StephenCLE’s House Predictions 2010 – Early August Update

Another month, another edition of StephenCLE’s House Predictions.  

Last month, back on July 11th, I said that we were at a crossroads regarding the battle for the House, where the Republicans were one major problem/mistake by the Democrats away from surging toward re-taking the chamber.  Well, since then, it’s been one success after another for Team Blue, as the gulf oil spill has been plugged, financial reform was passed, unemployment benefits were extended, and the timeline for the Iraq pullout appears to be on schedule.  These might not necessarily be big items for independents but most of these will no doubt help base turnout in November.  Not only that, but Team Red has really hurt themselves with poor primary choices and candidate gaffes in recent weeks, especially in Nevada, Colorado, and Illinois (which will also be reflected in my Senate ratings to come later this week).  Bottom line, for the first month since I started this series, the red tide has ebbed, and Team Blue has gained back territory.

Beginning this month, I will be updating my House ratings twice a month.  I’ll keep that schedule probably until the end of the primary season, in which case it will move to once a week.    

Total House Math for August 2nd:

Old House – 256 Democrats, 179 Republicans

New House – 233 Democrats, 202 Republicans

National Swing – Republicans +23

Democratic Pickups (4) – DE-1, IL-10, LA-2, HI-1

Republican Pickups (27) – AL-2, AR-1, AR-2, FL-2, IL-11, IN-8, KS-3, LA-3, MD-1, MI-1, MI-7, MS-1, NH-2, ND-1, NY-24, NY-29, OH-1, OH-15, PA-11, TN-4, TN-6, TN-8, TX-17, VA-2, VA-5, WA-3,

Pickup Changes from last month:

Democrat to Republican – IL-11

Republican to Democrat – CO-4, WV-1, NH-1, NV-3

August Race Ratings Changes –

1.Illinois-17 – Solid D to Likely D – A shocking internal poll from last week gives the little known Republican challenger, Bobby Schilling, a lead against longtime incumbent Phil Hare.  Schilling hasn’t raised much this cycle and has kept a low profile, so I doubt the poll is correct, but in either case, this is enough to at least put the race on the board, especially because coattails in Illinois will definitely be breaking in the Republicans’ favor

2.Colorado-3 – Lean D to Likely D – With the GOP ticket imploding in Colorado, it’s very unlikely that they’ll be able to take out Salazar

3.Virginia-9 – Lean D to Likely D – Some recent polling here has shown Boucher with a double digit lead over his opponent, so that’s good enough for me to put this one to Likely.

4.Indiana-9 – Toss Up to Lean D – Much like the previous, Baron Hill has seen some positive polling in his race, so I think he deserves a more favorable rating as well.

5.Colorado-4 – Toss Up to Lean D – She may not be as lucky as John Hickenlooper, but the implosion of the GOP ticket in Colorado looks like it could really help Betsy Markey.  Tom Tancredo’s appearance on the ballot could give some people here Marilyn Musgrave redux jitters.

6.Iowa-3 – Toss Up to Lean D – I didn’t want to move this initially, as I’m still really worried about bad coattails in Iowa and Boswell’s relative weakness as a rep, but Brad Zaun has shot himself in the foot several times now with regard to farm subsidies and flood relief. (Really?)  Boswell has to be favored now.

7.Massachusetts-10 – Toss Up to Lean D – Pretty much all the pundits are taking this one out of the toss-up category.  I’m not really sure why, but I’ll be a follower on this one.

8.West Virginia-1 – Toss Up to Lean D – Man, total egg on face.  Can you believe it, following the primary I had this one at Likely R.  Now with Joe Manchin topping the ballot, so long as Oliverio doesn’t totally piss off the base with his anti-Pelosi, democrat-hating rhetoric, he’s in decent shape.

9.Alaska-1 – Likely R to Solid R – With Lisa Murkowski and Sean Parnell looking to clean up in the great white north, Don Young would need a major scandal to burst over his head to lose this year.  Safe.

10.California-19 – Likely R to Solid R – Surprisingly, I haven’t seen any action on the D side in this open seat race, so I take it off the board as well.

11.Ohio-15 – Lean R to Toss Up – With generally positive polling for both Lee Fisher and Ted Strickland recently (except for Scotty Rass of course) the situation here is looking better for Mary Kilroy.  She’s still locked in a very difficult fight though.

12.Illinois-11 – Toss Up/Dem Retention to Toss Up/Rep Pickup – Sometimes coattails can be a bitch, but in this case, Adam Kinzinger is really doing some good things in fundraising and on the campaign trail too.  Debbie Halvorson is in for a real fight here.

