If these trends continue, Republicans could gain 60 seats in the House

Hotair ^ | 09/13/2010 | Patrick Ishmael

[SeekAndFind]

Since April, I’ve been predicting a House GOP pick-up in the low 50s. Subsequent months of data seemed to strengthen the likelihood of a 52-seat-or-so outcome without greatly expanding the field of Democratic representatives at genuine risk, but only recently has the direness of the party’s electoral predicament really crystallized. In all, a remarkably high number of Democratic seats — 118 to be exact — are now, in one way or another, in play. Forty-four seats are now pure toss-ups or worse.

The last month has been particularly bad for Democrats. From April to August, the average rating (solid/likely/lean/tossup) of Democratic seats steadily moved downward in my survey; even so, August to September turned out to be worse than all previous months combined.

4/19/2010	Δ	5/14/2010	Δ	6/6/2010	Δ	7/12/2010	Δ	8/12/2010	Δ	9/9/2010
0.96	-0.04	0.92	-0.02	0.91	-0.05	0.85	-0.03	0.83	-0.16	0.67

While I don’t think future declines will accelerate exactly quite as much as the August to September period, I do think that Democrat fortunes will continue to fall at a more modest rate for the remaining two months of the campaign season. Thus, assuming declines roughly equal to the declines in those first months and distributing them evenly to all of the races, and Democrats are looking at 52 seats that are just toss-ups or worse on election day. From seat 53 to seat 78, pretty much anything can happen, as all are between the toss-up and lean Democrat categories. Seat 79, currently Dan Maffei’s NY-25, looks to be the high end of GOP gains. However, assuming the GOP wins a third of those intervening seats, the math is pretty straightforward: about 60 new GOP seats.

This all assumes some pretty fierce wave action, which I think is reasonable to believe will happen. Moreover, the 60 most vulnerable seats listed are simply the most likely to me to flip; given the countless factors at the macro and micro levels, the actual list of 60 flipped seats will be different. Regardless of the particular Ws and Ls, the seismic political impact would be the same.

Here’s the data graphically. The first graph is sorted by congressional seat, worst score to best; the second, by monthly raw score, regardless of congressional seat.

Below is the complete list of House seats, most vulnerable to least. Press CTRL-F to search for the seats you’re interested in.

