As of 3:30 AM on Nov. 4th the Republicans have a 239 seat majority in the House which is 21 seats over the 218 needed for the majority.
So I started taking a VERY EARLY look at 2012 House Seats and seeing if there are at least 22 seats the Democrats should realistically be able to take a run at if 2012 is a normal election year (50-50 turnout).
So the seats we lost that I think we’d have a 40% chance of winning and up are AZ-01 (R+4), AZ-05 (R+5), CA-20 (D+5), FL-02 (R+6), FL-08 (R+2), FL-22 (D+1) FL-24 (R+4), IL-08 (R+1), IL-11 (R+1), IL-14 (R+1), IL-17 (D+3), MI-01 (R+3), MI-07 (R+2), MN-08 (D+3), NV-03 (D+2), NH-01 (EVEN), NH-02 (D+3), NJ-03 (R+1), NY-13 (R+4), NY-19 (R+3), NY-20 (R+2), NY-24 (R+2), NC-02 (R+2), OH-01 (D+1), OH-06 (R+2), OH-15 (D+1), OH-16 (R+4), PA-07 (D+3), PA-08 (D+2), PA-11 (D+4), TX-23 (R+4), TX-27 (R+2), WA-03 (EVEN), WI-07 (D+3), and WI-08 (R+2). Right there is 35 seats, if I counted correctly, where the Dems should be able to win at least 1/2 of them by it simply not being 2010 Part II.
Then we could add in the Republican seats that should be up for a challenge in a Presidential election like AZ-03 (Quayle won by 11.6%), CA-03, CA-44, CA-45, CA-49, FL-12, FL-25, IL-10, MN-06 (Bachmann is bound to shoot herself in the foot soon), PA-06, PA-07, SC-02 (Wilson won by 9.8% in this year, imagine when AA turnout is higher), and WA-08. The Dems have a much smaller chance at winning any of these districts, aside from IL-10, but 1/2 of 35 is 17.5 and adding 2-3 seats here would put Democrats within 2 seats of re-taking the House.
Now I’m sure redistricting will shake things up and some senior Democrats and Republicans will retire but as of today I think the Democrats could just have an average election year and still take back the House albeit with a tiny minority. If Obama gets a re-election bounce similar to Clinton in 1996 then maybe his coattails could elect another 10 or so Democrats.
P.S. If you see any seats that I forgot to list please let me know.
P.P.S I looked at a combination of a districts PVI and 08/10 election numbers.
The good news, I guess, is that in many of the states that are likely to lose seats (OH, PA), 2010 took out a few Democrats who likely would have lost their seats to redistricting anyhow.
Wilson, I think, is bound to Michelle Bachmann Part II, however… he has a district where it’s possible to hold him to a 52% or so win but not really possible to actually beat him.
Firstly, the Republicans will almost certainly end up with a few more seats than 239, looks like it’ll be about 244.
Secondly, I’m sceptical of a “natural” snap-back. You cite 1996 and Clinton, but the Democrats only won back 9 seats then. In fact, it seems to be the norm that re-elected Presidents don’t have substantial coattails even when they win by a convincing margin. Clinton didn’t, Reagan didn’t, Nixon didn’t, Eisenhower didn’t. Johnson and Truman did (although they were “accidental” incumbents), with Truman being the most relevant parallel given the recently elected Republican Congress. Democrats made very large gains with the help of Truman’s attacks on the “obstructionist” Congress.
The problems is the Republicans have a chance to win either way the economy goes. If the economy recovers strongly and Obama is easily re-elected, voters may simply vote for the status quo (which includes a Republican House). If things go badly for Obama, we may see two consecutive waves much like how 2006 was followed by 2008. Democrats need a really compelling reason to vote for them for House, and “help Obama” probably isn’t enough. They really need Republicans to be the bad guys. That may well come true, but it means the Republicans have to lose the House – not the Democrats win it.
At all. Nobody predicted an election like this two years ago, or even 1 year ago. Let’s actually wait until redistricting is over and the economy recovers before we make assumptions about anything.
For all we know, the Democrats could win 60 seats in 2012. Unlikely? They said the same thing about Republicans in 2008.
in a lot of these areas. Too early to say.
The economy in 2012 is unlikely to be as strong as the economy was in 1996.
a lot of these new Republicans scream “one-termer” and I’m sure we’ll take a bunch of them even if it’s another bad year for us, just by virtue of them being out of step with their districts and facing higher turnout. That guy who beat Ortiz in Texas comes to mind.
But we have no idea what redistricting is going to do to this new congress. The maps we are working with in Ohio and Pennsylvania are already pretty bad Republican gerrymanders, but as we saw in 2006 and 2008 they created so many marginal GOP districts that they can lose them easily. If we get similar maps in 2012, or even more aggressive GOP gerrymanders, it creates even more marginal districts for us to play with.
Texas is going to get an astonishing 4 seats and my instincts tell me that even in the worst GOP map for us, it’s undeniable that the growth in Texas is in areas friendly to us.
Likewise, in the states that are going to lose seats in the rust belt and northeast, I’m thinking it’s going to be some Republicans who can’t find a seat when the music stops. Except in Massachusetts where obviously one Democrat is going to have to retire or run against a friend.
Overall, it’s tough for Republicans to extend themselves much further in the South, they’ve pretty much just left us with the majority-minority districts. So I’m looking forward to playing a lot of offense in 2012.
Lean Dem:
FL-22
IL-08
IL-10
IL-17
IN-08(if Ellsworth runs)
MN-08
NH-02
NY-25
PA-11
TX-27
WI-07
Tossup:
NH-01
NY-13
OH-06
PA-06
PA-07(if Lentz runs)
PA-08(if Murphy runs)
TX-23
NV-03
WA-03
OH-15
OH-01
There are probably 50 more winnable Republican seats. I think we can fairly easily take back 10 seats, which would put us back over 200. 20 would get us back around 212.
The point of this was to show some House districts where Democrats could easily take back with a decent candidate and an okay next two years.
These seats don’t depend 100% on Obama or the economy.
This is just supposed to be an early look at possible key districts that could help the Dems take back the House.
I’m going to wait until redistricting until I go through the House.
Also, I think coattails are an overrated phenomenon. Obama’s election was one of the few cases that I think coattails were significant (due to turning out young and minority voters). But getting a swing voter who is turning out anyway to vote for you won’t have much of an effect on the down-ballot races. Cuomo was supposed to provided coattails to Congressional races according to some people here, but Republicans still gained 5 or 6 seats.
For now I think most eyes are going to be on the 2011 races/2012 senate/Governors races untill the redistricting process is complete.