6/29/2025: How Conservative is Your House Rep? A Comparison of CPAC Ratings and RightDataUSA.com Ratings [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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There is more to a congressman than his voting record -- there is his role in sponsoring or facilitating legislation; his role in various committees and subcommittees; providing services for his constituents, and other duties. Only the voting record provides a significant amount of quantifiable data about where he stands on the important issues of the day. Congress takes numerous votes over the course of a year. Many votes are not even officially tabulated -- these are "voice votes" -- but others ("roll-call votes") require an explicit enumeration of the Yeas and Nays.
![]() Photo credit: c-span.org
At RightDataUSA.com, we have a complete record of CPAC/ACU key votes and their results going all the way back to 1970, which is when the ACU began issuing ratings. We have also created our own ratings, based on likely ACU criteria, for the years 1961-1969 for those who are interested in ancient history.
While updating the pages of all 2024 House members to reflect the recently-released CPAC figures, we noticed that in many cases their ratings deviated from our own ratings by a substantial amount. The table below displays data for each congressman -- the CPAC rating, the RightDataUSA.com rating and the aggregate rating (a combination of CPAC ratings and ours). Right at the top of the chart is one good example of this divergence: Alaska representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat who was defeated for re-election last November, was assigned a 53% conservative rating by us for 2024 but only 22% by CPAC. Peltola, as a Democrat from a supposedly solid "red" state, was forced to masquerade as a moderate in order to have any chance of returning to the House for a second term; she came close but lost by 2.4%. How conservative was she, really? Note that even 22% is a very high conservative rating for a Democrat these days and 53% is stratospheric. In the event of a major difference between our rating and CPAC's rating, the truth typically lies somewhere in between. Peltola's aggregate rating was 40% for 2024.
For 2024: The average GOP representative received a rating of 79% from CPAC and 91% from RightDataUSA.com. The average Democrat representative received a rating of 2% from CPAC and 9% from RightDataUSA.com. The average House member received a rating of 41% from CPAC and 50% from RightDataUSA.com. Why are the two sets of 2024 House ratings so different in many instances? Our evaluations skew to the right as compared to those of CPAC. Of the 441 representatives who participated in House votes in 2024, we assigned a higher conservative rating than CPAC to 353 of them; we assigned a lower rating to only 51 (37 received identical ratings from both sources). Even though RightDataUSA.com and CPAC are approaching this subject from the same conservative perspective, there was surprisingly little agreement on what constituted a key vote in 2024. Between the 23 votes CPAC selected and the 39 we selected, there were only two which overlapped. Furthermore, there was a considerable differentiation in the type of key vote which was selected. Each key vote can be assigned to one of the following categories:
Many key votes could easily be assigned to multiple categories (e.g. practically every vote has some economic component to it), however we limited all votes to a single classification. As one example, all key votes dealing with border control and/or illegal immigration are classified as Social rather than Foreign because it is much more of a social issue than one of foreign policy; but illegal immigration, like so many other vote topics, has a compelling economic impact as well. CPAC's 23 key votes break down as:
Our 39 key votes were distributed as:
Once CPAC ratings are available for a particular year, we allow them to supersede our own ratings and therefore we display the CPAC data and remove ours (we may update the site to show both datasets shortly). Here is a listing of the 39 key House votes we selected for 2024:
Is there any doubt that these votes were on issues which should be of great importance to conservatives? Why did CPAC omit 37 of these 39 votes? Are economic issues -- which they strongly lean towards -- really that much more important than other issues? Was there a desire by CPAC to choose a set of votes which would yield ratings that match their subjective evaluations of certain representatives? Or are we at RightDataUSA.com overemphasizing social issues and neglecting economics? It should be apparent that the dual sets of votes were selected independently of each other -- during 2024 we had no idea which votes CPAC was considering and (unless they actually visit this site) they had no idea which votes we deemed to be critical. In 2025 the pattern is similar. There are no CPAC ratings to compare to yet, and there probably won't be any until well into 2026. However our 2025 ratings of House members bear a strong resemblance to the ones we generated during 2024, in the sense of being noticeably to the right of what some folks might consider to be accurate. So far in 2025 we have selected 20 House votes as being key ones. Republicans are for the most part so thoroughly united that nearly all of them score at about 90% -- and it would be closer to 100% if we reversed our position (which corresponds to CPAC's position) on the abominations known as Continuing Resolutions (CRs). These resolutions are a cowardly way for Congress to avoid passing an actual budget, thus allowing government spending, the burden on taxpayers and the national debt to continue to spiral out of control because -- so the politicians claim -- the only alternative is the dreaded Government Shutdown. All Republican politicians live in mortal fear of that, since the Democrat Propaganda Machine known as "the media" will ensure that blame is placed solely on one side of the aisle in the event of a so-called shutdown. CPAC always opposes CRs, and so do we. The pair of CRs among our key votes in 2025 are the only ones in which Republicans as a group get a failing grade because they voted in favor; opposition Democrats therefore get a passing grade for opposing CRs, however ludicrous it may be that a majority of Democrats are assigned to the "right" side on anything. If Republicans have majorities in the House and Senate (which they do) and if they are so united (which nearly all of them are) then why are those majorities not accomplishing more? Clearly it's because those majorities are so extremely narrow. The GOP has some ornery contrarians (like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie), grandstanding war-mongering pricks (like Lindsey Graham) and outright