The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
LEADING OFF
● House: Daily Kos Elections is pleased to announce our initial House race ratings for the 2018 election cycle. All 435 seats in the House are up for election this fall. Including vacancies, Republicans hold 240 seats while Democrats hold 195, meaning Democrats would need to pick up a net of 23 seats in November in order to gain control of the chamber.
Our full chart rating the competitiveness of each contest is below, with Democratic seats in blue and Republican seats in red. (One seat that pits a Republican incumbent against a Democratic incumbent due to redistricting is listed in purple.) These ratings are also visualized in this map, which shows each congressional district as equally sized. (You can find a traditional map here.) We currently rate 97 races as potentially competitive.
These ratings represent our attempt to forecast the outcomes of this November’s elections, using the best information we have available. As circumstances warrant, we’ll issue changes in these ratings from time to time. To keep up with any changes, please subscribe to our free newsletter, the Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest, which we send out each weekday. And for a comprehensive overview of how our ratings work, please check out our detailed methodology statement.
Without yet going through the underlying charts and links, the numbers in the map don¦t look all that promising at this time for Democrats with everything to play for in 23 Tossup districts:
183 Safe D + 9 Likely D + 5 Leaning D = 197 (not that much more than what they hold now).
155 Safe R + 35 Likely R + 25 Leaning R = 215 (which is only 3 short of an overall 218-217 majority)
In other words, should the net balance of Safe, Likely and Leaning districts stay at its presently-projected level of 215-197 (orR + 18), the the GOP need to win only 3 out of 23 tossup seats to keep their current House majority (together with the Speakership and chairmanships of House committees & sub-committees) while denying a majority to the Democrats and their allies.
I find your assumption that the GOP will win all 25 of its leaning districts to be a stretch. And the Dems only have to protect 5.
Z?
I believe the Daily Kos map is conservative on purpose…
I think you make a good point, Zreebs, but if you look at the list with inexpert eyes like mine, it’s far from improbable that if things go well for the GOP and poorly for the Democrats (most of us can easily think of scenarios where either or both could happen; e.g. bloody civil war over Feinstein vs de León in Calif.; unexpectedly good economic or diplomatic news; a sudden military/security crisis), then Likely GOP incumbents like these could well survive.
Bruce Poliquin (northern & inland Maine)
John Faso (upstate N.Y.)
Mia Love (Utah)
Dave Brat (Va)
Relatively few of the Lean or Likely Republican seats are open ones where the incumbent saw his district as so hopeless that he or she decided this was as good a year as any to retire. Most of the (Open) seats that aren’t rated Safe, you’ll notice, are in the Tossup, Lean D or Likely D column.
¶ On the other hand, if the Trump enterprise implodes while the Democrats keep both unity and common sense, some of the Likely R seats like John Katko’s in upstate New York or Devin Nuñes’ and Tom McClintock’s in California might fall our way.
I agree that the Dems winning the House is far, far from certain.
I like this , huh?
Blue Wave….BLUE WAVE!
(Oh Trump won)
Maybe Democrats won’t win?
Just about EVERY political pundit has signed on to good chance the Dem’s getvthe House
Enthusium
History
Trump….
None of us can tell the future
Especially after we Trump’s EC victory
But in straight voting?
Democrats have EVERY right to believe they will get a House Majority back…
Yes DSD….
I see that also…
That is why Trump has started to talk about a ‘Red Wave’…
I believe that the map is conservative in it’s read…
But the enthusiasm gap DOES ride with the Democrats so far this year
Nio matter what?…. Democrats?
Should NOT go into things with the view that they should rest easy…
The continual problem of Democrats NOT being able to get their base to actually come out and vote is ALWAYS there….
If they do what they have in this years voting so far?
Then the Generic number will be correct and there would be a ‘wave’.
But if all the forecasts do NOT help the vote?
The Republicans could hold the House…