Our House Vulnerability Index shows you who the most at-risk House members are next year

Friday September 15, 2023 · 1:50 PM PDT

2023/09/15 · 13:50

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 14: Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference in the U.S. Capitol to discus an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden on Thursday, September 14, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images) — You may not know California Rep. John Duarte, but you'll want to: He's the most at-risk Republican in 2024, according to Daily Kos Elections' House Vulnerability Index.

After Republicans fell far short of their own lofty expectations in the 2022 midterms, the United States House of Representatives remains very closely divided. In fact, you have to go back 70 years to find a time when the gap between the two parties was smaller. With Democrats needing just five seats to flip the chamber in 2024, it’s guaranteed that the battle for the House will once again take center stage next year.

It’s natural, then, to wonder which congressional districts are likely to see the closest and most critical races. There are many ways of assessing the battlefield, of course, but one simple and reliable tool we’ve used for many years at Daily Kos Elections is our House Vulnerability Index, so we’re pleased to roll out the latest edition for the 2023-24 election cycle.

The index looks at just two criteria to assess competitiveness: (1) the margin of victory in each incumbent House member’s own race in the last election (called the House Rank), and (2) the average presidential margin of victory in that same congressional district over the last two presidential elections (the Presidential Rank). We rank both of those factors from 1 to 435, with lower numbers representing more competitive outcomes. We then combine those two ranks into a single rank and sort each party’s caucus accordingly.

What this rank ordering shows is the probable order in which congressional seats held by either side are likely to fall. It doesn’t predict how many seats one or the other party will pick up; that’s something that starts to come into view later in the cycle and is usually measured with polling data. But if you forecast or even just guess at a particular number of seats a party is likely to lose—whether it’s five, 10, 20, or more—the House Vulnerability index is very good at predicting which seats are the likeliest to fall.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Thursday March 09, 2023 · 7:00 AM PST

2023/03/09 · 07:00

Map of state Senate districts (numbered) that overlap New York's 3rd Congressional District.

One thing we do a lot of at Daily Kos Elections during the odd-numbered years is think about who might run for office in the next even-numbered year: who might challenge an incumbent, or who’s going to seek a promotion when there’s an open seat. This kind of speculative naming-of-names in the political media is such a well-established tradition that there’s even a term for it: the Great Mentioner.

The Great Mentioner is sometimes pure guesswork by pundits about which candidates seem like up-and-comers, but just as often, it’s the result of behind-the-scenes prodding by consultants or potential contenders themselves trying to float names into general circulation through media allies and see what sort of a bite they get. You might recognize this as part of what’s called the “invisible primary,” which gets a lot of coverage in the presidential context but happens in all manner of downballot races too, at the congressional and even legislative and municipal levels.

But we can improve on this process by adding a quantifiable layer to it. For starters, it helps to know which potential candidates actually have connections to a given district: Do they actually live there, and more generally, how big is their base of local supporters? And if, say, a member of the state legislature is looking at a bid for Congress, how much turf does their present district share with the one they might seek?

After years of wishing for some sort of table that might illustrate these overlaps, in 2019 we finally did something about it and built those spreadsheets ourselves! But thanks to the decennial redistricting process that followed the 2020 census, those versions are now out of date, so we headed back down into the Excel cave to produce fresh data.

After a whole lot of number crunching—and waiting for the last straggler, Montana’s legislative redistricting process, to cross the finish line—Daily Kos Elections is pleased to announce new versions of our data detailing the overlaps in all 50 states between:

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Monday November 07, 2022 · 10:15 AM PST

2022/11/07 · 10:15

PONTIAC, MI - NOVEMBER 06: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer speaks to supporters at a rally at the Crofoot Ballroom on November 6, 2022 in Pontiac, Michigan. Gov. Whitmer continues campaigning across the state of Michigan against Republican gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon ahead of the November 8 midterm election. (Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who faces an expensive and competitive bid for a second term.

Not to be overlooked amidst the very closely divided contest over which party will control the Senate for the next two years are the nation’s many governors races, which is why Daily Kos Elections has prepared this guide to all of the key matchups in 2022.