Democrats posing as Republicans (like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski). When only one or two votes are needed to thwart legislation, these people and others who occasionally behave like them rise to the occasion and become the liberal media's Queen For A Day. Other times, principled conservatives may refuse to be whipped into line on a particular piece of legislation because they will not concede that it is 15% good while being "only" 85% terrible, and the rebels may temporarily receive Strange New Respect from the media as a reward (a reward full of ulterior motives) for derailing something the media objects to. Summary: It's a good idea to be able to evaluate congressmen to determine whether their performance in Congress is in line with the voters of their districts. Several organizations attempt do that, although most such organizations are ones which obsess over a single issue; therefore their ratings appeal only to voters who share that same obsession. A few organizations, including RightDataUSA.com, evaluate members of Congress over a wider range of issues that is based on a larger sample of votes. However, even groups who are on the same side of the political aisle can disagree about the level of liberalism or conservatism that is expressed via a sample of a congressman's votes. Here we have presented our ratings alongside those from CPAC, and readers can decide for themselves which ones to accept. As we get closer to the 2026 midterms, these evaluations will take on greater significance and we will update our ratings as we did here in 2024. Urban Democrat congressmen must always guard their left flanks in primary elections lest a younger and more aggressive and hate-filled ultra-liberal challenge them. In other districts, Democrats are well aware that "moderation" (fraudulent though it is) is a sensible thing. In both types of districts, the degree to which incumbents are concerned with their re-election chances will be reflected in their votes. On the Republican side, the GOP establishment is never interested in having more aggressive conservatives in Congress, and will help squishy incumbents with financing and by creating "paper conservatives" when necessary, to flood the primary ballot and split the right-wing vote. Even with all that GOPe assistance, supposedly vulnerable left-wing Republican incumbents normally run to the left as elections approach, and that will be apparent in their vote ratings too. To make an educated choice, particularly in a primary election, smart voters will want to know everything they can about the person they are voting for -- or against. 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4/15/2025: U.S. House District Analysis -- What Are "PVIs"? [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Not all House districts are created equally, in partisan terms. Some are designed to elect Democrats, some are designed to elect Republicans, and a comparatively small handful could go either way. When U.S. House elections roll around, as a couple of special ones did in Florida earlier this month, there is a desire to quantify districts so that people can anticipate the outcomes. Does Candidate A have any chance at all against Candidate B? How close should the race be? Could there plausibly be an upset?
On April 1, Republican Jimmy Patronis won the special election in FL-1 by a margin of 14.6%; Republican Randy Fine won the special election in FL-6 by 14.0%. [The left-wing article had the FL-6 number wrong; it should have been R+14 and not R+7. You'd think they would want to be especially accurate here, in order to make their party's "moral victory" not appear to be such a small one.] So what is all this "R+" stuff? It's nomenclature created by political analyst Charlie Cook, for the purpose of evaluating House districts; Cook claims to have published the first such data in the late 1990s. His evaluations, which are known as PVIs, are considered to be the gold standard for district ratings. When you see how they are created, you may find yourself wondering why they hold such a lofty status. From Cook's website: "The Cook Partisan Voter Index measures how partisan a district or a state is compared to the nation as a whole. A Cook PVI score of D+2, for example, means that district performed an average of two points more Democratic than the nation did as a whole, while an R+4 means the district performed four points more Republican." These ratings are not merely measures of past performance; they are also imbued with predictive value and are used to answer questions about future elections in House districts, questions such as the ones in the opening paragraph of this commentary. A slightly more detailed explanation of the calculation comes from Wikipedia: "The [PVI] looks at how every congressional district voted in the past two presidential elections combined and compares it to the national average. The Cook PVI is displayed as a letter, a plus sign, and a number, with the letter indicating the party that outperformed in the district and the number showing how many percentage points above the national average it received." We emphasized part of that last sentence because the vast majority of people who throw around PVIs are clueless about the actual meaning of the numbers, and misinterpret them entirely. This misinterpretation is not of tremendous import as long as the numbers are merely being compared to each other, which after all is their primary purpose. In the above example FL-1 is obviously a more Republican-leaning district than FL-6. Even those who are mathematically-challenged are capable of understanding that 22 is a larger number than 7 (or even 14), though they have no idea -- or the wrong idea -- of what the "22" means or how that number was calculated. ![]() Florida congressional district 1
Let us illustrate. Both Republicans on April 1st won easily in their respective Florida special elections, however given the lean of their districts they appear to have underachieved. This enabled the media and other Democrats to claim hollow "moral" victories in the wake of Democrat defeats, because the GOP candidates did not obliterate their liberal rivals by as much as they were supposed to.
![]() Florida congressional district 6
Randy Fine won FL-6 (PVI of R+14) by exactly 14 points, which sounds like a precisely typical result there. But R+14 does not mean the Republican should win by 14%; it means the Republican should win by 28%. So yeah, another "moral defeat" (LOL) for the GOP. Once again, this outcome is not a harbinger of future performance. In November of 2026 the GOP will win that district every bit as easily as it usually does, and Democrats will not be pissing $10 million of billionaires' money down the drain as they did a few weeks ago, no matter how easily they can afford to do so.
