Democrats need only 15 seats to take control of the House. By my calculations, the election will be a complete rout. I could be off by quite a bit, and Democrats still come out ahead.
Continue onward to see the calculations.
First, the nationwide poll results. A Washington Post-ABC News Poll just out says that Democrats lead Republicans by a 13-point margin when voters were asked which party's Congressional candidate they leaned toward. Unfortunately, the same poll question was not asked in 2004, so we cannot directly see how this compares with the opinions leading into the last election.
The best recent comparison available between today and just before the 2004 election comes from the USA Today/Gallup Poll (joined by CNN in 2004). A week before the 2004 election, registered voters favored Democrats by 4 points (49-45). Last week, the result had shifted to an 11-point margin (51-40).
Does that 7% shift translate into Democrats winning more seats? It depends on whether the shift is taking place in battleground districts or only in heavily Democratic or Republican districts.
This question is now answered by a poll jointly conducted by Public Opinion Strategies (Republican) and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (Democratic).
This poll looked specifically at 50 districts they identified as battlegrounds. The poll results from all of the districts were combined to give statistically significant results. They state that the districts break down as follows
They did not give data for individual districts. If they had, the margin of error would have been very high (about ± 23%). They did, however, provide a list of the districts which were surveyed, and that is very useful for comparing with 2004 election results. Oddly, when I look at those districts, I see a different breakdown based on the winner of the last election than the report claims. I see
Overall, this poll found voters favoring Democratic congressional candidates over Republicans by 48-41. That is comparable to the national numbers, but most of these are Republican districts.
Where incumbents are running for re-election, the poll named the incumbent. The challenger (whether Republican or Democrat) in this case is favored 46-29. This does not look good for incumbents.
The result is more interesting when separated into Democrat-held districts and Republican-held districts. In the Democratic districts, Democrats lead by an overwhelming majority, 60-29. In the Republican-held districts, Democrats still lead by 49-45.
Two of the Republicans in these districts had no Democratic opposition in 2004. Of the remaining 39 Republican districts, Republicans won in 2004 by an average margin of 58-41. The four point Democratic lead in this poll represents a 21 point swing since 2004. Any Republican who won in 2004 by less than 21 points should be considered to be in a competitive district. There are 54 such districts, 28 of which were not surveyed for this poll. It seems reasonable to consider those 28 "battleground" districts to be more like the Republican-held battleground districts in this poll than like the national average. Combined with the two districts that were unopposed in 2004 but are competitive in 2006, that is an opportunity for Democrats to pick up 56 seats! That does not even count the 26 districts that were considered competitive for purposes of this poll but which had a margin in 2004 of more than 21%.
In the eight so-called competitive Democratic districts, one of the Democrats had no Republican opposition in 2004. Of the remaining 7 Democratic districts, Democrats won in 2004 by an average margin of 56-44. Democrats have solidified their lead in these districts by a swing of 19 points. Even with a margin of error of about ± 8% for this subsample, it is hard to believe that any of these districts really are competitive.
Republican leadership could be devastated. Among those Republican seats at risk according to the list of 50 districts used in this poll are those of Tom DeLay, Resources Chair Pombo, Science Chair Boehlert, Budget Chair Nussle, International Relations Chair Hyde, Republican Conference Chair Pryce, Deputy Whip and House Administration Chair Ney, and Assistant Deputy Whip Green. Additional seats at risk according to this analysis are those of Rules Chair Dreier, Financial Services Chair Oxley, Deputy Whip Weller, and Republican Campaign Committee Chair Reynolds. Another 14 subcommittee chairs could lose their seats in Congress.
These numbers are great for Democrats, but the party still needs to work hard to make this reality. Party infrastructure will need to be developed quickly in each of these districts, many of which Democrats have written off for many years.
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