Most of us know that the first race to check for how good a night it will be for Democrats is the Kentucky 6th District race, but I’d point to other races in Indiana and Kentucky that could tell us even more. None of these are ones that Democrats have a realistic shot at taking since they are 10-20% + Republican districts, but if the early returns in those districts show a tighter single digit wins for Republicans you can begin to get excited for Democrats winning a large number of races.
What are those districts and why do they portend good news even though Republicans will win them? First, let’s start with Indiana’s 2nd district. It is a Republican +11 district that stretches across much of the very northern part of the state. It encompasses Notre Dame so it could tell us some information on how strong the younger vote is. If this is a 5-6 point win for the Republican incumbent with larger turnout among the youth, you can start looking at other districts around the country that normally have a 6 point Republican edge being fully in play for the Democrats to win. Two other Indiana districts which are even more Republican +17 and +18 (4th and the 6th) offer some insight for other reasons. A small portion of each contain some of the outer suburbs of Indianapolis with the 4th also including another large college town, West Lafayette. Pay particular attention to the county results from Hendricks county (Indianapolis suburbs) and Tippecanoe (Purdue University) in the 4th and Hancock and Shelby counties (suburbs east of Indianapolis) in the 6th district. If Democrats are doing well there, it’s a good sign that suburban voters are trending Democratic and the young vote continues to be strong. Indiana’s 5th district is the long shot (R+9) for Democrats to take and again the suburban Indianapolis suburbs would have to be huge for the Democrats to give them even a shot. If the 5th district is too close to call and it’s nearly 7 p.m. Eastern then it will be an extraordinary night.
Two of the Kentucky districts to watch are the 2nd and 4th. Again, neither will be one by Democrats (R+19 and R+18), but parts of each of those districts contain the suburbs of Louisville or Cincinnati. Watch for the results from Bullitt and Spencer counties in the 2nd district and Oldham and Shelby counties in the 4th district around Louisville. Additionally, look at the results for Kenton and Campbell counties in the 4th district outside Cincinnati.