Pundit ratings and a few polls show 230 D, 21 Tossup, 184 R.
218 Threshold is at 14 Leans Ds.
Here are the Democrats with a shaky lead. Most of them are freshmen who came in on the first Blue Wave.
LEANS D
GA-6 Freshman Rep. Lucy McBath became active in politics after her son’s murder by a gun and edged out Republican incumbent Karen Handel in the affluent northern suburbs of Atlanta. She is ever so slightly more moderate than the three freshmen below and just about matches Rouda in accomplishments.
GA-7 Carolyn Bourdeaux, a public policy professor who came within 500 votes of beating incumbent Woodall in 2018, will face Rich McCormick. Woodall did not run this year.
KS-3 Freshman Rep. Sharice Davids will defend her seat against the winner of the Aug 4 Republican primary. Rep. Davids is in the right third of the Democratic pack. She sits on the Small Business and Transportation Committees.
IA-3 Freshman Rep. Cindy Axne will defend her seat against the man she beat in 2018, David Young. She is on the moderate side of the Democratic pack, but does also get a 100% score from the Planned Parenthood Fund.
TX-7 Freshman Rep. Lizzie Fletcher will defend her seat against Wesley Hunt. Fletcher is in the right third of the Democratic pack, but does get a 100% score from Planned Parenthood. She sits on the Space, Science and Technology and the Transportation/Infrastructure committees.
TX-23 Gina Ortiz Jones will face the winner of the Republican Primary. Currently, Tony Gonzalez leads Raul Reyes, Jr. by 7 votes. This is the district that supposedly sensible Republican Will Hurd vacated rather than stand up against Trump, whom Hurd criticized but voted for anyway.
TX-24 Candace Valenzuela will face Beth Van Duyne to fill the seat of retiring Republican Rep. Kenny Marchant.
TX-32 Freshman Rep. Colin Allred will defend his seat against Genevieve Collins. Allred is in the right third of the Democratic pack, but does get a 100% score from Planned Parenthood. He sits on the Foreign Affairs, Transportation/Infrastructure, and Veterans’ Affairs committees.
AK-1 Should use a different color for an independent with this one. Independent Alyse Galvin is running against the Dean of the House (the longest-serving member), Republican Don Young, who has survived scandals in his 47 years in office.
MI-08 Freshman Rep. and former Assistant Sec of Defense for Intl. Security Affairs Elissa Slotkin will defend her seat (Sen. Stabenow’s old Congressional seat) against the winner of the August Republican primary. Rep. Slotkin is pretty accomplished for a freshman and stands in the right third of the Democratic pack, a bit to the right of TJ Cox. Appropriately, given her CIA background, Slotkin sits on sub-committees for Intelligence, Readiness, Counter-terrorism and Cybersecurity.
MI-11 Freshman Rep. Haley Stevens will defend her seat against the winner of the Aug 4 Republican primary. She is the chair of the Research and Technology Sub-committee and sits on the Education and Labor committee. She was the primary sponsor of the Building Blocks of STEM Act.
FL-13 I think we all know of Charlie Crist as a Republican governor of Florida. You can read the events along the way of his conversion here. After all that, he is a Democrat in the House of Representatives and the author of The Party’s Over. Govtrack.us puts him just right of the center of the Democratic Pack as a congressman.
FL-26 Freshman Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a college administrator originally from Ecuador, focuses on Health issues and the Judiciary and Transportation committees. Ideologically she’s in the center of the Democrats, but doesn’t score as high in leadership as fellow freshmen Cox and Rouda.
PA-8 Rep. Matt Cartwright will defend his seat against Jim Bognet. Cartwright started his Congressional career in the 17th district prior to the court-ordered redistricting. Cartwright sits high in the right third of the Democratic pack due partly to being the primary sponsor of 4 acts (bills that became law). He only gets an 86% from Planned Parenthood and he gets 58% from the foreign-funded, right-leaning US Chamber of Commerce!
MN-2 Freshman Rep. Angie Craig will defend her seat against Tyler Kistner. She is in the right third of the Democratic pack, near Elissa Slotkin. Rep. Craig sits on 3 committees, Agriculture, Small Business and Transportation/Infrastructure.