13.New Hampshire-1 – Toss Up/Rep Pickup to Toss Up/Dem Retention – Just when I thought New Hampshire was jumping off the deep end toward the GOP, polling comes out giving Carol Shea-Porter a lead, plus she actually cracked 200k in fundraising last quarter!  Strong moves, and that makes me change this race out of the red column.

14.Nevada-3 – Toss Up/Rep Pickup to Toss Up/Dem Retention – Dina Titus is looking better now than she did a month ago as well, as not only does polling show her with a slight edge, but also the vast improvement of Harry Reid’s election chances and Brian Sandoval’s recent gaffes have the democratic side looking much better throughout Nevada.  I balked to move it to Lean though, because of Titus’s weakness as a representative.

15.Florida-12 – Likely R to Lean R – As unlikely as this race seems given the PVI and the fundraising race, Lori Edwards supposedly is tied or leading in several polls here.  I would think that after the primary that whoever the R candidate is would be able to consolidate support, but you never know.  As weird a cycle as this looks to be in Florida, I don’t think we can assume anything.

2010 House Big Board (as of June update)

Solid Dem – 162 seats:

AL-7, AZ-4, AZ-7, AR-4, CA-1, CA-5, CA-6, CA-7, CA-8, CA-9, CA-10, CA-11, CA-12, CA-13, CA-14, CA-15, CA-16, CA-17, CA-18, CA-20, CA-23, CA-27, CA-28, CA-29, CA-30, CA-31, CA-32, CA-33, CA-34, CA-35, CA-36, CA-37, CA-38, CA-39, CA-43, CA-51, CA-53, CO-1, CO-2, CT-1, CT-2, CT-3, FL-3, FL-11, FL-17, FL-19, FL-20, FL-23, GA-4, GA-5, GA-13, HI-2, IL-1, IL-2, IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-7, IL-8, IL-9, IL-12, IN-1, IN-7, IA-1, IA-2, ME-2, MD-2, MD-3, MD-4, MD-5, MD-7, MD-8, MA-1, MA-2, MA-3, MA-4, MA-5, MA-6, MA-7, MA-8, MA-9, MI-5, MI-12, MI-13, MI-14, MI-15, MN-4, MN-5, MN-7, MN-8, MS-2, MO-1, MO-5, NV-1, NJ-1, NJ-6, NJ-8, NJ-9, NJ-10, NJ-13, NM-3, NY-2, NY-4, NY-5, NY-6, NY-7, NY-8, NY-9, NY-10, NY-11, NY-12, NY-14, NY-15, NY-16, NY-17, NY-18, NY-21, NY-22, NY-27, NY-28, NC-1, NC-4, NC-7, NC-12, NC-13, OH-9, OH-10, OH-11, OH-17, OK-2, OR-1, OR-3, OR-4, PA-1, PA-2, PA-13, PA-14, RI-2, SC-6, TN-5, TN-9, TX-9, TX-15, TX-16, TX-18, TX-20, TX-25, TX-27, TX-28, TX-29, TX-30, VT-1, VA-3, VA-8, WA-1, WA-2, WA-6, WA-7, WA-9, WV-3, WI-2, WI-4

Likely Dem – 34 seats:

California-47 (Sanchez)

Colorado-3 (Salazar)

Colorado-7 (Perlmutter)

Connecticut-4 (Himes)

Connecticut-5 (Murphy)

Delaware-1 (Open)

Georgia-2 (Bishop)

Georgia-12 (Barrow)

Illinois-17 (Hare)

Indiana-2 (Donnelly)

Kentucky-3 (Yarmuth)

Louisiana-2 (Cao)

Maine-1 (Pingree)

Michigan-9 (Peters)

Minnesota-1 (Walz)

Missouri-3 (Carnahan)

North Carolina-2 (Etheridge)

New Jersey-12 (Holt)

New Mexico-1 (Heinrich)

New York-13 (McMahon)

New York-20 (Murphy)

New York-25 (Maffei)

North Carolina-11 (Shuler)

Ohio-6 (Wilson)

Ohio-13 (Sutton)

Ohio-18 (Space)

Pennsylvania-3 (Dahlkemper)

Pennsylvania-4 (Altmire)

Pennsylvania-17 (Holden)

Rhode Island-1 (Open)

Utah-2 (Matheson)

Virginia-9 (Boucher)

Virginia-11 (Connelly)

Wisconsin-3 (Kind)

Lean Dem – 25 seats:

Arizona-1 (Kirkpatrick)

Arizona-8 (Giffords)

Colorado-4 (Markey)

Florida-8 (Grayson)

Georgia-8 (Marshall)

Hawaii-1 (Djou)

Idaho-1 (Minnick)

Iowa-3 (Boswell)

Indiana-9 (Hill)