There’s quite a lot on the docket, since the majority of states—36 of them, including New Hampshire and Vermont, who love gubernatorial elections so much that they have one every two years—hold contests for governor in midterm years. That includes nine of the nation’s 10 most populous states, North Carolina being the only exception.

One reason these races don’t get the same level of attention as the battle for the Senate is that they don’t, in aggregate, have a direct impact on the nation’s governance: One party doesn’t get a power bonus for controlling 25 or more statehouses. However, governors do have the ultimate say at the state level. They have appointment powers and control the regulatory apparatus, and, via veto power, can be an important check in states with Republican legislatures.

That’s important simply from the perspective of passing good policy and having well-governed, smoothly-running states, but it’s also more vital than ever in how governors downstream affect the administration of federal elections. Republican lawmakers and statewide officials have grown increasingly aggressive in making voting more difficult or restrictive, and even in attempts to undo results they don’t like. As long as elections are administered at the state and local levels, governors are the final gatekeepers who will determine whether they remain free and fair.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Monday November 07, 2022 · 7:37 AM PST

2022/11/07 · 07:37

HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA - NOVEMBER 06: Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman greets supporters following a campaign event at the Zembo Shrine Auditorium November 26, 2022, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Fetterman faces Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz as in Tuesdayâ€™s midterm elections. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images) — Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, who is running in the most expensive Senate race of 2022.

The main event on this year’s elections calendar is control of the United States Senate. With the chamber divided 50-50, the consequences of even a small gain or loss are quite large. Gain one net seat, and the Democrats are no longer dependent on Joe Manchin’s whims as the chamber’s decisive vote; pick up two and Kyrsten Sinema’s influence shrivels, too. But lose one seat, and, well, Joe Manchin is also pretty irrelevant, because the legislative agenda is going to be set by Mitch McConnell instead.

While there may be only a handful of true tossup races this year, the fact that the Senate is already balanced on a knife’s edge, and that those few key races seem to be truly up in the air based on current polls, means that the Senate is very much a tossup in the aggregate. It’s pretty unusual to head into Election Day with a sense that either party has about a 50% chance of winning a majority, but that’s more or less where we are right now.

In this preview of the battle for the Senate, we’re going to start with the five races that are the purest tossups: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and New Hampshire—all of which involve defending a Democratic incumbent—and the open seat in Pennsylvania, the Democrats’ best opportunity for a pickup. We’ll also look at 10 other races where one party has a more pronounced advantage but that are competitive and worth keeping a close eye on as election night (and the days after, most likely) unfold.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Friday November 04, 2022 · 10:33 AM PDT

2022/11/04 · 10:33

no image description available — Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman stands before a banner reading, "EVERY COUNTY, EVERY VOTE" at a rally.

If there’s a big election night, there’s one thing you can always count on: Daily Kos Elections county-by-county benchmarks for competitive races! In this post, we have benchmarks for the top-tier Senate battles that will determine control of Congress’ upper chamber: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Perhaps not coincidentally—since these are, as always, the nation’s most competitive swing states, regardless of what’s on the ballot—most of those states are also hosting some of the nation’s most competitive gubernatorial contests. We’re also including a couple of states with big governor’s races but nothing on the Senate side, Kansas and Michigan.

What do benchmarks do? They’re a tool that can help you estimate, as early results start coming in, whether candidates are hitting the marks they need to win statewide. Without that advance framework for what to expect, you’re left at the mercy of pundits who might have an agenda, might simply have no clue what’s going on, or both.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Wednesday October 19, 2022 · 7:38 AM PDT

2022/10/19 · 07:38

US Republican Representative Mayra Flores of Texas, who is running for reelection, speaks at a campaign event on October 10, 2022 at the University Drafthouse in Mcallen, Texas. (Photo by allison dinner / AFP) (Photo by ALLISON DINNER/AFP via Getty Images) — Texas Rep. Mayra Flores is the most endangered Republican incumbent in 2022, according to the Daily Kos Elections House Vulnerability Index.

One of the many projects at Daily Kos Elections that we undertake every two years is calculating our home-grown House Vulnerability Index, which we’re pleased to launch for the 2022 election cycle. This deceptively simple tool tells us a great deal about which House members of both parties are going to face the most difficult re-election fights in their next elections, using data from previous elections.