The Cook Political Report (CPR) has lately decided to charge a fee for up-to-date district ratings, which is a shame (for those who actually fork over cash) because their ratings are based on very limited data, and that data contains an overwhelming bias in the logical sense as opposed to the partisan sense. Anyone who has the time, the ability, and the underlying data can calculate PVIs that are not only free of charge, but which are more accurate if based on a wider range of relevant data. The Cook Political Report's current bias can be summarized as "All Republican candidates are Donald Trump". Does that sound like a good assumption to make? Democrat campaign coordinators and their media allies surely agree with Cook, but sensible folks would dispute his assertion. The CPR looks at two -- just two -- points of data for every congressional district in the country, and then anoints the districts with their sacred ratings based on that meager amount of data. The two data points are these, currently:
Astute observers will notice that the one and only Republican in this sample is Donald J. Trump. Thus, Cook is determining district ratings based solely on how much that district voted for or against President Trump. Does an affinity or a hatred for Trump all by itself determine exactly how other Republican candidates -- the ones in U.S. House races -- will fare in their specific districts? What kind of idiot would assume that it does? Below we provide the RightDataUSA.com PVI ratings, without any fee, for every U.S. House district in the country. Our ratings are likely to be similar but hardly identical to the "official" Cook PVIs (we don't know and we aren't paying to find out), because our ratings are based not only on the last two presidential elections but also on many other recent statewide elections. In the table, the "2024 Result" is the percentage which the victorious House candidate received in the November, 2024 election. ![]() Map of 2026 battleground districts, created using mapchart.net
First, a note about the most competitive districts: Battleground districts are highlighted in the map above and in the table of all House districts which appears further down this page. It is unusual for a House member to win election in a district which tilts 6 points or more towards the opposite party although it does occasionally happen, so we define a "battleground" district as one in the range from D+5 through R+5. When upsets occur in House elections, they normally take place in these marginal districts, and therefore aren't truly "upsets".
In three cases above (CO-08, MI-07 and PA-07) the district is currently held by the "wrong" party -- the one which voters normally do not favor in statewide elections. You can bet that these three, plus other similar districts, are the ones which the national parties will have at the very top of their target lists in 2026. Those other similar districts are:
Based on the above lists, there is much more low-hanging fruit for Democrats to pick off in 2026 than there is for Republicans. Not to mention the two Republicans in already-marginal districts (Brian Steil, Derrick Van Orden) who are destined for extinction by the upcoming court-ordered Democrat gerrymander in Wisconsin. These are not the only districts which have a chance of flipping in 2026. In order to maintain control of the House, Republicans will need to hold on to a significant majority of their most vulnerable seats and perhaps achieve a small number of pickups of Democrat-held seats. They narrowly succeeded in 2024, but it will be more difficult in '26.
Update: Either we caught them on a good day or they've decided to drop the paywall for some reason, but the 2025 Cook PVI ratings are currently available even for non-subscribers! We still believe that more data means greater precision, but now readers can compare the two sets of ratings and decide for themselves. Tags:
PVI
Charlie Cook
U.S. House Ratings
More Data = More Accuracy
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1/11/2025: 2024 Special Elections: Not So "Special" for Democrats After All [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Prior to November in 2024 there was considerable wailing and pearl-clutching on the right (and gloating on the left) over the underperformance -- if not worse -- of Republican candidates in special elections at the congressional and state levels. ![]() Photo credit: abc7ny.com
It's true that Democrats did win the most important special election of them all. That took place in February in New York's 3rd congressional district, where ex-incumbent Thomas Suozzi (D) easily defeated newcomer Masi Melesa Pilip (R) in that D-leaning district. The election was held in order to select a replacement for freshman Republican George Santos, who was expelled from Congress in December, 2023. The impetus to oust Santos came not so much from Democrats, but mainly from Santos' own party and particularly his fellow Republican freshmen in the New York delegation. Those frightened frosh were fearful of Santos dragging them down with him in November, so they pre-emptively removed him and thought they had solved their problem.
![]() Photo credit: desposito.house.gov
They sure were, exactly as we predicted. In CD-22 Williams was victimized by a Democrat gerrymander which removed good areas of his marginal district and replaced them with bad ones; it didn't require a major change to the lines, just a little push further to the left was sufficient. In September, anti-Santos ringleader D'Esposito was accused by the liberal media of having an affair and then putting the woman on his payroll, but he was a dead man walking even before that. Molinaro went down in flames in CD-19 as well.