	District	Dem incumbent
1	TN-6	OPEN (Gordon)
2	LA-3	OPEN (Melancon)
3	NY-29	OPEN
4	AR-2	OPEN (Snyder)
5	IN-8	OPEN (Ellsworth)
6	MD-1	Frank Kratovil
7	MS-1	Travis Childers
8	KS-3	OPEN (Moore)
9	TN-8	OPEN (Tanner)
10	AR-1	OPEN (Berry)
11	NM-2	Harry Teague
12	ND-AL	Earl Pomeroy
13	TX-17	Chet Edwards
14	CO-4	Betsy Markey
15	SD-AL	Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
16	FL-24	Suzanne Kosmas
17	IN-9	Baron Hill
18	SC-5	John Spratt
19	WV-1	Alan B. Mollohan
20	FL-2	Allen Boyd
21	OH-1	Steve Driehaus
22	OH-15	Mary Jo Kilroy
23	NH-1	Carol Shea-Porter
24	OH-16	John Boccieri
25	NH-2	OPEN (Hodes)
26	VA-5	Tom Perriello
27	WA-3	OPEN (Baird)
28	FL-8	Alan Grayson
29	NV-3	Dina Titus
30	PA-7	OPEN (Sestak)
31	AL-2	Bobby Bright
32	MI-7	Mark Schauer
33	IL-11	Debbie Halvorson
34	WI-7	OPEN
35	VA-2	Glenn Nye
36	AZ-1	Ann Kirkpatrick
37	MI-1	OPEN (Stupak)
38	PA-11	Paul Kanjorski
39	ID-1	Walter Minnick
40	NY-24	Michael Arcuri
41	IL-14	Bill Foster
42	NC-8	Larry Kissell
43	VA-9	Rick Boucher
44	MO-4	Ike Skelton
45	GA-8	Jim Marshall
46	TN-4	Lincoln Davis
47	PA-3	Kathy Dahlkemper
48	PA-8	Patrick Murphy
49	OH-18	Zack Space
50	TX-23	Ciro Rodriguez
51	PA-10	Chris Carney
52	AZ-5	Harry Mitchell
53	KY-6	Ben Chandler
54	IA-3	Leonard Boswell
55	AZ-8	Gabrielle Giffords
56	CA-11	Jerry McNerney
57	NC-11	Heath Shuler
58	NY-20	Scott Murphy
59	CO-3	John Salazar
60	PA-12	Critz
61	NY-23	Bill Owens
62	WI-8	Steve Kagen
63	NJ-3	John Adler
64	FL-22	Ron Klein
65	IN-2	Joe Donnelly
66	OR-5	Kurt Schrader
67	MA-10	OPEN (Delahunt)
68	NY-13	Mike McMahon
69	NY-19	John Hall
70	NY-1	Tim Bishop
71	OH-13	Betty Sutton
72	NM-1	Martin Heinrich
73	VA-11	Gerald Connolly
74	MI-9	Gary Peters
75	PA-17	Tim Holden
76	PA-4	Jason Altmire
77	WV-3	Nick Rahall
78	CA-47	Loretta Sánchez
79	NY-25	Dan Maffei
80	UT-2	Jim Matheson
81	IL-8	Melissa Bean
82	MS-4	Gene Taylor
83	NC-7	Mike McIntyre
84	GA-2	Sanford Bishop, Jr.
85	IL-17	Phil Hare
86	NC-2	Bob Etheridge
87	CT-5	Christopher Murphy
88	OK-2	Dan Boren
89	MN-1	Tim Walz
90	AR-4	Mike Ross
91	WI-3	Ron Kind
92	WA-2	Rick Larsen
93	CA-18	Dennis Cardoza
94	KY-3	John Yarmuth
95	CT-4	Jim Himes
96	CO-7	Ed Perlmutter
97	NJ-12	Rush Holt
98	GA-12	John Barrow
99	OH-6	Charlie Wilson
100	ME-2	Michaud
101	OR-1	David Wu
102	OR-4	DeFazio
103	CA-20	Jim Costa
104	TN-5	Cooper
105	RI-1	Kennedy
106	IA-1	Bruce Braley
107	IA-2	Loebsack
108	TX-27	Solomon Ortiz
109	MO-3	Russ Carnahan
110	WA-9	Adam Smith
111	NC-4	Price
112	ME-1	Chellie Pingree
113	MA-5	Tsongas
114	MA-6	John F. Tierney
115	NM-3	Ben R. Luján
116	NY-4	McCarthy
117	NJ-6	Pallone
118	CA-39	Sanchez

Update: Numbers guy Nate Silver weighs in today with what I believe is his first House prediction. Worth a read, but to sum his findings: it’s very likely that the GOP will take the House, and there’s a one-in-four chance that it takes 60+ seats. My obvious suspicion is that his “60+” probability will be revised up later, but we shall see.

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(I’m on Twitter.)

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.
To see the comments on the original post, look here.

[Perdogg]

How do we need to take back the House, 31?

[K-oneTexas]

Any thing is possible.

The real question is ... if the Republicans win back control of the House and/or the senate have they learned enough to keep it?

Have they learned what the American public wants and not what Republican politicians want?

[Jim Noble]

The GOP has plenty of time to f*** it up.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: How do we need to take back the House, 31?

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Actually we need 39 to take back the house.

[Perdogg]

thank you!

[SeekAndFind]

EDIT TO ADD :

We’ll need 10 to take back the Senate, which most observers consider to be a longshot.

Of course, with RINO’s like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and others, we probably need at least 15 to make the Senate REALLY conservative, but I can dream can’t I?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: The real question is ... if the Republicans win back control of the House and/or the senate have they learned enough to keep it?

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Regarding the Senate, most people think that we have 41 Republicans in the Senate.

In REALITY, we have LESS than that.

Too many RINO’s occupying the Senate.