VA-2 Freshman Rep. Elaine Luria will defend her seat against Scott Taylor. The former Navy Commander is in the right third of the Democratic pack, near Angie Craig. She sits on the Veterans’ Affairs and Armed Services committees, chairing one sub-committee and vice-chairing another.
VA-7 Freshman Rep. Abigail Spanberger will defend her seat against Nick Freitas. The former US Postal Inspector and CIA case officer is on the right side of the Democratic pack, often voting with Republicans. She riled me, after I had texted for her campaign in 2018, by joining the conservative Democrats trying to take the speakership away from Speaker Pelosi.
Rep. Spanberger voted with Republicans on several disturbing bills, including marketing tobacco and vapes to minors (She represents a tobacco state.), the HEROES Act, EPA, tax fairness, and budgets. I suppose she’s better than a Republican, but not by a lot. While texting, I will choose other candidates over her.
NH-1 Freshman Rep. Chris Pappas will defend his seat against the winner of the Sep 8 Republican primary. Pappas is just to the right of the center of the Democratic pack and is very accomplished for a freshman, co-sponsoring 458 bills, introducing the POW/MIA Flag Act which became law, and chairing a sub-committee of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
IN-5 Former State Rep Christina Hale will face State Senator Victoria Spartz to replace Republican Susan Brooks, who is not seeking re-election.
NJ-3 Freshman Rep. Andy Kim will defend his seat against David Richter. Rep. Kim is a Rhodes Scholar and public servant who has worked at the Pentagon, State Department and the National Security Council. He is in the right third of the Democratic pack.
NJ-7 Freshman Rep. Tom Malinowski will defend his seat against Thomas Kean, Jr. Malinowski was born in Poland during the height of the Cold War. He served as a Senior Director on President Clinton’s National Security Council, then chief advocate for Human Rights Watch where he led the bipartisan campaign to end the use of torture by the Bush Administration. Later he served the Obama Administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Malinowski is dead center in the Democratic pack in both ideology and leadership.
NJ-9 Veteran incumbent Bill Pascrell will defend his seat against Billy Prempeh. Rep. Pascrell is high in the right third of the Democratic pack and sits on the House Ways and Means Committee. He has 100% ratings from Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood.
NY-18 Rep. Sean Maloney will defend his seat against Chele Farley. Rep. Maloney is high in the middle of the Democratic pack. He is chair of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Sub-Committee. He also sits on the Agriculture and Intelligence Committees and gets 100% from HRC and PP.
CA-21 Freshman Rep. TJ Cox, a chemical engineer and solid Democrat, rather accomplished for a freshman, with a 100% Planned Parenthood score, focusing on Natural Resources, Agriculture and Health, defends his seat against the Republican he beat in 2018, David Valadao.
CA-48 Freshman Rep. Harley Rouda, an Orange County lawyer and former Republican until 1997 and Independent from 1997 to 2017, is considered a moderate, but he fits right into the Democratic pack according to the GovTrack ideology chart and has a 100% Planned Parenthood score in his one term since ousting Dana Rohrabacher. Rouda won the jungle primary and will face Michelle Steel, Orange County Board of Supervisors Chair, an anti-choice woman originally from Korea married to California’s RNC member.
IL-14 Freshman Rep. Lauren Underwood will defend her ex-urban seat against boutique dairy and ice cream parlor chain owner, State Senator Jim Oberweis, who has run for higher office several times and lost. Underwood is right in the middle of the Democratic pack, next to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. She has focused on Education, Labor, Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs.
(Oberweis is most noted for his vile anti-Mexican immigration ads in his 2004 campaign for US Senate. Oberweis came in second in the primary. When the primary winner, former Goldman Sachs partner Jack Ryan, had to step aside due to the scandal over his former practice of forcing his ex-wife, TV actress Jeri Ryan, to go to sex clubs in NYC, New Orleans and Paris, the Illinois Republican Party didn’t even consider turning to runner-up Oberweis. Instead they recruited black theocratic wack-job Alan Keyes from Maryland to run against Barack Obama. Obama beat Keyes 70-27 and the rest is history. Come to think of it, we already owe so much to Jim Oberweis.)