that would have flipped otherwise as well.  In truth, we don’t need to have positive gains in 2010, just to keep the losses at a minimum and make it a push.  I’ve said this before, but if we’re assuming the bottom doesn’t fall out on Obama and he wins in 2012, than 2014 will likely be the year Republicans can make a legitimate push to retake both chambers of Congress.

4. Does the economy show real signs of recovery in mid-2010?

   Give me the answer to those two questions, and I will give you the answer to your question.

   If the answer to my questions are yes, then I would give the GOP a 0% chance of picking up more than 15 seats.
   

5. If Democrats lose the House in 2010, they probably wont be getting it back for another decade.  The reason is that redistricting is going to be shifting a lot of seats from Democratic leaning Northeastern and Midwestern states to Republican states in the Southwest and South.  Another big problem is that Republicans are likely to control redistricting in most states and that will further lock Democrats out of a majority and probably for the next decade and likely longer.

   This is probably a do or die election for Democrats.  Whoever wins control of the House and most state legislatures/governorships is likely to be in control of Congress for the next generation.  

6. What you’re leaving out (but everyone does) are the partisan effects of elderly voters dying and younger ones replacing them.  Along with similar effects due to in- and outmigration.

   There will be two more years of deaths and new voters signing up by November 2010, with turnover of nearly 5% of the electorate overall resulting.  The net effect in recent years is of 1% liberal/Democratic gain per year in baseline (and overall) partisan lean.  In your average House district with the standard 10% population growth per decade which happens to be moderately or highly competitive you can just about count on 2% better national Democratic performance every two years.

   That math of small but constant Democratic baseline gains doesn’t hold up well in (a) Appalachia, (b) the Rust Belt/middle and eastern Great Lakes.

   In short, I don’t think the House Reps in D-leaning districts are in serious trouble yet.  Mary Jo Kilroy is apparently screwing up her relationship with her constituents, that would be the one to keep an eye on.  Kanjorski’s district is trending Republican, I think- he’s looking at squeakers until he retires.  Schauer, Nye, Grayson, and Kissell are vulnerable too due to their districts.  But the rest of those folks on the Obama district list strike me as safe.

   I don’t see the three Arizona House Reps on the McCain district list as actually vulnerable.  There’s Democratic trend all over the state (though the breakthrough election always seems like the next one) and the Republican bench in the state, though they’ve done great in the state legislature, is seemingly marked with fail at any higher level than that.

7. My number was previously 40, but you make a solid argument with 42.  One of the seats that I’m not too worried about is WI-08, but you never know.

   So, if we have 42 seats to play “D” on, I imagine that we will be able to save at least half, probably even more.  We may lose around 16 of the seats, plus another 4 to 8 that were off the radar are because they were open seats.  However, we will probably pick up a half a dozen seats from the GOP due to retirements, Cao, etc.

   On the positive front, the economy is showing signs of improvement.  If we get some meaningful healthcare legislation passed, our ability to play some more “O” will be helped out.

   I think we will lose around (net) 12-15 seats in 2010.  Too early to tell, but I don’t think the GOP has got their act together to exploit many of the vulnerable Dems.

8. http://rothenbergpoliticalrepo…

   Can’t argue.

10. Although it may be a bit off topic, but if Democrats dont get healthcare reform passed, all bets are off for 2010.  We could see them lose 70 seats if that were to happen.  

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