To do so, it relies on just two data points: the margin of victory in each incumbent House member’s own race in the last election, and the average presidential margin of victory in that same congressional district over the last two presidential elections. This accounts for two separate issues. One, with the recent historical decline in ticket-splitting by voters, the presidential lean of a House district is very determinative of that district’s vote for Congress. There are, in fact, almost no representatives left who represent a district won by more than 10 points by the presidential candidate from the opposite party, and few who hold districts won by the other party’s presidential nominee by any margin at all.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Thursday October 06, 2022 · 11:16 AM PDT

2022/10/06 · 11:16

Map of United States media markets — Map of designated market areas (aka media markets) in the United States.

With this decade’s redistricting cycle now in the books, it’s time for a complete refresh of one of Daily Kos Elections’ most frequently consulted resources: our spreadsheet of the overlaps between the nation's congressional districts and its media markets.

In the U.S., there are 210 television media markets—or more formally “designated market areas” (DMAs)—that are defined by Nielsen Media Research, which measures viewership. In each DMA, viewers can expect to see the same broadcast television stations, which makes them useful groupings for advertisers.

These media markets don’t have direct electoral relevance since of course they don’t elect their own representatives. But they do still play an important role in our understanding of politics because they’re the units by which candidates, PACs, and parties purchase broadcast television ads. And despite today’s fractured media environment, TV spots remain one of the most critical tools of any campaign, and in most competitive races, a campaign’s biggest expense.

Candidates of course have increasingly come to rely on digital advertising and social media outreach, and especially in smaller races, the best bang for the buck often still comes via old-fashioned, in-person get-out-the-vote operations. But in a statewide race or even most U.S. House races, this type of in-person work is difficult to do at the necessary scale. Beyond that, television ads are effective because the people who are likeliest to be watching broadcast TV—older voters—are also often the electorate’s likeliest and most reliable voters. In particular, ads on “event television” (like major live sporting events) are an easy way to reach a large audience and are especially coveted by advertisers.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Monday August 08, 2022 · 8:45 AM PDT

2022/08/08 · 08:45

With this decade’s congressional redistricting cycle wrapped up, it’s time to revisit a popular Daily Kos Elections project: actually trying to describe where each district is.

One of the myriad ways America deviates from much of the rest of the world is that, while most countries give their parliamentary constituencies a handy name that describes where they’re situated, we name our House of Representatives districts simply with a combination of the state they’re in plus a number.

For example, in the United Kingdom, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson represents the constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which locals would know is an affluent suburban neighborhood in the outer part of western London. Similarly, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau represents the riding of Papineau; many urban ridings in Canada are named after main thoroughfares rather than neighborhoods, but if you know where Avenue Papineau is, you know which part of central Montreal he represents.

Nancy Pelosi, by contrast, will be representing “California’s 11th Congressional District” starting next year. You probably know she represents the city of San Francisco because that’s a regular talking point in the news, and in the ubiquitous Republican ads asking if we want to bring her “San Francisco values,” nudge nudge wink wink, to the heartland. But without that outside context, how would you know whether she represents Hollywood or the Central Valley instead?

Making things even more convoluted, in previous years, she’s also represented the 5th District, then the 8th District, and currently the 12th District. But she hasn’t been moving around; her same basic district with mostly the same constituents just gets renumbered every 10 years.

We at Daily Kos Elections are out to fix that lack of clarity! We first tried naming every congressional district based on its geography in 2019, relying partly on crowdsourced descriptions. With the new decade’s maps now solidified (at least for the next two years), it’s time to revisit that effort with a whole new batch of names.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Friday February 18, 2022 · 10:55 AM PST

2022/02/18 · 10:55

Map showing overlap of old and new North Carolina CDs — Map of new North Carolina CDs (shown as black borders) and old CDs (shown as areas of color).

A three-judge panel has until Feb. 23 to decide whether the new North Carolina congressional and legislative maps passed late on Thursday meet the standards the state Supreme Court set when it rejected the GOP’s original plans as “unlawful partisan gerrymanders” and ordered new ones. As we’ll discuss, the new congressional plan remains something of a Republican-friendly gerrymander while still creating several potential battlegrounds.

