House Election Update

While all the talk has been about the expected big Republican victory in the battle for the U.S. House, many political handicappers are staying cautious on their predictions for Election Night.

As I wrote yesterday, the magic number is a ten seat switch in the Senate for Republicans.  In the House, the GOP needs to win a net of 39 seats to gain control.

"I'd think you would have to at least say they're at least 50-50, probably a little bit better than 50-50 chances of taking over the House," said longtime political campaign expert Stu Rothenberg.

"We have them gaining anywhere from 37 to 42 seats," Rothenberg said yesterday, though he admitted that, "If I think we're wrong, we're low" on the estimates for GOP wins.

When you let GOP lawmakers talk without going on the record, they say numbers like 50, 60, 70 and more, when asked how many seats Republicans will win.

The carnage could start in Florida, where the GOP hopes to win as many as four seats from the Democrats, as Rep. Allen Boyd, Rep. Ron Klein, Rep. Suzanne Kosmas and Rep. Alan Grayson are all on the target list.

Rothenberg was especially pessimistic about the re-election chances of Kosmas and Grayson.

"Polling in both of those districts show the Democrats in trouble, it's as simple as that."

It's obvious which team is on offense right now and which is on defense.  A listing of the independent campaign expenditures made by each party on behalf of individual Congressional candidates shows Democratic money is almost exclusively going into seats held by Democrats (defense) and GOP money going almost all into seats held by Democrats as well (offense).

Unlike my state-by-state Senate review of yesterday, it's a little more difficult to go race-by-race on the House side to give you a picture of the difficulties that Democrats are encountering.

Republicans have designs on as many as half a dozen seats in Pennsylvania; another four in Ohio; two in Georgia; 4-6 in New York state and a number in New England.  

The fact that I'm even listing New York and New England is important, because GOP lawmakers are virtually non-existent in those states in the Congress.

In the 29 member delegation from New York, there are two GOP members of the House.

In the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont - New England - there is not one Republican in the House.

Will that change on November 2?  We'll know in 20 days.

While all the talk has been about the expected big Republican victory in the battle for the U.S. House, many political handicappers are staying cautious on their predictions for Election Night. As I wrote yesterday, the magic number is a ten seat switch in the Senate for Republicans.  In the ...