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| Rep. Al Lawson (D-FL) |
As far as I'm concerned, there are no seats in 2022 that are guaranteed to go to Democrats. The New York redistricting case throwing out the Empire State's clear gerrymander basically cost the Democrats a few seats that they were guaranteed to flip (like the Staten Island seat that now is Safe R, Max Rose going from certain comeback to certain defeat), and while there's 1-2 races we'll get to in a second that are probably going blue, none are guarantees. This isn't so for Republicans. Florida was gerrymandered to the hilt thanks to Ron DeSantis, and so the open seats held by Stephanie Murphy & Charlie Crist will both go red, and while he's technically running in a member-vs-member race, Al Lawson will also lose. In the future, Republicans will struggle to hold this gerrymander (particularly Florida-27 is ripe for a flip in a presidential year), but this year DeSantis will get his wish.
Texas's 15th will also go (Rep. Vincente Gonzalez is seeking reelection in the 34th district, which we'll discuss in a second), and Democrats will lose AZ-2, AZ-6, MI-10, NY-19, & WI-3 due to the environment. Some of these (specifically MI-10) might be salvageable in a non-wave year, but this year, Republicans will end up with nearly an entire majority solely based on certain flips (I'd have them at 213 seats, just five short of the majority, proving how badly the Democrats are positioned).
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| Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA) |
In terms of probable flips, we've got a couple on both sides. Democratic incumbents in Cindy Axne (IA-3), Tom Malinowski (NJ-7), and Susan Wild (PA-7) all have a chance on their own. Even in wave cycles, seats like these occasionally stay with their incumbents due to personal popularity. But the redistricting wand and the fact that they're up against good candidates in a rough cycle...I think they're all goners, and the question becomes how many of them attempt comebacks in 2024 (which, while more common than it used to be, is still very difficult to pull off-if you lose once, you probably are out of politics). So move Republicans up to a surefire 216 seats.
This is also where I think we'll see two Democratic pickups. The first is in Illinois-13, the closest the Democrats have to a gerrymandered flip. Rep. Rodney Davis skipped running here, and that basically means that the Democrats have a clear path to get former Obama administration official Nikki Budzinski into the House. In Texas-34, in one of only two member vs. member general elections, the advantage is probably in favor of Rep. Vincente Gonzalez against newly-elected incumbent Mayra Flores, though it's not a total lock. Neither of these seats are guaranteed to last the decade (the changing demographics here favor the Republicans), but in 2022, it's probable the Democrats win. This puts them at 187, underlining the challenge for the Democrats-they'd need to win virtually all of the remaining seats we're going to discuss in order to win the House.
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| Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) |
By my count there are somewhere in the vicinity of about 25-30 tossup House seats. Most of these seats rely upon Democratic incumbents running in either redder territory or marginal territory. The races kind of run the gamut for these incumbents, from longtime incumbents to first-termers. In some cases, Democrats caught a lucky break. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, one of the longest-serving members of Congress, is facing off in marginal territory against a January 6th-attending QAnon activist; this seat's lean would've made Kaptur winning against a Generic Republican unthinkable, but here she has a chance.
But the GOP hasn't screwed up everywhere. Rep. Elaine Luria is going against the best possible candidate for the GOP in State Sen. Jen Kiggans, and redistricting made Rep. Sharice Davids' chances in Kansas much harder. If I'm counting accurately we've got thirteen incumbent Democrats (Kaptur, Luria, Davids, Jared Golden, Dan Kildee, Elissa Slotkin, Angie Craig, Chris Pappas, Susie Lee, Matt Cartwright, Henry Cuellar, Abigail Spanbarger, & Kim Schrier) that are in true Tossup territory. Democrats need pretty much all of them to win to hold the majority; adjusting for expectations, a good night would probably see about half of them stay blue.
Open Democratic seats are also a problem for the party. CO-8, IL-17, NC-13, NY-3, NY-18, OH-13, OR-5, & PA-17 are all open due to being new seats, incumbents losing primaries (looking at you Oregon's Kurt Schrader), or incumbents retiring/seat-shopping. These run the gamut between seats that favor Democrats in most circumstances (Colorado, Illinois, & Oregon, specifically, are only Tossups because we're looking at a wave election-if the wave is more of a splash in November, they'd all stay blue), while others (principally North Carolina & Ohio) are going to be more challenging. Again, Democrats need all of these to win the majority...they'd be lucky to get half based on the current environment.
Republicans are looking at a much smaller pool of potential flips, but they do have a couple. The recent California primaries exposed that David Valadao (CA-22) and Mike Garcia (CA-27) are very vulnerable. Democrats got State Reps. Rudy Salas & Christy Smith to run here, and while Republicans did pretty well in California in 2020, I think at least one of these seats falls (my gut says Garcia loses to Smith, which is going to be ironic given Smith lost to Garcia-twice-in 2020, yet she might persevere on a night where many other Democrats who survived 2020 lose). Other seats that were drawn to be tough but feature Republican incumbents include Peter Meijer's (MI-3), Yvette Harrell's (NM-2), & Steve Chabot's (OH-1). Meijer is locked in a primary battle, and if he loses this goes from Tossup to Lean Dem overnight, but right now I think they all are slightly-favored due to the environment. The same can be said for NY-22, which is an open seat (Rep. John Katko is retiring) that would normally be a blue convert without the popular Katko, but right now I'd say is a Tossup situation.
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| Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) |
I've got five seats sort of earmarked right now as probably going to the Democrats, but if they start to fall we're in for a truly bad night. The dynamics for incumbents Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Frank Mrvan (IN-1), Dina Titus (NV-3), & Steven Horsford (NV-4), as well as State Sen. Don Davis (running in the open NC-1) indicate races that the Democrats should be favored. These are all areas that, despite some shifting demographics, have historically been very kind to the Democrats. But if they start to go, and they could, it'll show that not only did the Democrats suffer massive defeats in the House in November, but they also saw problems in their coalitions, specifically with blue-collar White & Latino voters, both of which were problems for Joe Biden in 2020 compared to Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton but held enough that he was able to win.
In 2022, the Republicans don't really have to worry about a lot of stretch seats. The ones I listed in Tossup, at this point, are probably the stretch seats for Democrats. It's worth remembering, though, that the median House seat currently is a Biden +2 seat. While that's not representative of the country (it's a couple points too red given Biden won nationally by 4.5 points), it does put Democrats in a position to win back the House again in 2024. In particular, it feels like Republicans overextended themselves in Florida & Iowa in such a scenario, and there's a lot of opportunities in California and maybe even Colorado against incumbents that are safe this year. But right now, I don't see a path for the Democrats to get an upset unless a scandal breaks.
Final Thoughts
Looking at this map, if you're a Democrat who wants hope, I've got none. Short of a true miracle that we haven't seen in politics since the late 1940's, I don't see a path for the Democrats to retain their House majority. Even with the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade, which opens up a conversation that I honestly think is going to be hard to grasp its political implications, it's difficult to see Democrats pulling this off, particularly given enthusiasm is going to be tough to codify Roe even with a current majority in both houses. The bigger question is how much they can minimize the damage. A House where Republicans can't, say, get above 225 seats (unlikely, but not impossible) would enter 2024 as not only a tossup, but probably a Slight Democratic situation. Republicans start moving too far north of 230 seats, though, and you've got a lot more work to do. That's honestly where the Democrats eyes should be congressionally-finding a way to hold the Senate (by any margin) and keeping the Republican House caucus low enough that they can take it back in 2024.
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