In another special election for Congress which took place in June, liberals cackled about Republican Michael Rulli's supposedly weak showing in Ohio's 6th congressional district, where he defeated a relatively penniless Democrat by "only" 9 points in a district which is typically much more GOP-leaning than that. We wrote about that outcome here and noted presciently that Rulli would have no trouble at all in the November rematch. He won by over 30 points. Special elections are often influenced heavily by organizational and motivational factors, and Republicans normally lack both of those in low-turnout elections which are little publicized on the right. Moving down to the state legislative level, in September, 2023 readers were scolded by some trembling GOP establishment blogger who calls himself "Bonchie" that Republicans had failed to learn from the numerous defeats of conservative candidates in 2022 and were still fielding bad (i.e. "conservative") candidates in special elections instead of nice, squishy, electable moderates. He specifically referenced New Hampshire where a conservative GOP nominee lost a 2023 special election in a microscopic state House (not congressional) district that was fraudulently described by the blogger as being solidly Republican. That Republican candidate, minister James Guzofski, did himself no favor by inviting the liberal media to portray him as a kook when he declared something like "Jesus told me that Donald Trump really won in 2020!", and the minister came out on the wrong end of a narrow decision in 2023. "Bonchie" concluded from this infinitesimal sample size that certain disaster awaited the GOP in the 2024 elections everywhere if they didn't heed his warning and run screaming to the left. Guzofski ran again in November, 2024 against the same Democrat who had defeated him in that 2023 special election where less than 3,000 people bothered to vote. This time Guzofski wasn't such a bad candidate after all -- over 50% of the voters chose him and Republicans swept all 3 state House seats in that New Hampshire district. In Florida a marginal state House district in the deteriorating Orlando area was vacated by an incumbent Republican, and the special election in January, 2024 went as expected: Democrat Tom Keen won by 2.6 points in a district which favors his party by about 2 points. As liberals were going bonkers about this "major upset" the massive GOP margin in the FL state House was merely reduced from 85-35 to 84-36. Hardly an occasion for panic, except for those who are easily rattled. What happened the next time a real election rolled around? Keen lost by nearly 4 points to Republican Erika Booth in this Democrat-leaning district, and once again those who had previously declared that the world was coming to an end were proven to be Chicken Littles. Another example: In a state House district which lies just north of Oklahoma City, liberals were outwardly cheerful despite yet another defeat because it was by a much closer margin than expected. Republican Erick Harris prevailed by only 5.3% in a February special election in a district that Democrats hadn't even contested since 2018. Nervous Nellies on the right got the vapors again. Democrats weren't fooled by the fluke outcome although they took the opportunity for some big talk. In November the Rats failed to come up with any nominee at all, and Harris trounced a Libertarian to easily hold the R+14 seat. The Rats never had a chance in this district, but acted as if they did and some idiots believed them. The lesson which should be learned here is -- most of the time, anyway -- there is nothing to be learned from low-turnout special elections, especially when they take place in puny little state House districts; and even more so when the balance of power won't be affected one iota no matter what the outcome is (like in Florida and Oklahoma). Occasionally special elections DO portend a future wave, as in 1993-94 when Republicans won U.S. House elections in places where they had never previously prevailed (like in OK-6 and KY-2) and came surprisingly close to winning in WI-1 which Democrats had held for a quarter-century at the time. Democrat Peter Barca almost lost in 1993 and did lose in 1994; the Rats have never won there again, nor have they ever won again in those Oklahoma and Kentucky districts. There will be 3 special elections to Congress coming up in the first few months of 2025: FL-1 (Matt Gaetz), FL-6 (Michael Waltz) and NY-21 (Elise Stefanik). These vacancies have occurred because the incumbents were nominated for positions in the second Trump administration, though Gaetz has since withdrawn. Each of these 3 districts are solidly Republican, and Democrats will not be winning any of them. But the liberal media will still be watching closely. When a Republican prevails easily, you'll never hear about it -- however if a Democrat does 0.1% better than expected it will be used as anti-Trump propaganda and described as a preview of a definite Republican bloodbath in the 2026 midterms. A bloodbath may in fact happen and the 2026 midterms may be similar to those of 2018, but that has nothing to do with these 3 elections. In all likelihood, what special elections in 2025 and 2026 will tell us about the future is. . . . nothing. Tags:
2024
House
Special (?) elections
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11/6/2024: Congrats to President Trump! He Still Needs a House [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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November 5th was a wonderful night to be an American, and we get to begin enjoying the election results today!
Here are the districts which have been called and which have flipped from Democrat to Republican:
These initial districts flipped almost solely due to the effects of redistricting. In Alabama and Louisiana, racist court rulings mandated the ouster of White Republicans from the House and the substitution of black Democrats. In New York, Democrats belatedly gerrymandered the state earlier in 2024, but NY-22 was likely to be lost even without that factor. In North Carolina, an illegal Democrat gerrymander which had been in place in 2020 and 2022 was finally removed and replaced by a legitimate district map. The Michigan district was an open seat which was formerly held by Democrat Elissa Slotkin, who left to run for the Senate (and probably win, but that's not been called yet). Here are the other potential pickups for Republicans:
At one point on 11/6 DD saw a possible R+2 outcome in the House; they are predicting R-1 as of the evening of 11/8 and have been sticking to that number ever since. R-1 means they keep control, 220-215. Update 11/9: DD shows 11 House races uncalled and the GOP needs only to win 2 to maintain control; DD believes they will win 4 of the 11. Evans (R) is now ahead of Caraveo (D) in CO-8; Ciscomani (R) is clinging to life in AZ-6 and Begich (R) is ahead but still short of the necessary 50% in AK. All other undecided seats are in CA and Republicans lead in some of those too. Update 11/10: Golden may not win in ME-2 after all -- with all ballots counted he has fallen below 50% and therefore the race will be decided by Rigged Choice Voting just like it was in 2018 when that scheme was first used in Maine. Golden is still likely to win, but apparently not 100% certain at this point. Update 11/11: Most media called it on Sunday but now everybody says that Republicans have picked up CO-8. AZ-6 is still too close to call and they're all asleep in Alaska, where vote totals haven't moved in a long time. Republican incumbents will probably lose no more than 2 seats in CA (we hope) and there will be no pickups there, but in the end the House should stay (R). Update 11/12: It's over (as far as who will run the House) -- Republicans hold CA-41 and AZ-6 but lose CA-27. A net of minus-1 there may not sound impressive, and it's not, but it is sufficient to reach the 218 threshold; they are at 219 with possibly 2 more wins yet to come (AK and CA-13). If those wins materialize we'll wind up exactly where we started, with Republicans having a 221-214 advantage. That outcome may also sound unimpressive, but given the number of marginal districts which had to be defended, merely breaking even isn't bad at all and a slightly better outcome than realists like us projected for them. So far Trump has named 2 incumbent GOP House members to his administration, which will necessitate special elections in FL-6 (Waltz) and NY-21 (Stefanik). Those special elections should be easy wins for the Republicans. Final update: In mid-December the GOP lost the last 2 House elections to be called, both of them in California, and both in districts where Republican incumbents had been leading for over a month. Democrats were able to "harvest" enough ballots to put their candidates over the top just before time expired. The final count then is 220-215, a net loss of 1 seat for the GOP -- slightly better than we expected (-2 or a little worse) but far worse than the conventional "wisdom" which desperately envisioned House gains to go along with a presidential win. Tags:
2024
House?
