Talk Elections

Are there any predictions for this? I am in doubt that it will happen in 2016, even with a comfortable victory of Hillary Clinton. Probably 2018 if Democrats lose the White House next year.

The 2016 Senate map does not look bad for 2016, but almost 30 House seats to gain is very difficult.

In 2022 at the earliest, 2080 at the latest.

2022 is earliest possible date that I see it happening.

Granted that "would be" Hillary's sixth year midterm...so even that date is really iffy.

When Republicans win back the White House. 

2022 or later.

Hopefully after Pelosi retires.

2022, yeah.

The Republicans should have significant enough majorities that I don't really see the 2020 census changing anything.  Plus, even without gerrymandering, the Democratic vote is more concentrated than the Republican vote, so the GOP should have some natural edge in the House.  I would honestly be surprised if the Democrats take back the House in the next 20 years.

Sadly...quite possible.    Although I'd like to think eventually the GOP would have to change to become competitive nationally for the White House.

2022, if Dems have control of redistricting in 2020. If not... When a Republican is elected president and pulls a Dubya.

WjWhenever; there is a Democratic wave, 2022 is the latest.

I think it could happen in 2020 if a Republican is elected President in 2016, becomes unpopular, Dems have a decent 2018 midterm, and the Republican incumbent President loses reelection in 2020.

Otherwise 2022 probably is their best shot.

Possibly 2018 if the GOP win in 2016. Never if the GOP doesnt win again.

Well, Republicans only controlled the House for four years between 1932 and 1994.  Republicans would match this record if they held the House until 2056.

The Dems most likely win House back as soon as there is a liberal SCOTUS by the nxt redistricting; striking down GOP gerrymandering.

This nxt election is for that legacy.

Which will be a nailbitter with Governor Walker.

If a liberal court is as partisan as the current Republican Court, any laws that hurt Democrats are fair game for being struck down.  See the current court and Citizen's United.

Too many ifs and buts. What if for example SCOTUS strikes down redistricting commissions?
Then Republicans will gerrymander Arizona but Democrats will also probably have free reign in 2020 at California, New Jersey and Washington.

Well, there are really two ways this can happen:

1. Geographic realignment where Democrats either recover to >40% with rural voters or start winning inner suburbs 60/40 and pulling to a tie in the exurbs.

2. A Democratic wave with ~57D/41R generic ballot

Caution is warranted with the comparisons to 1933-1994 having 4 years of GOP control.  While that is technically true, ideological conservatives clearly held the balance of power from 1939-58 and during 1981-82.  With today's ideologically polarized parties, the equivalent would be Republican control about 2/3rds of the time until the mid 2050's, which sounds very believable to me. 

I agree....I see the GOP holding it for the next 20-30 years at least

Also; as soon as the economy makes its full rebound.

But Dems will take whatever they can get. Senate and WH are good enough.

Sometime in the 2030s in the worst-case scenario. It's increasingly evident 1994 was a realignment.

Yeah, the case for 1992-94 being the realignment is now much stronger than for 2006/2008/2010.

The Democrats must make inroads in rural/exurban areas, or they are toast in the House for quite some time. 

The presidential race is leaning Democrat, although it is hard to predict, the Dems can catch a wave here; in 2016. The Senate would be lost to the GOP; and make gains in the House

I'll go out on a limb and say 2018. 

In the middle of a Republican administration's disastrous first-term in office, the Democrats are able to net the 30-something sets they need to get to 218.  They accomplish this by winning most of the typically marginal seats as well as knocking-off some GOP royalty in American suburbia (i.e., Peter Roskam, Mike Coffman).   

Del Tachi, I've noticed you're one of the few people predicting a 2016 GOP win; what rationale do you have for that conclusion?

2016 - Democrats make 2-5 gain win white House
2018: Democrats lose 6-12 seats
2020: Democrats lose 15-20 more seats and white house(and lose chance for redistricting)

After 2020 the Republicans will hold between 263-277 seats in the House

2022: Democrats make 10-15 seat gain

2024: Republican retain white house and gain 10-12 seats

2026: Democrats make a 30-35 seat gain

Entering 2028:  Republicans will hold between 228- 249 seats in the house( most likely in between that)   

So If Dems win in 2016(80% happening) they are certainly  locked out of the house for the next decade.