In effect, we really have LESS THAN 40 Republicans in the Senate.

I don’t count Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Lindsay Graham, Scott Brown ( yes, the so-called Massachusetts Miracle) and others as REAL Republicans.

[GonzoGOP]

Of course, with RINO’s like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and others, we probably need at least 15 to make the Senate REALLY conservative, but I can dream can’t I?

Sure why not, I got called a pessimist because I didn't think we could go 19 for 19 in the senate to get a filibuster proof majority. We need 31 and 10. Everything after that is just icing on the cake. I would consider it a major victory just to control of the House by 5-10 seats and 41 Solid conservatives in the Senate. That way the RINOs can't back stab us and to a Jeffords/Spectre.

[ChildOfThe60s]

The real question is ... if the Republicans win back control of the House and/or the senate have they learned enough to keep it?

Have they learned what the American public wants and not what Republican politicians want?

I don't believe so. I think we are going to have to get and stay VERY FORCEFUL from 11/3 on. I believe that until the GOP is seriously intimidated by conservatives, they will say anything and continue to do as they please.

[nbenyo]

I doubt this.
Obama seems to have hit his floor.
It seems a lot of promising GOP candidates are floundering and may not seal the deal.
Several Dem’s though to be goners are now coming back in the polls: Teague, Titus, Herseth-Sandlin, Shea-Porter, etc.
Other races expected to be tight are not tight yet: Boucher, Minnick, Chandler, Kissel.

[SeekAndFind]

Dick Morris was asked regarding the Nevada race where Harry Reid is neck and neck with Sharon Angle.

In many polls he is leading by one or two points.

However, Morris makes one observation which he claims ( don’t look at me, look at him ) has never failed in past prediction efforts.... when an incumbent with HUGE NAME RECOGNITION like Reid fails to go above the 45 or 46% level ( as he is now ), historically, most of the other 4% to 5% GO for THE CHALLENGER COME ELECTION DAY.

Why ? Because it is an indicator of WEAK SUPPORT or NEGATIVE VIEWS from the undecideds or those who are independents.

Reid has for the past month in ANY POLL, failed to go above 45%.

We shall see if Dick Morris is right ....

[GonzoGOP]

They are Republicans just not Conservatives. And it is the 41 conservatives we need. At last count there will be six RINOs in the Senate, assuming McCain will be returning. So we need to pick up six seats with capital “C” Conservatives to lock things up. One of the likely pickup seats will be Illinois, but Kirk just adds One more RINO so that doesn't help. However the deRINOfication of Alaska, Utah and Florida will help the cause quite a bit. So we need a total pick up of 7 total counting Illinois to make the Senate "Safe".

If Castle gets knocked out in Delaware, even if that means we don't pick up the seat, it will go a long way towards keeping the other RINOs in line. The threat of serious primary challenges has a way of focusing the mind of those who lack real convictions. So while the people of Delaware sticking to principle might cost us one vote, it will likely firm up six or seven. A decent trade in most books.

[Oldpuppymax]

We’ll need at LEAST that many to override the RINO vote!!!

[mojitojoe]

I like Angle a lot but sheesh, we really, really needed to get rid of Reid. I hope we are not making huge mistakes by electing candidates that can’t beat these bastard Dems.

[vicar7]

I would bet it will be closer to 100 than it is 60.

[NoRedTape]

"Actually we need 39 to take back the house."

Thanks. That's my pet peeeeeeeeeeve with many news articles, it doesn't mention WHAT we need to win, etc. Friggin' reporters neglect to put in the most important facts in so many articles of this kind. Drivs me nuts.

[SeekAndFind]

See here :

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/39-Seats-Away-Republicans-Hungry-to-Take-Back-the-House-4829

TITLE : 39 Seats Away: Republicans Hungry to Take Back the House

[BibChr]

Ah. I misread that as “gain 60 seats in the Senate.”

Which would give us like 103 or something.

Which would be nice.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: I would bet it will be closer to 100 than it is 60.

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You my friend, are a SUPER-OPTIMIST. I need to be around guys like you to cheer my day up :)