We'll find out in December
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11/2/2024: Election 2024: The Final Hours [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() Photo credit: CNN
With just a few more hours until the 2024 election campaign season mercifully concludes, we are on track for one of the closest elections in U.S. presidential history if the polls can be believed. But some folks are not so sure about that, and are thinking in terms of "waves" and "landslides" that will deliver not just the White House but also the U.S. House and Senate. For example (just from the past few days):
But also:
These polar-opposite worldviews are hardly unexpected; the fragile snowflakes on both sides (there are far more on the left, but no shortage on the right either) need to be constantly reassured that things are going their way, no matter what "lies" they may hear which say otherwise. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and believe everything we tell you, they say. Well, somebody is lying, and somebody is going to be crushingly disappointed on November 6th or whenever the vote-counting finally ceases. ![]() Photo credit: Palm Beach Post
Early Voting
In a nation as closely divided as this one, it appears that the potential for a "wave" that would sweep over the presidency, the Senate and the House is minimal. But it's not impossible. We'll say this much: if there is any kind of wave, it's probably going to be the kind we don't want to see. Republicans routinely underestimate the amount of hatred Democrats are capable of, and hatred is an excellent motivation for voting. ![]() Photo credit: Twitchy.com
The 2024 Presidential Election:
If this series of miniscule margins that generally favor Donald Trump -- ALL of which are within the margin of sampling error -- carry over to the actual vote counts, then Trump will prevail in the Electoral College by the count of 287 to 251 assuming all other states go as expected. Which means that the "Keystone" to the election is the state of Pennsylvania -- as we noted long ago and wrote about in considerable detail; it is tremendously likely that whoever wins PA wins the election. There are a couple of things to keep in mind about all of these pollsters who are showing exceedingly close races in several states at the presidential level, and in other races as well:
![]() Photo credit: National Review
The Senate:
The potential bad news comes from Florida, Texas and even rock-solid crimson, burgundy, maroon Nebraska, where an "independent" phony-moderate candidate is supposedly within striking distance of squishy Republican incumbent Deb Fischer according to the far-left New York Times and the liberal candidate's own polls; all other polls forecast a normal Nebraska outcome. The Democrats did not even field a candidate here -- aside from the one who is calling himself an independent. Republicans are likely to hold all three of those seats. The Rats are flooding Florida and Texas with $$$ but it would still be quite an upset if Ted Cruz or Rick Scott were to lose; some now classify the TX race as a tossup. The saving grace for these two Republicans could be the laughably poor quality of their liberal Democrat opponents. But the usual Democrat formula of (money + lies + hate) = victory certainly could work. There's one important ingredient we left out of that equation, which helps Democrats greatly when money + lies + hate isn't quite sufficient. That ingredient is normally not added until after the votes are cast. ![]() Photo credit: The Hill
It's not necessarily about voters actually supporting the dim-bulb Democrats in FL & TX; it's more about voting against the Republicans. Neither Scott nor Cruz are popular with anything more than the tiniest majority of the electorate in their states. Trump is going to win Florida and Texas and even though casual observers will be surprised to hear that a coattail effect might be required for Scott and Cruz, that very well may be the case. We'll say they both pull it out in the end.
There are also lunatic fringe pipe dreams regarding Republican pickups in Maryland and Virginia. However the GOP has zero chance in Maryland and at most a 10% chance in the Virginia Senate race. But those other six states are going to be close, to one degree or another. Ohio and Wisconsin are the most likely pickups; Arizona (one outlier poll aside) and Nevada are the least likely. Pennsylvania and Michigan currently look improbable too. In any event, this is all gravy for the Republicans. They have nothing to lose in these states and everything to gain. The probability, however, is that they will gain nothing, or at most one. But it would take only a very slight shift to the right, and suddenly it could be another +2! Or more! All Senate polls are close in these marginal states and, on average, they all show the Republican losing. Final score: The most likely outcome is a net gain of 2 or perhaps 3 seats for the GOP, which means the breakdown will be 51-49 or 52-48 in the Republicans' favor starting in 2025. It may be assumed that any "wave", however low the probability is that one occurs, can only push things further in the Republican direction. But don't completely discount the possibility of an unpleasant surprise in Texas or Florida. Worst case scenario: the Senate stays 51-49 Democrat, and that is not terribly likely. ![]() Photo credit: Fox News
As far as the likely outcome: as we have noted on numerous occasions, having only 51 or 52 seats is not satisfactory to give the GOP anything but nominal control. There are at least two Republican senators -- Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) -- who are for all intents and purposes Democrats. They can continue to sabotage GOP efforts from within as the leadership would prefer; they can drop the charade and become Democrats; or they can go the "independent" route. Regardless, GOP "control" of the Senate will be largely illusory in every way aside from perhaps mathematics.
