Posted on 10/10/2020 6:27:38 PM PDT by Coop
There are 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. As of today the House make-up consists of 232 Democrats, 197 Republicans, 1 traitor Libertarian (Amash), and 5 vacancies (Republicans: Graves, GA-14; Meadows, NC-11; Ratcliffe, TX-04; Hunter, CA-50; Democrat Lewis, GA-05). Let’s assume all the vacant seats remain with their respective parties, and Amash votes with the Democrats. That’s 234 Ds to 201 Rs. The GOP needs a net gain of 17 seats to retire Nancy Pelosi as speaker. All 435 seats are up for re-election every two years, on even years. But only a small percentage are considered competitive. This year Ballotpedia assesses that less than 10% of races are considered battlegrounds.
At the beginning of this year there were 31 Democrats sitting in House districts that Trump won. After witnessing the disgraceful impeachment debacle, NJ-02’s Rep. Jeff Van Drew quit his shameful party and joined the GOP. Trump won Jeff’s R+1 district by 5 points. So now we have 30 Dems in Trump districts, and only 3 Republicans in districts won by Clinton.
As you look at the chart below, keep in mind that there are other competitive races not on this list. One example is GOP Rep. Don Bacon in NE-02, who barely won in 2016 & 2018 in a slight Trump-leaning district. Tom Kean Jr. is trying to flip NJ-07, a district Hillary won by a point, but that McCain-disciple Romney won by over 6 points in 2012. I am hopeful that readers of this thread will chime in with information on other competitive Congressional races (info on fundraising, voter registration, endorsements, events, and… [sigh] okay, even polls). 😊
GOP advantages are the numbers shown below (30 Trump-district Dem seats to defend vs. 3 Clinton-district GOP seats), as well as having Trump on the top of the ticket (unlike 2018 when we lost most of these seats). The GOP disadvantage is most of these Democrats are incumbents and very well funded. There are two open seats (no incumbent) in the below tables: IA-02 and TX-23. GOP candidates running in swing states will benefit from Trump & RNC money & get-out-the-vote operations. Republicans running in states like NJ and NY will need more of their own campaign money & hopefully NRCC funding.
The Cook partisan voting index (PVI) shows how a district leans, right or left, based on previous elections. WI-03 is rated as “even” on the Cook scale, meaning it is as “down the middle” as a district can get. R+2 means a district is about two points more Republican than WI-03, and D+7 means a district is about 7 point more Democratic than WI-03. Cook ratings for PA-08 and PA-17 are marked with question marks due to redistricting (these districts didn’t exist in this form during the last POTUS election, and I was finding conflicting information).
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| State/District | 2016 Trump Margin | Cook Rating | Republican Candidate | |
| AZ-01 | 4 pts | R+2 | Tiffany Shedd | |
| GA-06 | 1.5 pts | R+8 | Karen Handel | |
| IL-14 | < 4 pts | R+5 | Jim Oberweis | |
| IL-17 | 0.7 pts | D+3 | Esther J. King* | |
| IA-01 | 3.5 pts | D+1 | Ashley Hinson | |
| IA-02 (open) | 4 pts | D+1 | Mariannette Miller-Meeks* | |
| IA-03 | 3.5 pts | R+1 | Former Rep. David Young | |
| ME-02 | >10 pts | R+2 | Dale Crafts | |
| MI-08 | <7 pts | R+4 | Paul Junge | |
| MI-11 | >3 pts | R+4 | Eric Esshaki | |
| MN-02 | >1 pt | R+2 | Tyler Kistner* | |
| MN-07 | <31 pts | R+12 | LtGov Michelle Fischbach | |
| NV-03 | 1 pt | R+2 | ”Big Dan” Rodimer | |
| NH-01 | 1.6 pts | R+2 | Matt Mowers | |
| NJ-03 | >6 pts | R+2 | David Richter | |
| NJ-05 | 1 pt | R+3 | Frank Pallotta | |
| NJ-11 | <1 pt | R+3 | Rosemary Becchi | |
| NM-02 | ~10 pts | R+6 | Yvette Herrell | |
| NY-11 | <10 pts | R+3 | Nicole Malliotakis | |
| NY-19 | <7 pts | R+2 | Kyle Van De Water* | |
| NY-22 | <15 pts | R+6 | Former Rep. Claudia Tenney | |
| OK-05 | ~13 pts | R+10 | Stephanie Bice | |
| PA-08 | <10 pts | ??? | Jim Bognet | |
| PA-17 | 2.6 pts | ??? | Sean Parnell* | |
| SC-01 | 13 pts | R+10 | Nancy Mace | |
| UT-04 | <7 pts | R+13 | NFL player Burgess Owens | |
| VA-02 | 3.4 pts | R+3 | Former Rep. Scott Taylor* | |
| VA-07 | 6.5 pts | R+6 | Nick Freitas* | |
| WI-03 | 4.5 pts | Even | Derrick Van Orden* | |
|
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| State/District | 2016 Trump Margin | Cook Rating | Republican Candidate | |
| NY-24 | -3.6 pts | D+3 | Rep. John Katko | |
| PA-01 | -2 pts | D+2 | Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick | |
| TX-23 (open) | -3.4 pts | R+1 | Tony Gonzales* | |
Did you notice all the vibrant female Republican candidates? Not bad for a supposed party of old white men, huh? LOL We also have some exciting black candidates such as Burgess Owens, UT-04, and Kimberly Klacik in MD-07, Latina/Latino contenders and a first generation American by way of Iraq. The GOP also has (at least) two physically handicapped candidates in Dale Crafts (ME-02, above) and Madison Cawthorn, NC-11. Whether these diverse candidates win or lose, they’re changing the egregiously biased media “Republicans are all white males” narrative. Running on GOP tickets we also have plenty of military veterans, which this veteran thinks we need more of in Congress.
