Larry Sabato has his last set of House race predictions, and like other prognosticators, predicts a massive Republican wave:
Even at this late date, we see no need to do anything but tweak the total R gains, based on more complete information now available to all. Thus, we are raising the total to +55 net R seats. We consider 47 to be in the ballpark still, but more of a floor than a ceiling. In fact, if you’ll go back to our pre-Labor Day analysis, that’s exactly what we suggested +47 would end up being.
I went through and compared his predicted Democratic losses to the membership of the Blue Dogs, and got the following list: Berry (retired), Bishop, Boyd, Carney, Childers, Dahlkemper, Ellsworth (running for Senate), Gordon (retired), Herseth-Sandlin, Hill, Kratovil, Markey, Marhsall, Melancon (running for Senate), Mitchell, Moore (retired), Murphy (the one in Pennsylvania), Murphy (the on New York), Nye, Pomeroy, Salazar, Space, and Tanner (retired)
Now those are predicted losses. There's several on this list who will survive, and probably several more who Sabato thinks are safe who will not. And of course, Democrats may be in better shape than suggested. As Nate Silver wrote yesterday:
Our projection says that Republicans are favorites in 231 House races, which would reflect a net gain of 52 seats.
But suppose that our forecast is biased against the Democrats by one point across the country as a whole, perhaps because pollsters are overestimating the enthusiasm gap very slightly. Just one point. Well, there are 6 seats in which we have the Republican candidate projected to win by less than 1 full point (it might be a very long election night, by the way). If Democrats hold those 6 seats, the projected Republican gains would be down to 46.
Now suppose that the forecast understates Democratic support by 2 points. There are 8 seats in which we project the Republican candidate to win by a margin of between 1 and 2 points; now these would also be wiped off the board. Now the Republican gains would be reduced to just 38 seats — and the Democrats would hold the House, 218-217!
But still, let's assume Sabato and the rest of the prognosticators are right. Their projections aren't unreasonable.
If they're right, that means that 23 of the 54 Blue Dog members would bite the dust, decimating their caucus. That means that the Blue Dogs would make up 44 percent of Democratic losses, even though they only make up 21 percent of the caucus.
If the worst-case scenario comes to happen, we can enjoy this silver lining -- the brunt of the losses will be felt by the very same people who helped obstruct the Democratic agenda, who fought middle class tax cuts and the Public Option, and who fueled the "Dems are divided" narrative. We'll get rid of the hypcorites who, like their Republican BFF's, scream about "fiscal responsibility" while fighting desperately to cut taxes on the wealthiest.
Some of those Blue Dogs are actually not terrible (like Pomeroy and the Pennsylvania Murphy), but I'll be cheering the losses of the Marhsalls, Bishops and Boyds. We'll have a smaller caucus when the new Congress gets sworn in next year, but it'll be a more ideologically cohesive one. And that can only be helpful moving forward.