![]() Current U.S. House breakdown by district (Map created using mapchart.net)
The House:
Democrats could get the +4 they need in New York and California alone. Republican freshmen (and some incumbents) won numerous close -- fluke -- elections in 2022 and a large portion of those outcomes are highly likely to be reversed. One already has been reversed (NY-3, Santos) in a special election. There are as many as five vulnerable GOP freshmen in New York. Two of the five (Brandon Williams, Anthony D'Esposito) appear to be near-certain losses. Two others (Marc Molinaro, Mike Lawler) are tossups at best. Numerous Republicans are on the hot seat in the Land of Fruits and Nuts. Endangered incumbents include John Duarte, David Valadao, Mike Garcia, Michelle Steele and Ken Calvert. It will be no surprise if at least two or three of those lose. Don't bother staying up late on election night to find out. California gives itself 30 days to count votes in order to facilitate "ballot harvesting" after election day. Thirty days apparently wasn't enough time for California Democrats in 2022; don't expect the same results in 2024. Unless an endangered California incumbent is solidly ahead prior to Ballot Harvesting Month, then he/she doesn't have much of a prayer of remaining in Congress. Republicans will pick up 3 seats in North Carolina due to the removal of the 2020/2022 illegal Democrat gerrymander. Republicans will lose 2 seats (one in Alabama, one in Louisiana) due to the impact of racist court rulings which have demanded that a White Republican be replaced by a black Democrat in both instances. Elsewhere, the list of likely ("likely" = "maybe a 50.1% chance" so don't get too excited) GOP pickups is a short one:
The list of likely GOP losses is longer, even without including the five endangered Californians:
Neither of these lists is exhaustive. For a wider range of possible House flips, read our report from a couple weeks ago. If there is any kind of movement off-center, one list or the other will expand. Based on all of the above expectations, the final outcome in the House is going to be exceedingly close. Republicans will need at least a small swing to the right in many districts in order to simply retain what they already possess; that swing is hardly a certainty. The likeliest outcome is that the GOP suffers a net loss of 2 to 8 seats. The results from 2022 in California and New York are what gave the Republicans the House during this past term; the results from those states in 2024 will be the ones which are primarily responsible for giving Democrats control beginning in 2025, if the House does in fact flip. State legislatures: Nearly all states are having legislative elections this year. Those elections are well under the radar as compared to the U.S. House, Senate and presidency, but they are hardly unimportant. In most places, partisan control of a state House or state Senate is not in much doubt. However there are a handful of states -- many of the same ones which are tossups at other levels too -- in which control of a state legislative body could easily flip from one party to the other. The ones that are most flippable include: Alaska: Both the House and especially the Senate are close, but it almost doesn't matter because even when the GOP has the numbers (as they always do) the liberal-RINO wing of the party conspires with liberal Democrats to form a "coalition" which ensures that conservative legislators are on the outside, and powerless. The House currently consists of 21 R, 13 D and 6 independents; the Senate has 11 R and 9 D -- with 8 Republicans and all 9 Democrats working together to seize control and exclude three conservative Republicans. Arizona: The Rats need ONE House seat (there are 31 R and 29 D) and ONE Senate seat (16 R, 14 D) to move from minority status into a tie. Obviously that means they need +2 to take full control of the state government. Michigan: Dems flipped both houses in 2022. Michigan Republicans are in an identical position to Arizona Democrats: +1 to tie, +2 to win. The House is 56 D, 54 R; the Senate is 20 D, 18 R. Neither Arizona nor Michigan are exactly known for election integrity lately, so temper your expectations accordingly. Minnesota: Republicans need a net gain of 1 seat in the Senate (34 D, 33 R) to win back what they lost control of in 2022. It will take a small wave (R+4) to get the House. New Hampshire: In a state where practically every neighborhood has its own representative (there are 400 seats in the House of this tiny state) things often fluctuate wildly. If they fluctuate just slightly to the left, Rats will get the House. The current breakdown is 201 R, 196 D, 3 I. Republicans have nominal control of the state Senate (14 R, 10 D). Pennsylvania: Could cause the fragile types to ingest a ton of copium next week if Cackles wins, Casey is re-elected, Perry loses, etc. Then add the Democrats going +3 and taking the state Senate (current breakdown: 28 R, 22 D) and by doing so seizing 100% control of PA government. The GOP is fighting hard and may avert disaster, at least in the state Senate. The Rats currently lead 102-101 in the state House and on a good election night the Republicans will take it back. On a bad night they won't. Wisconsin: The GOP has large majorities in both houses of the legislature.... today. In 2025, they won't. A Democrat gerrymander has been put in place for 2024 and when the votes are counted the Wisconsin House and Senate are going to look a lot like Pennsylvania's or Michigan's -- tossups all the way around. The Wisconsin GOP needs a good election night at all levels. Currently the splits are 22 R, 11 D in the Senate and 64 R, 35 D in the House. Enjoy it while you still can, Wisconsin Republicans. Tags:
2024
House
Senate
Presidency
Hope we're wrong about the House
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10/17/2024: 2024 Election Analysis: Will Republicans Hold the House? [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() Current U.S. House breakdown by district (Map created using mapchart.net)
1. Competitiveness
