The State of the Race: House Races, Part 2

The Democratic House Leadership Team

Where last we had left off, we’d discussed the importance for the Democrats of holding their red-district incumbents, as getting to seventeen is going to be impossible without most, if not all of them, staying on board.  Now we take a look at the seats that they’d need to gain in order to get back to the majority.

The name of the game for Nancy Pelosi (who definitely would love to be Speaker again, despite what some reports have said-she wouldn’t have stayed on if she didn’t) is seventeen.  Provided nothing odd happens in the special elections for the seats of Ed Markey and Rodney Alexander, Pelosi would need a minimum of seventeen seats (without losing any she currently has) to get to the majority.

Once again, the best place to look for these seats would be seats that the GOP holds currently that have a strong tilt toward the Democrats.  Thanks to the 2006, 2008, and 2012 recent waves, the Democrats don’t have a Jim Matheson or a Nick Rahall-style incumbent who is holding a district that has a double-digit PVI for the other party.  However, we do have five seats that are currently held by Republicans that have a Democratic-PVI, so let’s recount those first:

Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar

California-31 (D+5): Easily the most Democratic district represented by a Republican in Congress, and because of some oddities in the last election, Rep. Gary Miller (R) starts the cycle as the most vulnerable incumbent in Congress.  In 2012, Miller looked almost certain to go down from either the right or the left, with a challenge from the conservatives in State Sen. Bob Dutton and a challenge from the Democrats in Mayor Pete Aguilar.  California’s new voting system, though, has an open primary and the top two vote-getters go to the general election.  Democrats assumed that Aguilar would be one of the two (the only other Democrats were thought to be non-entities), but in the end, Aguilar’s vote splintered enough to the other Democratic candidates to allow both Dutton and Miller to advance.  This meant the Democrats didn’t have a candidate in a district that went 57% for President Obama.

In 2014, though, Democrats are intent on making sure that Miller doesn’t get as lucky.  Though Democrats now have three candidates (including former Rep. Joe Baca and another go from Aguilar), the GOP doesn’t seem to have put up a candidate that would be able to pull a Dutton, so one of the Democrats (probably Aguilar) will make it to the general, and will almost certainly win.

California-21 (D+2): This is perhaps the Democrats single-biggest recruiting miss so far.  Despite this being a district that went for President Obama by 55%, we don’t have a real bench here.  The best candidate against first-term Rep. David Valadeo (who won a surprisingly convincing victory last cycle despite the district going for Obama and Feinstein) is former State Sen. Michael Rubio, who doesn’t want to run.  Other names to mention would be Leticia Perez, who recently lost a State Senate race, and Blong Xiong, who lost this seat in 2012 in the primary election (he came in third).  This is clearly a competitive seat if the Democrats can get a decent candidate, but at this point it may be worth surveying CEO’s and millionaires in the district to see if they can find a self-funder.

Colorado-6 (D+1): In 2012, the Democrats had a weak candidate here, with State Rep. Joe Miklosi barely coming in behind Rep. Mike Coffman.  In 2014, though, Coffman won’t be as lucky, as former House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (who nearly took out an incumbent senator in 2010) has decided to run, and has a cleared field.  With Gov. John Hickenlooper winning the district fairly handily, I suspect that the Democrats can take out Coffman.

New Jersey-2 (D+1): LoBiondo is the Republican equivalent of Collin Peterson.  He’s personally popular enough in New Jersey that, despite the liberal bent of his district, he wins re-election consistently and easily.  In 2012, he had his lowest percentage ever against a barely there challenger (he had 107x more money), but he still hit 57%.  I’d be curious if the Democrats could find someone in the district who could pose a considerable challenge, but the Democratic bench in the state is weak in LoBiondo’s district, and this is probably a pipe dream until LoBiondo retires.