Democrats currently control only five of the state’s 13 congressional districts, and even with the state gaining a 14th seat, a bad midterm could leave Team Blue with even fewer members than they have now. However, this map has a surprisingly high number of competitive seats: In an especially good Democratic year, this could potentially turn into a map where each party holds seven districts—or, if absolutely every card gets played right, an outright eight-to-six Democratic majority.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Monday November 01, 2021 · 9:08 AM PDT

2021/11/01 · 09:08

Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe — Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D)

If it’s a big election night with a close race at Daily Kos Elections, that means it’s time for county-by-county benchmarks! On Tuesday, we’re going to be watching the Virginia gubernatorial race intently. The race features a matchup between former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe—who’s running to replace term-limited Democratic incumbent Ralph Northam, in the one remaining state that doesn’t allow governors to serve consecutive terms—and Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin. Although McAuliffe had enjoyed polling leads of low- to mid-single digits for most of the race, in the last few weeks, Youngkin has taken the narrowest of advantages.

While Virginia saw fairly comfortable wins for Joe Biden in 2020 (54-44) and Northam in 2017 (54-45), the state is not blue enough such that a Democratic candidate can coast to victory. That’s especially true in an off-year election where there’s a Democrat in the White House. It’s worth noting, though, that in his previous bid in 2013, McAuliffe managed to beat the curse of “thermostatic public opinion,” winning narrowly against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s second term.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Tuesday August 17, 2021 · 7:00 AM PDT

2021/08/17 · 07:00

Map of 2010-2020 population change by county

If you thought that the suburbs of the major cities in the South and Southwest were the major battleground in the 2020 election, hold on to your butts for 2024: New census data released last week gives an even clearer picture of how these rapidly blue-shifting areas are also some of the fastest-growing terrain in the country.

Thursday’s drop included every last scrap of data from the 2020 census: the population of every county, every city, every school district—all the way down to every city block. These figures give state legislatures and commissions the green light to start the redistricting process for congressional maps, legislative districts, municipal constituencies, and much more.

It’s also a treasure trove of information for people interested in the demographic changes that are shaping our nation, and in turn, our nation’s politics, which is why we’ve crunched and compiled all of that data at the congressional district, county, and city levels.

David Jarman for Daily Kos Elections

Tuesday May 25, 2021 · 7:46 AM PDT

2021/05/25 · 07:46

Seattle City Council president Bruce Harrell, left, speaks, Tuesday, June 12, 2018, during a council meeting at City Hall in Seattle. Harrell and other members of the Council were expected to vote Tuesday on whether or not to repeal a tax on large companies such as Amazon and Starbucks that was intended to combat a growing homelessness crisis. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) — Former City Council President Bruce Harrell, one of the leading candidates in Seattle's race for mayor this year.

Filing closed on Friday for the Seattle mayoral race, which is an open seat after incumbent Jenny Durkan's surprising retirement after just one term. Fifteen different candidates are seeking the Emerald City's highest office despite the job's long track record of being a destroyer of dreams: No Seattle mayor has managed to get reelected since Greg Nickels in 2005, and before that, Norm Rice in 1993.

The race is officially nonpartisan, with the top two candidates advancing from the Aug. 3 primary to the Nov. 2 general election. Conventional wisdom holds that the two frontrunners are City Council President Lorena González and former City Council President Bruce Harrell, who also served as interim mayor for five days in 2017 following Ed Murray's resignation.

Newer
Older

RSS

Our House Vulnerability Index shows you who the most at-risk House members are next year

The Daily Kos Elections guide to geographic overlaps between districts and counties

The Daily Kos Elections guide to every key race for governor in 2022

The Daily Kos Elections guide to every key Senate race in 2022

What will early election night results mean for the big races? Our county benchmarks will tell you

Who are the most at-risk House members in November? Our House Vulnerability Index will tell you

The Daily Kos Elections guide to media markets and congressional districts for the new 2022 maps

The Daily Kos Elections naming guide to this decade's new congressional districts

GOP's new North Carolina map is still a gerrymander, but one that gives Democrats new targets

Our county-by-county benchmarks will help you interpret Virginia's results as the vote comes in

We've got census growth data for every city, county, and district—and there are lots of surprises

In Seattle's wide-open mayoral race, which flavor of progressive will win out?