That last one is a biggie, but the others are also important. Regarding the suitability of the candidates: Democrats always try to run the most liberal candidates possible in House races, but in a marginal district they must (with the help of their army of media allies) attempt to disguise their nominee as a "moderate" because they understand that most voters in a marginal district would find an in-your-face liberal nutbucket to be repugnant. Once elected, Democrat "moderates" normally march in goose-step with their liberal colleagues. Even when narrowly in the minority as is the case today in the House, Democrats voting as a united bloc is nearly always sufficient to thwart any unwanted legislation. This happens because there are always enough liberal Republicans in the party's "big tent" to cross over and assist the Democrats whenever the Republican establishment (GOPe) desires for that to occur. Sometimes, particularly on legislation which has no chance of passing the Senate or being signed into law, the Democrat puppetmasters will permit their most vulnerable House members to temporarily leave the plantation and cast a non-liberal vote. Which they can then highlight to the voters back home as a sign of their alleged "independence" when re-election time rolls around. Of course there is no real independence; they vote as they are told to -- always. Those who control the Republican party (and especially its purse strings) also seek to run the most liberal candidates possible in House races -- even in solid Republican districts -- because the GOPe finds anyone who is even remotely conservative to be repugnant. On this topic, the leadership of both parties are in agreement. Occasionally, the GOPe is correct in running a moderate-liberal if the nature of the district is inappropriate for a nominee who is perceived as being too far to the right. Based on the above criteria, we have identified 62 districts which should be competitive this year. This list is not substantially different from the one we published over a year and a half ago, but the data associated with these districts is now up-to-date. In addition to the potential flippers, there's also one district in Washington which features two Republicans and zero Democrats running; the incumbent Republican is a Trump-hating impeachment RINO while the challenger is a solid conservative. If an upset should occur there it won't count as a GOP pickup since they already hold that seat, but it would be a welcome development nonetheless. 2. Background After the 2022 elections, Republicans controlled the House by the margin of 222-213. Since that time there have been 8 special elections held to replace representatives who retired or died. Seven of those 8 were won by the same party which originally held the seat. The lone exception occurred in New York in February when Democrats won the special election in NY-3 to replace conservative Republican George ("Miss Me Yet?") Santos. That election was necessitated when the Stupid Party decided to expel Santos from Congress in December, 2023 for allegedly being so corrupt that he might as well have been a Democrat. But he voted like a conservative which, come to think of it, probably didn't help his case with the party leadership. The have been three other resignations or deaths for which special elections have not yet been held (or will not be held), and the GOP currently has a 220-212 advantage in the House. Because two of the three vacancies exist in solid Democrat districts (NJ-9, TX-18) which will be easily retained in November, the Democrats effectively have 214 seats going into the election which means they require a net gain of merely 4 seats to seize control. 3. Belated Redistricting Congressional redistricting -- the redrawing of U.S. House district lines -- took place in all states prior to the 2022 elections, except of course in the six (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming) which have only one district that comprises the entire state and therefore there are no district lines. After 2022 however, a handful of states redrew their districts. This will have a net effect of close to zero on the partisan composition of Congress in 2025, but will result in significant changes within the affected states. In North Carolina the Democrat-controlled state Supreme Court in 2020 (and then again in 2022) chose to illegally bypass the Republican-controlled legislature and mandated district lines which favored Democrats. In 2022 the voters of the Tarheel State delivered a GOP majority to the Court. The Court then began acting lawfully and returned the task of line-drawing to the legislature, where it belongs. As a result, Republicans will almost certainly be picking up three House seats (NC-6, NC-13, NC-14) from Democrats on election day. However this windfall will be negated by redistricting-related outcomes in Alabama, Louisiana and New York. In the two southern states, partisan Democrat judges demanded that two conservative White Republicans (one in Alabama, one in Louisiana) be replaced in the House by two liberal black Democrats. Barry Moore (AL-2) and Garret Graves (LA-6) are the two Republicans who will be out of work after 2024 because of these racist court rulings. In New York, Democrats in 2022 were forced to settle for a district map that was only a slight improvement over the one from which they had benefitted in 2020; they had tried for a hyper-partisan gerrymander which would have all but eliminated Republicans (it would have been something like 22 Democrats and just 4 Republicans) from the New York congressional delegation. In March of 2024, New York Democrats tried once again to gerrymander the state's congressional districts in their favor, and they succeeded without any resistance from the GOP. We wrote about this in detail at the time it occurred. Having already picked up NY-3 in the Santos debacle, NY Democrats ensured that their pickup would not revert to the GOP in November (and it won't). Additionally, they have altered the Syracuse-Utica area district of freshman Republican Brandon Williams to severely endanger him, making it all but certain for the Democrats to go +1 in New York. At least +1. Redistricting greatly altered no other New York districts, though it did make NY-18 a little safer for liberal freshman Democrat Pat Ryan. However it always was probable that New York and California would be bloodbaths for the Republicans in 2024. That logical assertion is based on the sheer number of close (fluke) House wins which the GOP somehow achieved in those liberal states in 2022, and many close/fluke outcomes were likely to be reversed in 2024 with or without the assistance of Democrat gerrymandering. One other state -- Georgia -- redrew its lines after 2022 by a court order similar to the one which affected Alabama and Louisiana. Democrats have been fuming ever since that ruling came down because Republicans found a way to comply with the racist ruling without sacrificing any of their currently-held seats. We also wrote about that in detail at the time it occurred. Even counting New York at only -1 for the Republicans, that, along with the -2 which is guaranteed from Alabama and Louisiana means a break-even as the result of belated redistricting despite the upcoming GOP bonanza in North Carolina. 