I sure hope these guys are right...
T-minus 1 day and counting. I believe all 6 of my celebrity handicappers (Cook, CQ, Evans-Novak, Nat'l Journal, Rothenberg and Sabato) have posted their final projections at this point. Another day and we will find out just how prescient they all were, individually and collectively.
Quite a bit of movement across the board again this week, again predominantly the form of previously lower tier Republican-held districts becoming more interesting. Whether this constitutes a "wave" or not, I can't say. Seems like anyway I can think of to count them, I seem to come up with about about a 26-seat net gain as my best guess for the next House (with all due knocking on wood, throwing salt over shoulder and turning 'round three times and spitting -- not that I'm superstitious or anything).
More details on the jump page.
Lining 'em up left to right, CO 3 moves from Dem Favored to Safe Democratic... and that about does it for the Democratic side. On the side of darkness, 6 new Republican-held seats edged from Leans Repub into the Toss-up column. AZ 1, AZ 5, CA 11, NH 2, OH 2 and NY 20. Hope to see a couple of those achieve true enlightenment tomorrow. Not to be left behind, an amazing eight districts (ID 1, MN 1, NE 3, NJ 7, NY 19, NY 25, PA 4 and TX 23) moved from Republican favored to Leans Repub. And bringing up the rear, IN 3, MN 2, NH 1, KS 2 and WV 2 all moved from Safe Republican to at least marginally competitive Republican Favored.
That brings the current bottom line totals to:
Democratic Safe (191D) + Favored (7D, 1R) + Lean (4D, 7R) = 210
Republican Safe (165R) + Favored (13R) + Lean (18R) = 196
Toss-ups (1D, 28R) = 29
Republican Held MetaToss-ups (Score 3.0 to 4.4)
AZ 01: Renzi, 3.1
AZ 05: Hayworth, 3.6
CA 11: Pombo, 3.3
CT 02: Simmons, 3.5
CT 04: Shays, 3.9
CT 05: Johnson, 4.0
FL 13: Open (Harris), 4.1
FL 16: Open (Foley), 4.0
FL 22: Clay Shaw, 3.6
IL 06: Open (Hyde), 3.6
IN 02: Chocola, 4.4
IN 09: Sodrel, 4.0
KY 04: Davis, 3.1
MN 06: Open (Kennedy), 3.4
NC 11: Taylor, 4.4
NH 02: Bass, 3.5
NM 01: Wilson, 3.8
NY 20: Sweeney, 3.5
NY 24: Open (Boehlert), 4.4
NY 26: Reynolds, 3.3
OH 01: Chabot, 3.4
OH 02: Schmidt, 3.3
OH 15: Pryce, 4.2
PA 06: Gerlach, 4.0
PA 08: Fitzpatrick, 3.5
VA 02: Drake, 3.0
WA 08: Reichert, 3.1
WI 08: Open (Green), 3.5
Likely Looking Dem Pick-Ups (Score 4.5 or better)
AZ 08: Open (Kolbe), 5.5
CO 07: Open (Beauprez), 5.5
IA 01: Open (Nussle), 5.1
IN 08: Hostettler, 5.2
OH 18: Open (Ney), 5.1
PA 07: Weldon, 4.9
PA 10: Sherwood, 4.8
TX 22: Open (DeLay), 4.6
Democratic Watch List (Score <5)
GA 08: Marshal, 4.6
GA12: Barrow, 3.8*
IA 03: Boswell, 5.3
IL 08: Bean, 4.6
* Included in the toss-ups total above.
Methodology:
Current House race ratings from CQ, the Cook, Rothenberg and Evans Novak political reports and Larry Sabato's Cryatal Ball were recast as numeric values where:
0=Safe Republican
1=Republican Favored
2=Leans Republican
3=Toss-Up/Tilt Republican
3.5=Unleaned Toss-Up
4=Toss-Up/Tilt Democratic
5=Leans Democratic
6=Democrat Favored
7=Safe Democratic
Evans-Novak's (four) categories are mapped to 2-5 on this scale. Rankings from the National Journal's list of Top 60 seats most likely to change parties were interpolated onto a harmonized scale where 1=6 and 60=1 (reversed for the Democratic Watch List so that higher scores are always better for Democrats). Scores from all sources for each race were then averaged get a single-number aggregate race rating.
Sources:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/...
http://www.cookpolitical.com/...
http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/...
http://www.humanevents.com/...
http://nationaljournal.com/...
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/...