After some time without writing here, my wish is to give my impression looking at the first numbers of the cycle.
As always my point is based in numbers. After some work with the numbers I attempt to do some analysis, and that work at times has proved to be correct enough.
As an example, you can see my prediction before the 2010 elections. Then I missed only 9 statewide offices among hundreds of elections (IL-Sen, IL-Gov, IL-LG, AL-LG, WI-ST, IA-SS, VT-SA, OH-SS, SC-SE), but I did a little worse for the US House. Still I was able to be one of the winners of the Swing State Project (now DailyKos Elections) predicting contest. Here are the full numbers.
It is time to begin talking about the new cycle.
Every part of the cycle requires different numerical treatment because we do not have the same type of numbers. We still cannot talk about numbers from polls for the down ballot races, we still cannot talk about the level of the challengers. The first numbers of the cycle must work around the previous results for the new constituency. The constituency (state, district, etc.) can change if there are changes from the redistricting process.
My first numbers for the Democratic incumbents seek to reveal the potential danger in a bid for reelection, including the effect of the redistricting process (either by the real effect or an estimation). The numbers of the election for President and the overall percentage of the Democratic vote for the US House in 2010 are in the center of the next calculus. Then obviously, Obama and Biden are in the mid level, in the level of the Democratic "average" (0.00). The numerical data is like a deviation from the Democratic "average".
The next list includes the Democratic elected incumbents that are worse since the "average". These numbers take into account the changes from the redistricting process, following my preview for the states where the redistricting is not yet ended, or we do not know clearly the rating of the new districts.
After a bad cycle, obviously, only a few weak Democratic incumbents survive and the list is short.
= 0.00% US-Pres B Obama
= 0.00% US-VP J Biden
- 0.07% MO-AG C Koster
- 0.32% UT-02 J Matheson (my own estimate still)
- 0.54% WA-SPI R Dorn
- 0.79% NC-08 L Kissell
- 1.35% NC-CI W Goodwin
- 1.82% NC-LG W Dalton
- 1.84% WA-ST J McIntire
- 1.92% OR-SS K Brown
- 1.92% MT-SPI D Juneau
- 2.31% NC-13 B Miller
- 2.37% WA-CPL P Goldmark
- 2.45% MO-ST C Zweifel
- 2.47% MO-Sen C McCaskill
- 2.53% WV-AG D McGraw
- 2.58% TN-05 J Cooper (my own estimate still)
- 2.65% NC-Gov B Perdue
- 2.93% MT-Sen J Tester
- 3.60% MT-SS L McCullock
These numbers are for the beginning of the race (including the redistricting). But now we know more details about some important races (MT-Sen, NC-Gov, MO-Sen), about who will run, and the first polls. However, I include the numbers for these races because they can be a reference for the development of other downballot races. These races are between Democratic incumbents with worse prospects previously. And we see them fighting and they are competitive. B Perdue, J Tester and C McCaskill are providing the best examples for the rest of the weakest incumbents. Looking at this I see a good chance of keeping a big majority of them if Obama wins.
I think every Democratic incumbent will be at least competitive except some isolated cases in very red states:
+ 11.95% NE-Sen B Nelson
+ 06.66% MS-AG J Hood? (If J Hood can win, it would be a very good sign for the rest)
At this point the numbers are telling me that L Boswell (IA-03), L Richardson (CA-47), J Costa (CA-21), H Shuler (NC-11), M McIntyre (NC-07), J Barrow (GA-12) may be in positive territory after the redistricting process, and L Kissell (NC-08) or B Miller (NC-13) still have numbers that make think the Republican redistricting of NC can fail, at least in the short-term.
We also can see a few states accumulate the big majority of the weakest incumbents (WA, MO, MT and NC). It seems we need to pay some attention to Washington too. The rest are obvious states.
I think the Democratic side will have very few open offices. This cycle, the effect of the term limits opening new offices will be very low. I think the recruitment for the defense of the current offices is going well, and I hope the efforts continue until J Markell, J Lynch, P Shumlin and more lower level incumbents run for reelection. Very few open seats have created competitive and difficult races. J Bingaman and R Feingold/H Kohl are the politicians that open higher risks (NM-Sen, NM-01, NM-SA, WI-Sen) and this is the reason that can make us think the following: to have them not running again is the most serious failure in the work of recruiting candidates in the defensive side of the cycle.
There is a little more risk for the group of the appointed incumbents and the open offices. The majority of the "open by Democrat" races are winnable, but I see an important risk of being not competitive in:
MT-AG
ND-Sen
AR-04
OK-02
In addition to that, my estimation is giving 3 new D+ districts from the redistricting (TX-34, WA-10? and NV-04?) while 5 of the current districts with a Democratic incumbent would disappear (MA-10?, MI-??, PA-12?, OH-13? and MO-03). I take the new TX-35 as the successor of the current TX-25.
This level does very likely end the cycle with gains.
Sun Sep 11, 2011 at 11:38 AM PT: Finally GA-12 is R+9, a little less republican than in my estimation (R+11), and that mean J Barrow is in positive for the reelection.