Free Republic

We've added another Vulnerable Dem to our Master List: WV-03That brings our list to 99 seats. We now have 87 Vulnerable Democrats and 12 pretty safe Republicans on out list.This weeks news:It was a pretty average week for our six "Experts" with a total of 23 upgrades to the races on the KHR Master List but the Dems managed to get just 3 of those 23.We've added the Freedom's Lighthouse to our list of Pickup Projections and they currently are predicing a 49 seat pickup.We are now listing all the Pickup Projections we can find on the Home Page at...

We've added 5 more Vulnerable Dems to our Master List: CO-07, GA-02, IL-17, NC-11 & WA-02 That's the biggest change to our Master List in several months. We now have 86 Democrats and 12 pretty safe Republicans on out list.This weeks news:It was another good week for our six "Experts" with a total of 47 upgrades to the races on the KHR Master List. The Dems managed to get 9 of those 47, all by Election Projection. Rothenberg finally came through and we had updates from all 6 "Experts" this week. Our guys are starting to get on the ball.We've...

This weeks news:It was a YET ANOTHER BIG WEEK for our "Experts" with a total of 37 upgrades to the races on the KHR Master List. It was a 37 to ZERO shutout - none of the upgrades favored the Dems. There were major changes from Sabato and Cook, and a few from EP and RCP. CQ Politics and Rothenberg were silent.BUT THE REALLY BIG NEWS THIS WEEK was: Larry Sabato predicting a 47 seat pickup for the Republicans. Election Projection  followed a day later with a projection of a 41 seat pickup. We need 39 seats to retake the...

This weeks news:It was a BIG WEEK for our "Experts" and as usual the changes were highly favorable to the Republicans. We had a total of 55 updates this week, the largest number we've recorded for a single week. CQ Politics finally woke up up so we will lay off of them for awhile. RCP also came through with several updates. And Sabato has promised a major update on September 2nd. See below for the summary.We have winners in the Arizona and Florida primaries.The Master List has been updated to include the winners of all completed primaries The "Race at...

This weeks news:Jaime Herrera won the Republican primary in WA-03.The Master List has been updated to include the winners of all completed primaries - and there are no recounts in progress at this time. The "Race at a Glance" entries on the KHR Home Page have also been updated to include WA-03 and all funding data, polls and "Expert Ratings" have been updated as well. Our normal procedure is to update the financial data and Expert Ratings once a week but to update the poll data as we find it.So please send us links to any poll data that you...

This weeks news:Current Republican Net Pickup Projections: Saboto: 32Election Projection: 34CQPolitics: 29KeyHouseRaces: 32 STILL SHORT OF THE 39-40 NEEDED FOR A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE - BUT THE NUMBERS KEEP EDGING UPWe have made major improvements to the KeyHouseRaces.com Home Page - our 1-Stop-Shopping Page for the Races on our Master List. We've added CASH ON HAND to the funding data for the Republican and Dem candidates. Not a pretty picture yet - Dems are still ahead  We added a YouTube Link for each Republican candidate. The videos are a mixed bag - some are very professional and some...

This weeks news:We have primary winners in KS-03, MI-07, MI-09, MO-04, TN-04, TN-06 and TN-08. Unfortunately we do not yet have a Republican winner in MI-01 where the vote count favors Benishek over Allen by between 1 vote and 12 depending on whom you ask. Not good news when the focus needs to be on defeating Gary  McDowell and taking back the Stupak seat for the Pubbies.The Master List has been updated to include all the winners with the exception of the MI-01 Republican. The "Race at a Glance" entries on the Home Page have also been updated to include...

CQ POLITICS NEWS Aug. 4, 2010 – 11:18 p.m. Pa. Will Be Key Steppingstone for GOP Majority By Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call Contributing Writer There are many states that will have ballots chock-filled with exciting and competitive races, but if you are looking for a place where a big GOP political wave might show up early in the evening of Nov. 2 — or for evidence that it won’t be as big as some Republicans hope — you could do worse than focusing on Pennsylvania. Voters in the commonwealth will be choosing a new governor and a new Senator in...

GOP foe sues Grayson over DVD By: Tim Alberta August 4, 2010 07:14 PM EDT Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson's decision to mail thousands of DVDs – which essentially serve as a legislative highlight reel of his first term – to his Orlando-area constituents sparked a backlash late last week when those constituents realized that $73,000 of their tax dollars paid for it. Now, on top of facing voter anger in November, Grayson faces a lawsuit. Todd Long, one of seven Republicans vying for the GOP nomination to challenge Grayson in November, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court seeking an...

GOP deadlocked for Stupak seat By: Kasie Hunt August 4, 2010 03:55 PM EDT One vote: That's all that separates the two Republicans vying for the right to seek retiring Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak's House seat. The unofficial vote tally kept by the Michigan secretary of state's office showed physician Dan Benishek with 27,091 votes Wednesday, compared with 27,090 for state Sen. Jason Allen. (The Associated Press gave Benishek a slightly larger, 12-vote lead.) It's a margin so slim that the top two primary finishers could remain in limbo through weeks or even months of ballot-counting and litigation. And...