Kentucky-6 (Chandler)

Massachusetts-10 (Open)

Mississippi-4 (Taylor)

Missouri-4 (Skelton)

New Jersey-3 (Adler)

New York-23 (Owens)

North Carolina-8 (Kissell)

Oregon-5 (Schrader)

Pennsylvania-8 (Murphy)

Pennsylvania-10 (Carney)

Pennsylvania-12 (Critz)

South Carolina-5 (Spratt)

South Dakota-1 (Herseth)

Texas-23 (Rodriguez)

West Virginia-1 (Open)

Wisconsin-8 (Kagen)

Toss Up – 28 seats:

Alabama-2 (Bright)

Arizona-5 (Mitchell)

California-11 (McNerney)

Florida-2 (Boyd)

Florida-22 (Klein)

Florida-24 (Kosmas)

Florida-25 (Open)

Illinois-10 (Open)

Illinois-11 (Halvorson)

Illinois-14 (Foster)

Maryland-1 (Kratovil)

Michigan-1 (Open)

Michigan-7 (Schauer)

Nevada-3 (Titus)

New Hampshire-1 (Shea-Porter)

New Mexico-2 (Teague)

New York-1 (Bishop)

New York-19 (Hall)

North Dakota-1 (Pomeroy)

Ohio-15 (Kilroy)

Ohio-16 (Boccieri)

Pennsylvania-7 (Open)

Tennessee-4 (Davis)

Tennessee-8 (Open)

Texas-17 (Edwards)

Virginia-5 (Perriello)

Washington-3 (Open)

Wisconsin-7 (Open)

Lean Rep – 19 seats:

Arkansas-1 (Open)

California-3 (Lungren)

California-45 (Bono Mack)

Florida-12 (Open)

Indiana-8 (Open)

Kansas-3 (Open)

Minnesota-6 (Bachmann)

Mississippi-1 (Childers)

Nebraska-2 (Terry)

New Hampshire-2 (Open)

New York-24 (Arcuri)

New York-29 (Open)

Ohio-1 (Driehaus)

Ohio-12 (Tiberi)

Pennsylvania-6 (Gerlach)

Pennsylvania-11 (Kanjorski)

Pennsylvania-15 (Dent)

Virginia-2 (Nye)

Washington-8 (Reichert)

Likely Rep – 12 seats:

Alabama-5 (Open)

Arizona-3 (Open)

Arkansas-2 (Open)

California-44 (Calvert)

Indiana-3 (Open)

Kansas-2 (Jenkins)

Kansas-4 (Open)

Michigan-3 (Open)

Missouri-8 (Emerson)

South Carolina-2 (Wilson)

Texas-32 (Sessions)

Virginia-1 (Wittman)

Solid Rep – 155 seats:

AL-1, AL-3, AL-4, AL-6, AK-1, AZ-2, AZ-6, AR-3, CA-2, CA-4, CA-19, CA-21, CA-22, CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-40, CA-41, CA-42, CA-46, CA-48, CA-49, CA-50, CA-52, CO-5, CO-6, FL-1, FL-4, FL-5, FL-6, FL-7, FL-9, FL-10, FL-13, FL-14, FL-15, FL-16, FL-18, FL-21, GA-1, GA-3, GA-7, GA-9, GA-10, GA-11, ID-2, IL-6, IL-13, IL-15, IL-16, IL-18, IL-19, IN-4, IN-5, IN-6, IA-4, IA-5, KS-1, KY-1, KY-2, KY-4, KY-5, LA-1, LA-3, LA-4, LA-5, LA-6, LA-7, MD-6, MI-2, MI-4, MI-6, MI-8, MI-10, MI-11, MN-2, MN-3, MS-3, MO-2, MO-6, MO-7, MO-9, MT-1, NE-1, NE-3, NV-2, NJ-2, NJ-5, NJ-4, NJ-7, NJ-11, NY-3, NY-26, NC-3, NC-5, NC-6, NC-9, NC-10, OH-2, OH-3, OH-4, OH-5, OH-7, OH-8, OH-14, OK-1, OK-3, OK-4, OK-5, OR-2, PA-5, PA-9, PA-16, PA-18, PA-19, SC-1, SC-3, SC-4, TN-1, TN-2, TN-3, TN-6, TN-7, TX-1, TX-2, TX-3, TX-4, TX-5, TX-6, TX-7, TX-8, TX-10, TX-11, TX-12, TX-13, TX-14, TX-19, TX-21, TX-22, TX-24, TX-26, TX-31, UT-1, UT-3, VA-4, VA-6, VA-7, VA-10, WA-4, WA-5, WV-2, WI-1, WI-5, WI-6, WY-1