Daily Kos Elections remains the best. I think this site easily matches those that one must pay dearly to access. Last week’s chart of Republican-held congressional seats in districts won by Obama in 2008 got me thinking about how to best divide up the 106 House seats I am tracking. One preliminary difference is that I have already moved the PA 5th off the board giving it to Democrats. On the flip side, the PA 14th, which is currently sort of held by a Democrat, is virtually certain to be won by a Republican. This leaves the Democrats 23 seats away from regaining the majority. I divide my one hundred and six races into eight categories with a few subcategories. This will help significantly to track the races as elections approach.
The first question I ask is, did a Democratic presidential nominee win the seat in any of the last three elections?
This question alone produces 59 total seats in play. I then ask how many times out of three did Obama or Clinton prevail. There are 11 Seats currently held by a Republican which the Democratic Nominee has won in three straight Presidential elections. (CA10, CA21, C06, FL 26, FL 27, MN 3, NY 24, PA 1, PA 6, PA 7, WA 8) I have dubbed these seats “Prime.”
Next are the “Near Prime” districts. These are the 16 seats where the Democratic nominee won two out of three times. I divide these into Near Prime- OC, those where Clinton won, and Obama won once and Near Prime- Double O, seats where Obama won twice. There are five Near Prime- OC seats (CA 25, CA 49, IL 6, TX 23, VA 10) and 11 Near Prime Double O seats (IA 1, IA 3, IL 12, ME 2, MN 2, NJ 2, NJ 3, NY 1, NY 2, NY 19, NY 21).
Finally, there are 32 seats that were one just once by a Democratic presidential nominee in the last three cycles. Although these vary widely, and some provide much better chances than others, chiefly as a pneumonic, I will call these “Promising.” 8 of these (Promising- C) are Clinton seats (AZ 2, CA 39, CA 45, CA 48, KS 3, NJ 7, TX 7, TX 32) The remaining 24 (Promising – O) Obama won just once: 23 in 2008 and 1 in 2012. These are tougher targets for the Democrats and show some of the biggest contrast between my 106 seats being tracked, and Cook’s slightly lower number. Some of these Obama 24 are not on the Cook chart. The 24 are ( FL 6, FL 18, IL 13,IL 14,IL 16,IN 2, MI 1,MI 3,MI 4, MI 6, MI 7, MI 8, MI 11, NE 2,NV 2, NY 11, NY 23, OH 10, PA 16, WA 3, WI 1, WI 6, WI 7, WI 8)
We still have five categories left.
Tweeners are seats in which Hillary Clinton got between 48% to 44% of the vote, which means there is at least something of Democratic or Anti-Trump base there. There are 11 of these seats (FL 25, GA 6, GA 7, NC 13, NJ 11, OH 1, PA 17, TX 22, TX 24, VA 2, VA 7)
Leaving us with Four Categories and 35 seats to go.
Below Tweeners, we have those seats in which the gap between Clinton and Trump was 10% or less.
There are 8. (AZ 6, CA 22, FL 15, NC 2, PA 10, TX 2, TX 10, TX 21) Call these Near Tweeners.
This still leaves 27 trackable seats, although I will admit I might need to ding some of them, while maybe adding others that I am missing now. We can divide these reach seats into three categories: Strong Challenger, Weak Incumbent, or Susceptible to a Wave.
Weak Incumbents are 10
(AK-AL, CA 50, IN 9, IA 4, MT AL, NC 9, NY 22, NY 27 SC 1, SC 5)
Strong Challengers are 6
(KS 2, KY 6, TX 31 UT 4, WA 5, WV 3)
Susceptible to Wave are 12
AR 2, CA 4, CO 3, FL 16, M0 2, NM 2, OH 12, OH 15, OH 14, OH 16, TX 6, VA 5,
These Eight Categories
Prime; Near Prime; Promising; Tweeners, Near Tweeners, Weak Incumbents, Strong Challengers and Wave Vulnerable present a memorable way of looking at the board. I will be updating races periodically but this where we are with a little less than 200 days until Election Day.