This weeks news: We've added two more vulnerable Democrats to our Master List: Ben Chandler in KY-06 and Kurt Schrader in OR-05. Both of these races look competitive to us and our "Experts".We've made a major change to the Home Page at KHR with the addition of our "The Races at a Glance" summaries of the Districts on the Master List. These summaries include photos of the Republican and Democrat candidates, all the polling information that we can find, funding totals for the Dem and the Republican candidates, links to the Republican candidate's campaign website, links to the "Spotlight" articles...

The letter went on: “Our country desperately needs men and women of backbone who don’t have to consult political weather vanes to know what they stand for. Neither candidate is perfect, but Todd Tiahrt will instinctively stand up for the country’s founding principles — without regard for the political winds. Jerry Moran would be reliable — so long as the winds are blowing in a conservative direction, as they are now.”

Since we last published our rankings, two important clues have emerged to give us some help in navigating the general election landscape. One is the second-quarter FEC reports, which in some cases helped Democrats' cause. That's because the party's incumbents have built up solid war chests in anticipation of extremely tough contests in the fall. Conversely, many of their Republican challengers start the general election in relatively weak positions, mostly because primaries have exhausted their stockpiles. But that should not give Democrats false comfort, for the Republican wave still appears to be building. Another important clue for November -- revealed...

DALLAS TWP. – Someone’s at it again. A new group of signs against the re-election of U.S. Rep. Chris Carney has popped up along state Route 309 in the Back Mountain. The latest version is more colorful and detailed than the previous one that said “Dump Carney” and pictured the congressman’s name in a red circle with a line through it. This time the anonymous sign maker connected Carney to fellow Democrat Nancy Pelosi, depicting him as a hand puppet of the Speaker of the House. “Dump the Puppet!” reads the sign. The signs have angered the Chris Carney for...

Georgia Primary: Austin Scott won the GA-08 primary and will be the GOP nominee running against the incumbent Dem Jim Marshall in November.The REALLY BIG NEWS is that  were 44 changes in our "Expert" ratings this week. We had major changes by Rothenberg,  a few by Election Projection (as usual), 4 from the mostly quiet Real Clear Politics and a few from Cook. Sabato and CQPolitics were silent this week.  Here's the summary of the changes to our Experts' ratings: There were a total of 44 updates this week to the 91 Congressional races that we believe are truly in...

VA-05: Democrat Perriello in Peril, One More House Seat Poised for Republican Take-Away: In an election for US House of Representatives in Virginia's 5th Congressional District today, 07/20/10, Republican State Senator Robert Hurt defeats incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello 58% to 35%, according to this latest exclusive WDBJ-TV poll conducted by SurveyUSA. The seat is one of many Republicans hope to capture in November 2010. 39 "take-aways" are needed for Republicans to capture control of the US House of Representatives. Perriello, who defeated 6-term Republican Virgil Goode by 727 votes in 2008, today trails among most demographic groups. Among men, Hurt...

Impressive! Decorated, retired Army Colonel – Republican Chris Gibson, running for Congress in New York’s District 20 against phony “blue dog” Democrat Scott Murphy, is more than just incredibly knowledgeable and articulate in promoting better, smarter government and policy, his credentials alone speak volumes to Gibson’s ability to lead during an era begging for leadership. Military historian and columnist, Victor Davis Hanson, says the following about Chris Gibson: Chris Gibson is different from the rest of us. His past is almost mythical: PhD from Cornell, author of a good book on military/civilian relations, 24 years in the military, retired at...

We've made a much requested change to the Master List format. We now show an "Incumbent or Open" column that will make it much easier to see which races are in districts where the seat is OPEN and whether it is a Republican seat or a Democrat seat. For those cases where there is an incumbent we now indicate whether the incumbent is a Republican or a Democrat.And just a reminder: The Master List has 91 seats and 79 of those are Dem Seats. These are the vulnerable Democrats. We need to generate a net 39 seat pickup from those...

It was U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy's first time voting as a member of the highly coveted Appropriations Committee, and he did not obediently march in step. Democrat Murphy joined the Republicans in support of an amendment that would have barred the Obama administration from using federal funds to sue Arizona over its anti-illegal immigration laws. Murphy, who represents Bucks County, was the only Democrat to break ranks. The vote came June 29 at a committee meeting. Murphy alerted the public afterward in a news release. His suburban Philadelphia district has elected both Republicans and Democrats.

Conventional wisdome suggests Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) is the most vulnerable GOPer in Congress, seeking re-election in a heavily African-American district in which any scandal-free Dem should easily top half the vote. But conventional wisdom has been wrong before, and a new poll for Cao's campaign hopes to prove it wrong again. Cao led state Rep. Cedric Richmond (D) by a 51%-26% margin, according to a survey conducted May 27-June 2 by LA pollster Verne Kennedy. Cao leads Richmond by a 67%-13% margin among white voters, and by a narrower 39%-36% margin among African American voters. That African American vote...