November's Outlook For Democrats Running For Congress Is Excellent

Last year, it was reasonable to look at the Senate election table for 2020 and predict that the Democrats would have a hard time flipping that chamber. It looked like they were most likely to lose one-- Jones in Alabama-- and possibly gain three-- Colorado (Gardner), Arizona (McSally) and Maine (Collins). That would leave them with the Turtle running the Senate again-- with a fragile 51-49 majority. Thanks in great part to Trump's incompetent, dysfunctional and failed handling of the pandemic (both health wise and the economic fallout), the Democrats mood towards the GOP has soured so badly that several other Republicans look like they will have a hard time being reelected, namely Kelly Loeffler (Georgia), David Perdue (Georgia), Joni Ernst (Iowa), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Dan Sullivan (Alaska) and Steve Daines (Montana)... not to mention the open seat in Kansas and 3 fascinating long shots: Texas (John Cornyn), Kentucky (Turtle himself!) and South Carolina (Lindsey Graham).





The Senate is absolutely in play and I'd say the Democrats currently have the upper hand. Unless the Democrats nominate Jon Ossoff-- in which case they will lose the Perdue contest-- they can win the two Georgia seats, which will mean that for the first time since 1993, Georgians will have elected Democrats for both their Senate seats-- back then, Sam Nunn and, briefly, Wyche Fowler. The Democrat that can beat Perdue is clearly former Columbus mayor Teresa Tomlinson, which would make her the first woman elected to a Georgia Senate seat. (Georgia has never had a woman governor.) The most recent poll in Arizona shows Democrat, Mark Kelly leading appointed Republican incumbent Martha McSally by an astounding 13 points.

The RealClearPolitics polling average shows the DSCC's extremely weak North Carolina candidate, Cal Cunningham, slightly ahead of GOP incumbent Thom Tillis. The last public poll of the Maine Senate race-- by PPP-- shows Susan Collins losing to the DSCC candidate 47-43%, with Collins' approval rating at a miserable 33%. The last public poll for Colorado, by Emerson, shows the DSCC candidate beating Cory Gardner (R) 53-40%.

But the House has always looked good for the Democrats this cycle. Somehow the media was swayed by the NRCC to frame the race as not as "How many more seats will the GOP lose in 2020," but as "Can the GOP regain the majority," an absurd proposition. The foolish prognosticators all went along with that-- and so did the lazy mass media. But it was always the wrong question because the Trump GOP has been on the skids and looking more likely to lose a net of 15 seats than gain a net of 1 seat!

Sure, there are three accidental 2018-won seats the GOP could possibly take back-- SC-01 (Joe Cunningham), NY-22 (Anthony Brindisi), OK-05 (Kendra Horn)-- but they are all useless members who vote with the Republicans anyway and the party is better off without the 3 of them. One senior Democrat on Pelosi's leadership team confided in me that, for example, Brindisi, a Blue Dog chairman, whines about every single thing the Democrats try to do, whimpering that it will cause him to lose his seat. He told me that every Democrat in the House other than his fellow Blue Dogs hopes Brindisi does lose his seat! On the brighter side of this coin, dozens of Republican seats are in genuine jeopardy-- even with miserable DCCC recruiting-- in another anti-red wave. Among Republican seats up for grabs:

• CA-01- LaMalfa
• CA-04- McClintock
• CA-22- Nunes
• CA-25- Garcia
• CA-42- Calvert
• CA-50- open
• FL-15- Spano
• FL-17- Buchanan
• FL-18- Mast
• GA-01- Carter
• GA-07- Woodall
• IA-04- King
• IL-12- Bost
• IL-13- Davis
• IN-05- Brooks
• MI-03- Amash
• MI-06- Upton
• MN-01- Hagedorn
• MN-08- Stauber
• MO-02- Wagner
• MT-AL- Gianforte
• NC-02- Holding
• NC-06- Walker
• NC-08- Hudson
• NC-09- Bishop
• NC-11- open
• NE-02- Bacon
• NJ-02- Van Drew
• NY-01- Zeldin
• NY-02- King
• NY-24- Katko
• NY-27- open
• OH-01- Chabot
• OH-10- Turner
• OH-12- Balderson
• OH-14- Joyce
• PA-01- Fitzpatrick
• PA-10- Perry
• PA-16- Kelly
• TX-02- Crenshaw
• TX-06- Wright
• TX-10- McCaul
• TX-21- Roy
• TX-22- Olson
• TX-23- Hurd
• TX-24- Marchant
• TX-25- Williams
• TX-31- Carter
• VA-05- Riggleman
• WA-03- Herrera Beutler
• WA-05- McMorris Rodgers