Sean Eldridge

New York-19 (D+1): Rep. Chris Gibson, who was swept into the House in the 2010 wave by defeating incumbent Rep. Scott Murphy is in a tough position.  In 2012, despite getting little-to-no press, Julian Schreibman, a federal prosecutor, nearly took out Gibson with President Obama winning the district.  In 2014, Gibson’s opponent will get tons of press, and perhaps more importantly, have unlimited resources: he’ll be running against the President of Hudson River Ventures, Sean Eldridge, who happens to be married to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes (who has a net worth of some $500 million).  Eldridge will also be helped by Gov. Cuomo winning a landslide re-election across the state.  Millionaires occasionally have trouble connecting with the voters, and I suspect that Eldridge is more liberal as a whole than the district, but he’s a dream recruit.  

And those are the only five seats that have a PVI in favor of the Democrats that still went with Republican House members.  Provided the Democrats can get a decent candidate in California, I could see a pickup of four seats in that bunch (LoBiondo won’t happen).  Since this is “best case scenario math,” I’m also going to assume for our next step that we held all of our incumbents (reality check: this almost never happens, but it did in 2006, so it’s not impossible).  Our next step would be to look at the nine “tossup” seats in the House.

A "tossup seat" would be one of the nine seats that have an even PVI.  There are only nine such seats in the country, and Democrats hold six of these (CA-7, IL-12, NY-3, NY-18, NY-21, and OR-5).  The other three the Democrats have been targeting heartily with their winning strategy of the past couple cycles: strong female challengers.

Judge Ann Callis

Illionis-13 (EVEN): One of the closest races in the country last year, this ranks alongside CA-31 as one of our greatest missed opportunities.  Democrats ran a frequent candidate (multiple-time loser) in Dr. David Gill, who fell to longtime Republican operative Rep. Rodney Davis by a little over a thousand votes.  In 2014, though, the Democrats have a considerably stronger candidate in former County Court Judge Ann Callis.  Callis is a great on-paper candidate, though she hasn’t been having as strong of fundraising as Davis.  This is a race that would have almost certainly gone blue in 2012 with President Obama pushing out Democratic votes, but will slightly favor Davis without a presidential vote turnout (timing is everything in politics-just ask State Sen. Tarryl Clark, who would have been elected to Congress if she'd taken on Michelle Bachman in 2006, 2008, or 2012 instead of 2010).  That said, this is one that the Democrats are definitely (and smartly) targeting, and would be a mandatory win if they were to take back the House.

Iowa-3 (EVEN): Rep. Tom Latham is very close to Speaker John Boehner, and is generally considered to be a fairly popular member of the House of Representatives.  He consistently wins re-election and won one of only two member vs. member partisan elections last cycle.  This is a seat that the Democrats would certainly target if Latham ever decided to make-the-plunge and run for higher office (likely Sen. Chuck Grassley’s seat if he ever retires), but until then, it’s hard to see him losing.

That said, this is also a district that went for President Obama, and though  he was running against a top-drawer candidate in 2012, Latham still couldn’t hit 53%.  State Sen. Staci Appel is not the best candidate (she lost reelection handily in 2010), but she’s still a candidate who has the strong support of EMILY’s List and has roots in the district.  This is a race to watch if the Democratic winds start to shift, but until then, I’d wager Latham has it.

Nevada-3 (EVEN): One of the most competitive seats in the country, it has changed hands thrice in the past decade and went for President Obama by just under a percentage point in 2012.  The Democrats ran a poor candidate in 2012 in State Assembly Speaker John Oceguera (the definition of a good-on-paper, bad-in-practice candidate), and they’re hoping that political success is genetic, as their candidate appears to be DNC committeewoman Erin Bilbray-Kohn, the daughter of former Rep. Brian Bilbray.  Harry Reid, Nevada’s political kingpin, seems to want to win this seat, and though he couldn’t quite seal the deal for Shelley Berkley, his GOTV machine is the stuff of legend.  I would say of these three she’s the most likely to win.

So, as I’m realizing that we’ve gone a bit long again (these write-ups tend to do that), we’re going to make this a trilogy of articles about the House.  In our final installment, we’ll discuss how we would theoretically get the final ten seats needed for a Democratic House and a Speaker Pelosi.