In parts 1 and 2 of this series I outlined how Hillary Clinton will win the presidency comfortably, and that the Senate democrats will retake the Senate. Since then polls have fluctuated, but the structure of this race remains unchanged, in my opinion. Sec. Clinton is on track for a significant win in both the electoral college and in the popular vote, and in the Senate races, while running the table on all the competitive races looks very unlikely, our chances have solidified in enough races that a democratic Senate is increasing likely.
In part 3, let’s look at the House chances. Currently there are 188 democrats and 247 republicans, meaning that democrats need to net a gain of 30 seats in order to win the House. How likely is a gain of 30 seats? Cook’s house rating has a total of 47 republican held seats as less than safe republican, while there are 10 democratic held seats that are less than safe democratic. Dailykos Elections, largely agrees with that assessment with a few differences. Even with the minor differences, the number of seats that are seen as competitive is very similar.
A simple, and usually good rule of thumb, is that the incumbent party tends to win almost all of races not considered tossups while tossups tend to split roughly 50-50 between the parties. If that were the case we would be looking at a democratic pickup in the low teens, somewhere between 10-15 seats. However, I see this more as a floor, rather than a likely outcome. I say this because, while most polls show a smallish lead for Hillary Clinton, I expect her to win by a significantly larger margin than most polls currently show, in large part due to a highly motivated latinx vote and suburban vote. In nominating Donald J. Trump, Republicans put at the top of their ticket a man who will do historically bad among latinx voters, suburban women voters and among college-educated white voters. The republican party will experience their own nightmarish version of trickle down politics as Trump will sink the chances of several down ballot republicans.
In order for democrats to take back the house, or come close to it, they’ll need to hold as many of their endangered seats as they can, win the majority of tossup seats and make deep gains in the seats considered likely Republican holds. That’s a tall order, but let’s see how it can be done.
Latinx Voter Surge
We are seeing evidence of this already in early voting. Consider NV-04 and NV-03 to be much closer to being democratic pickups than current ratings show. Similarly, house races in states with large amounts of latinx voters, such as Florida, California, Arizona and Colorado will be particularly challenging for Republicans to hold.
In Florida, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-27 might have a closer race than usual in her Miami area district due to younger Cuban-Americans voting against Trump. If Ros-Lehtinen turns out to have a tough race, then that could be a potent harbinger of things to come as election results roll in. While FL-27 is not a must win for democrats, neighboring South Florida district FL-26 (Curbelo) should be considered a must win if we want to take back the House. Central Florida area districts like FL-07, FL-09, FL-10, FL-13 and further south, FL-18 are going to be key races to watch. If there is a latinx voter surge that early voting data suggests there is, then these districts could be flipped blue.
Thanks to gerrymandering, there is only one obvious seat in Texas that is a target — the border district of TX-23 (Hurd). If Texas is close on the presidential level though, I’m interested in seeing just how close do some of those gerrymandered districts get? Farther west, democratic Senate candidate Ann Kirkpatrick’s former seat in AZ-01 needs to be a hold, while Colorado’s Mike Coffman in CO-06 needs to be swept out. A more stunning pickup would be AZ-02 held by Martha McSally (R). AZ-02 is considered likely Republican, so a win there would truly be indicative of a latinx fueled blue wave.
In California, Donald Trump is facing a defeat of historic levels and he may be held to a third of the vote. A blue wave powered by latinx voters will likely upset several Republican congressmen in California. In CA-49, Darrell Issa is as good as gone. CA-10, CA-21, CA-25 are CDs we should watch to see if they flip in the wake of a blue wave. If this wave is bigger than polls suggest, we may even see a big name like Dana Rohrabacher in some jeopardy in CA-48.
Suburban Voters
Trump has struggled with suburban women and college educated whites — he’s poised to lose the college educated white vote, unheard of for a Republican nominee.
In the suburbs around Philadelphia, there are three districts primed for a democratic pickup — PA-08, PA-16, PA-06. If democrats are going to come close to picking up the House, then these seats are near must haves. In his Chicago area district of IL-10, Bob Dold will need to somehow run ahead of Trump in that CD by as much as 20% — and he probably won’t. In Virginia, Barbara Comstock is in a tremendous battle to hold on to her Washington DC suburb district of VA-10.
Other suburban districts that could be flipped include the Green Bay area WI-08 and the Twin City area suburbs of MN-02 and MN-03,
Midwest Battlegrounds
One area that Trump has done better than expected in, is the very white, rural areas of the midwest such as Iowa and large parts of Ohio, and possibly Michigan - where Trump seems to be doing better than Romney did four years ago. That will present headwinds for democrats running in competitive districts across the midwest. How close we get to taking back the house depends on how many of these seats we flip, in my estimation.
MI-01 is Bart Stupak’s old seat and while a republican leaning CD, the Republicans have fielded a candidate, Jack Bergman, with a carpetbagger reputation. His democratic opponent, Lon Johnson has run a strong race and is a good bet for picking up this republican leaning district. Across Michigan, there are a couple other potentially close races that could just be out of reach for democrats. MI-07 is a lot more likely to be flipped with a strong democratic challenger in Gretchen Driskell while MI-08 would be more of an upset.
Across other midwestern states, IN-09, IN-03, KS-03, IA-01 and IA-03 probably tilt towards the Republican candidates, especially if Trump gets his voters out in these states. One seat that democrats will have a hard time holding on to, and in my opinion one of the few truly endangered democrats, is Rick Nolan’s in MN-08. In order to take back the house, it’s critical that Nolan hangs on in his Iron Range district.
Other districts where Trump could show strength lie in upstate New York (NY-19, NY-21,NY-23) and in Maine (ME-02). In fact, I’ll be paying very close attention to Maine’s second district on election night. The incumbent republican (Poliquin) is a freshman, and theoretically, this seat should be a pickup for the democrats. If we are able to knock off Poliquin in the face of Trump polling strength in that district, then it suggests that we may be able to make inroads among the midwestern battlegrounds needed to get to 218. If Poliquin hangs on, then we may not be able to flip enough of these midwestern districts.
Trump’s Mountain West undercurrent
Donald Trump is unusually weak in the mountain west for a Republican presidential nominee. Consequently, Mia Love in UT-04 seems ripe to be defeated, while Don Young in AK-AL and Ryan Zinke in MT-AL have drawn unusual amounts of outside opposition funding. Young and Zinke are favored to hang on, but upsets are not out of the question.
Conclusion
Based on the numbers of seats that are currently seen as in play, my best guess is that we pick up between 15-25 seats. My thinking is that we see unprecedented levels of latinx support, leading to multiple pickups across Florida and the Southwest. And while I think we’ll pick off many of the suburban seats up for grabs, Trump’s relative strength in rural, white areas will likely prevent us from picking up the 30 seats needed. However, if we see a big wave, then seats not thought to be in play will end up flipping and we could get that pickup of over 30 seats.
NEXT: Final Predictions.