4. The 62 Most-Flippable Districts These do not include the North Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana districts already mentioned above, but does include NY-22 (Williams) because it is not quite 100% certain that the district will be won by a Democrat. The following 62 districts are the ones which should be strongly sought by both parties -- but it doesn't work out that way in all cases, as we will illustrate. Several of the listed districts, mostly ones held by Democrats, are not very likely to flip despite the vulnerability of the Democrat incumbents. Or at least not nearly as likely as they should be, mainly because the GOP does not have infinite funds to work with, while the Democrats (via their "ActBlue" money laundry) apparently do. Some are finally beginning to catch on to the illegal activities of ActBlue, but it's too late to do anything about it in this election cycle and Democrats are likely to be able to purchase a significant number of House and Senate seats which might otherwise be far more tenuous. Here are the 62 most likely potential flippers, by region. The bloodiest battlegrounds are highlighted, and some which probably won't be so bloody come with brief explanations. Northeast (16):
Mid-Atlantic (3):
South (2):
Midwest (13):
Great Plains-Mountain West (8):
West (20):
As noted above, the most competitive districts are bolded. A little more (34) than half of the listed districts fit that description. Of these 34, 11 are currently held by Democrats and 23 by Republicans. That's not a good ratio. There are some others which are perhaps a small amount behind in terms of competitiveness. They are:
Three of those are currently GOP districts and three are held by Democrats. Add them to the 34 super-contested districts and the Republicans have the potential to lose 26 marginal seats, the Democrats 14. The 40 most competitive districts are mostly in states which are toss-ups at the presidential level (AZ, MI, NC, NV, PA, WI) or ones which the bumbling Word Salad Queen is guaranteed to win (CA, CO, NE*, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VA, WA). Only six of the 40 battleground districts lie in states that Trump should win (AK, IA, ME*, MT, TX). Eleven lie in the swing states and 23 are in states where Trump's probability of victory ranges from "very unlikely" to "utterly impossible". If there is any presidential coattail effect in that latter group, it is hardly going to be beneficial for GOP House candidates. [* ME-2 and NE-2 are in states which split electoral votes. Trump is likely to win ME-2 and lose NE-2, replicating the 2020 outcome in those two districts.] In these 40 districts, Democrats have raised more money in 30 of them and have spent more money in 30 of them. Republicans have the financial edge in only 10 of the 40. As we've stated several times before: there is no election in this country, at any level, in which Democrats cannot outspend Republicans (often by astronomical amounts) if they wish to do so. Money alone doesn't determine the outcome of an election, but having more than your opponent surely doesn't hurt. The results in the other districts listed above are not likely to be as close as they should be. Republicans are not trying as hard as they might in R-leaning districts like KS-3, OH-9, OH-13 and PA-7. They are also not terribly competitive in some districts which lean only slightly to the left (in the D+1 to D+4 range) such as IL-17, MD-6, MI-3, MN-2, NV-3, NV-4, OH-1, PA-17 and TX-28. These represent blown opportunities, although if a "red" wave somehow materializes there may be some pleasant surprises here. There are about a dozen districts which have not been mentioned previously but could change partisan hands in November; it would require moderate to major upsets in order to wind up doing so. Some of these are really just pipe dreams for one party or the other, and the majority of them are not even being seriously contested (financially) although some are. We enumerate them just to cover all the bases:
5. Conclusion Add it all up and the probability of the GOP remaining in charge of the House appears to be less than 50% (perhaps much less), barring a clear shift to the right between now and November 5. As we have documented, there are likely to be more tight races in Republican-held districts than there will be in Democrat-held ones. Anything can happen in a close election, in case you've somehow forgotten 2020. Even if the GOP wins as many as half of the most precarious 40 districts, which is by no means certain to happen, that would make it +6 for the Democrats and 220-215 control of the House. When Democrats rule a legislative body by even one seat, they govern with an iron fist as if they have 100% control; when Republicans face the same margins -- as they currently have in the House and will in the Senate next year -- they become even more timid than usual (they aren't really comfortable with the concept of "governing") and act as if they have control of nothing. Which, in effect, they don't. And good luck with Senate "control" anyway with traitors like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham in the GOP caucus -- assuming that none of them switch parties after 2024. The difference between how the parties behave in advantageous situations will be quite evident beginning in January, unless the Republicans can stem the tide of potential House losses and cling to power, such as it is with a twerp like Mike Johnson in command. As spineless as the GOP leadership is, that party's control of the House at least means that the Trump agenda (assuming he wins the presidency) is not immediately D.O.A. as it would be under racist election-denying Speaker Hakeem Homeboy, and it also means we would avoid a never-ending series of Trump impeachments. Vote hard. Tags:
2024
House
"Red" wave in the House?
Not likely
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