A seat in the U.S. House of Representatives seldom changes from Red to Blue, or for that matter, from Blue to Red. Your local Congressperson is more likely to die in office than to lose a bid for reelection, statistically speaking. However, it makes sense to objectively estimate the chances of this happening. Sometimes, a challenger has a good shot -- other times, not so much. The National Journal has being doing this for years, and has a good track record of getting it right. How do they rate our
Netroots Endorsed Candidates? In the last cycle, our slate
didn't do so well. Will that change this time? Will Sestak, Burner, Murphy, and Kissell be our new members of the freshman class, a change like the "Watergate Baby" class of 1974, in which scores of seats changed hands?
The results are
on their site; for complete information, you must be a subscriber (if you are a college student, you can probably see it if you are logged in to a campus computer). It incorporates what we know about the latest fundraising reports:
1. Joe Sestak
Pennsylvania 7th CD (Joe is down from 16 last month to 17 this month.)
2. Darcy Burner
Washington 8th CD (Her EMILY's (Early Money is Like Yeast) list endorsement will be a good source of national money. She's up to 24 from 30, the largest movement of any of our candidates.)
3. Patrick Murphy
Pennsylvania 8th CD (Patrick is up to 26 from 29; they say that "of the three eastern Pennsylvania targets, this one is probably the toughest for Democrats to win.")
4. Larry Kissell
North Carolina 8th CD (Larry is up to 45 from 47; the Journal says: "Hayes is probably not as safe as some Republicans would like to assume.") He is the only Southern Democrat on the list whose numbers are climbing.
5. Jerry McNerney
California 11th CD (Jerry is down to 49 from 43.)
Coming onto the list for the first time is Eric Massa,
New York 29th CD, who is now 47th. I think the Netroots endorsement was instrumental in bringing Massa to the fore -- it really is the thing that I can see has most changed about that race in the last month.
Dropped from the list were:
Linda Stender
New Jersey 7th CD
Paul Hodes
New Hampshire 2nd CD
Remember, all our candidates need your help. I think it is important to pay special attention to the Burner, Murphy, and Kissell races, because they seem to be getting something right.