Are the Democrats going to take over 50 seats? No. But these are all potential battlegrounds, even with putrid DCCC recruits, primarily because of Trump. There are seats in North Carolina and Texas that look like a sure thing and there are seats in New York and Nebraska that look like a better than even bet. None of that surprises me. But what does is this Nathan Gonzales headline at Roll Call, Ratings update: Democrats more likely to boost majority than lose it. Welcome aboard! Better late than never-- and most of his colleagues aren't there yet. In fact, he isn't really there himself and still offers a wildly Republican-friendly outlook. At least his tepid analysis seems to have grasped that absurd GOP "targets" like Josh Harder(CA), Katie Porter (CA) and Antonio Delgado (NY) may be wishful thinking but are not legitimate battlegrounds for the Republicans. "[T]he House battlefield," he wrote, "consists of 31 districts currently represented by Democrats, 28 districts currently held by Republicans, and the open seat being vacated by Michigan Libertarian Justin Amash, who is not seeking reelection. Republicans need to gain 17 seats in November to retake the House... With that battlefield and President Donald Trump struggling to reach his 2016 marks in key districts, the most likely outcome for the House is close to the status quo. The most likely range is a Republican gain of five seats to a Democratic gain of five seats, or something in between." See? Still silly and months behind the reality.

The battlefield for control of the House is shrinking and divided, and that’s bad news for Republicans. Indeed, Democrats at this point in the cycle look more likely to gain seats than to lose their majority.

In the May 2018 ratings, the fight for the House was being played out on GOP territory. Republicans were defending 68 vulnerable seats compared with just 10 for Democrats, who gained a net of 40 seats later that November.

In May 2016, the House battlefield was more narrow, with Democrats defending seven vulnerable seats compared with 25 vulnerable Republican ones. Democrats netted a modest six seats that fall.

...In 2008, when Democrats gained 20 House seats, which is close to the number Republicans need this year, the House battlefield was already tilting in their favor in May. Democrats were defending 37 vulnerable districts compared with 25 held by Republicans. House Democrats today don’t mind the comparison to 2008 because they’re trying to replicate the 2006-2008 combination with gains in 2018 and 2020.

Republicans’ bigger challenge is that Trump is underperforming his own results from 2016. The most common statistic cited in the GOP’s path to the majority is the 30 House Democrats who represent seats Trump carried four years ago.

A handful of those races, however, are not even rated as competitive because of the lack of a credible GOP challenger, and there’s no guarantee Trump will carry those districts again. If Trump falters by just 3 points and Biden runs ahead of Hillary Clinton by 3 points, the president would carry just 13 of the 30 districts again. Even if Republicans win all of those 13 (which they won’t), that would still leave them short of a majority.

Even within the batch of the most vulnerable Democrats, Republicans are struggling to put those races away. Banking easy races early frees up resources to win the second tier of takeover targets, which are necessary for a majority.

Vulnerable Democrats in better shape for reelection include Lauren Underwood (Illinois’ 14th, Tilt Democratic to Lean Democratic), Andy Kim (New Jersey’s 3rd, Tilt Democratic to Lean Democratic), Anthony Brindisi (New York’s 22nd, Toss-up to Tilt Democratic), and Ben McAdams (Utah’s 4th, Toss-up to Tilt Democratic).

Democratic chances also improved in Nevada’s 3rd District, represented by Democrat Susie Lee, where the race moved from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic, and Texas’ 21st, where GOP Rep. Chip Roy is facing a well-financed fight from Democrat Wendy Davis, and the contest shifted from Likely Republican to Lean Republican. And the race for Montana’s at-large district was added to the battlefield from Solid Republican to Likely Republican with a strong early showing by Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock in the Senate race at the top of the ballot.