Not only did Keller win by nearly double the previous margin, but the GOP won three other statewide specials, one by just under previous margins and two by exactly the previous margins.
BTW, by my count, there are two unoccupied NC seats and the GOP now has 198. If the Rs hold those two, they will be down 35 going into 2020. OK5 is already looking good. So let’s say 34. That is a flip target of just 18 seats, or far lower than what the Ds had in 2018.
I think two seats in FL, at least two in CA, Loebsack’s seat in IA2 are all very much already in range. That would put the target at 13 needed for control.
Double the previous margin ? Keller won 2% more of the vote than Marino did in November ‘18. I don’t know what you’re referring to with “double.”
As for California, you know my opinion on that. The Dems have stolen countless federal races and have never allowed a Republican to defeat an incumbent since 1994. Ever since then, we’ve made the presumption that when the Dems take a seat, we’ll get it back at the next term. That has yet to happen 25 years hence. I think once stolen, they stay stolen. This will not change until the Feds go into California and investigate from top to bottom and start indicting officials en masse. Start with Xavier Becerra.
As for IA and Loebsack, it looks like IL ex-Congressman Bobby Schilling, who represented the seat just across the Mississippi, is looking to run for the open seat here. If he wins, he’ll be the first person since Ed Foreman to represent two different states in Congress (he first won a West TX seat in 1962, got wiped out in the LBJ massacre of 1964, moved just across the border to NM and won the adjacent district in 1968, alas losing it to a Conservative Dem in 1970).