What can you do to help retire Nancy?
Finally, there’s a lot of data entry involved in those tables above, plus a few paragraphs. I apologize for any errors and would encourage readers to point them out so I don’t inadvertently give folks the wrong information or impression.
If President Trump performs as well as I anticipate this election, I believe his coattails have a good shot of swiping that gavel from Nancy Pelosi’s fist.
This ain't POTUS or VPOTUS, but Rand's fairly high profile. I like it!
Thanks for the poll link, and your last sentence sums up Parnell’s campaign nicely.
I thought Taylor was trailing Luria in polling, but he's led the last few. The incumbent Dem is in the low 40s.
I forgot to add that the poll I found was a campaign poll for Parnell, so take it with a grain of salt. But the race is certainly competitive even with no public polling that I could find.
This time, have a strong contender, Buzz Patterson. He is going strong, will be a real close race.
ping to 225, should have included you in the “to”
Trump's margin of victory in the district was slimmer in 2016 than past GOP presidential candidates. Trump won by 1.5 points, while 2012 GOP nominee Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) won by 23.3 points. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won by 18.9 points in 2008.
I knew GA-06 was considered pretty Republican, but had no idea the numbers were that strong up until 2016. With Trump significantly improving his GOP approval ratings from four years ago, Handel should have a lot of right-leaning votes to tap into during a presidential election. I like her chances.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that district was redrawn recently.
That would explain a drastic drop-off (not attributable to Trump himself). I took a quick look and don’t see anything redrawn since the 2010 census. But I’m tired and going to bed. I’m certain one of our Congressional district gurus can provide some excellent background. Good night to you, sir!
“Republicans lead in eight competitive California House districts 49-47% (acc to Cook Political Report these districts are CA-02, -10, -21, -22, -25, -39, -48 and -50).”
Coop, did you mean CA-07 instead of CA-02? Because the CA-02 is overwhelmingly Democrat, so it wouldn’t be described as “competitive” by Cook, much less show the Republican candidate ahead in a poll.
Among the districts listed, two should be safe Republican (Nunes’s CA-22 and the open CA-50 that Hunter vacated), but the others would be very nice pickups (and CA-25 a nice hold for newly elected Mike García). Our other potential U.S. House pickups in California are 36, 45, 49 and 52.
Cook has 4 of ours “competitive”) Garcia 25 (tossup), the Hunter seat 50 seat (lean), Nunes 22 (LOL) and McClintock 4 (lol) “likely”.
And 4 of theirs
They have CA-21 a tossup, 48 lean rat, 10 and 39 “likely” rat
We should get 48, might get 39. Should never have lost 21 but that’s rat for President country.
10 should be Republican but our candidate ran into problems over tweets about Islam or some crap and I think McCarthy was a little bitch and disavowed him. I’m happy to see the seat still on the radar.
As for this poll, it’s not actually not great given that 4 of them are ours and only 1 of those should be competitive.
As for “other” seats, CD-7 is a nasty tease. I don’t see Ruiz 39 going down. 45 Porter should be a shot. 49, I don’t know but that would ironic after Issa abandoned it like a little wuss. 52, I can’t imagine.
what the heck is that link, it shows 2028 polling and thrn hacks me with a google advertisement
“This ain’t POTUS or VPOTUS, but Rand’s fairly high profile. I like it!”
Yes, it definitely works. Hopefully, Nick will win the seat.
My member of Congress, Ben Cline, is pretty safe.
Michelle Steel? So Michael finally finished the job?
LOL! Just kidding... Michelle’s a Republican.
It is 2020 polling data for VA02, as intended.
This is the URL for the link you provided:
Note “2018” in the link. And it shows the final results as well, which were the 2018 final results. Maybe you got the wrong link?
Ah, you are correct. It shows an asterisk for Taylor as the incumbent and Luria’s final victory. My apologies! I was surprised to see Taylor leading.
I'm in VA's second district. It encompasses the Eastern Shore of VA, Virginia Beach and the eastern stretch of the peninsula, including all of Williamsburg.
It's a rematch between democrat incumbent Elaine Luria and former R Congressman Scott Taylor. Taylor lost to Luria in 2018 but seems poised to win the seat back next week.
I second that!
Darrell Issa will be returning to Congress. This is a Hold.
Issa will replace Duncan Hunter who was a naughty boy.
Hunter was stupid. It is so easy to make money as a Congressman legally. Maxine Waters lives in a 6 million dollar mansion you know.
As Daly of Chicago said, Never Take A Dime. Just Give Them Your Business Card.
“#CA50 GE:
Issa (R) 51% (+11)
Campa-Najjar (D) 40%
.
Trump 49% (+4)
Biden 45%
@surveyusa/@sdut/@10News, LV, 10/22-26
http://surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=24006771-7dd1-47f4-933c-ad5b78061dcb";
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