Now 2028 if Republicans win Dems have a chance of recapturing 2030 , if Dems win they can possibly take back the house if there is a 2008 style wave(likely not), but they will likely just miss taking back the house and get crushed in 2030 and lose the house for another decade.

Only way I see Democrats take back the house within 20 years

A. Republicans win in 2016 and get all the blame for troubles which will happen the next four years

B: Republicans pull of three consecutive victories between 2020-2028 and Democrats take back house in a wave in 2030

C.  Republicans President by 2028 is as unpopular as W Bush was in 2008

D: Realignment

Other then that I dont see them taking back the house until the 2040s.

Hillary Clinton's not good on the stump, President Obama will be wildly unpopular amidst a economic downturn, and Scott Walker is the perfect candidate to triangulate a GOP victory by appealing to SoCons, Tea Partiers, and the neocons.

Hillary would make a great president, its just that 3rd terms for a single party are the exception rather than the rule.     

Dems will have at least 200 members; this election cycle

2020 is conceivable or later; but not decades. And as long as Dems hold that number going into redistricting; other 17 seats will become electable. The ones that were targetted in 2014.

This is where we disagree.  I tend to think we'd hit a recession sometime around 2018-2020.  Is there any evidence a recession is upcoming at this point?

If you look over the numbers 277 Republican held seats is pretty much impossible,  you'd be talking about winning around 15-20 D+4 or above seats.     There aren't that many D+1 or D+2 seats in the country.   

I think Republicans already hold most of the D+1/D+2 seats that exist.

2016-2020 will be similar time period to 1976-1980, whoever wins in 2016 will cause their party to be crushed by a realignment in 2020.

Why?

Nothing he says makes any sense.

There is no guarentee that a recession will happen; Dems will do everything we can to keep WH.

I count 13 seats held by the Dems that have a Dem PVI of 2% or less ranging from 6%R to 2%D.

For many reasons no economic expansion in American history has lasted more then 10 years so we can expect a recession by 2018. Also we will have a major foreign policy troubles in 2020, for the republicans they will invade a country and like Iraq get bogged down there, with Democrats ISIS will likely grow, Russia makes more trouble and possibly Iran.

If a Democrat is in office Democrats will get all the Blame for any trouble due to holding the white house for 12 years and like Bush in 1992 they cant blame Congress. If Republicans win and things collapse on them like it did for Carter they will get the Blame as they hold all three branches for government.

Troubles with foreign policy can be avoided for either party if they do this ( give an ultimatuim to ISIS , if they dont listen kick their buts like we did with the Taliban but unlike Afganhistan leave immediatly and threaten to repeat the process in 3-4 years if they show up again).

Troubles with Economic policy can only be avoided if the FED goes back to how Volcker managed it and not Greenspan

You meant O'Malley, didn't you. :p

Yes,  and the GOP currently holds 245.

245 + 13 = 258

That still leaves 19 seats the GOP would need in very Dem-leaning districts to get to 277, while not losing any of their own.   That's not happening under any realistic scenario.

And Republicans already hold a handful of very Democratic seats:  NV-04, IA-01, NY-24, IL-10, ME-02.

ME-02 is NOT especially Democratic - LePage won it easily (double digits). IL-10 and NY-24 have moderate nonoffensive Republicans with at least some crossover appeal, so, while surely gettable for Democrats, will not be easy. IA-01 and NV-04 - yes.

It's certainly impossible with the current districts: even in the potential Clinton wave year some Democrats dream of, the absolute maximum for the Democrats in 2016 would be in ~ the 206-210 range (well short of 218), and they'd just lose many of those again in 2018.

I'm beginning to suspect that even in the 2020s, it'd take something drastic, probably including Puerto Rican statehood and five likely safe Dem seats, to really alter the math to a way that favors the Dems.

IMHO, two of main reasons why it will be extremely difficult for Democrats to win a majority even after 2020 are overconcentration of Democratic voters in relatively few "their" districts, and, to some extent, a VRA. Why do Democrats need 85-88% Democratic districts like PA-01 and PA-02 or even 93-95% like NY-13 and NY-15? A lot of Democratic votes, which could go into another, more competitive, districts and help them there, are simply wasted. And there are LOTS of such districts. Democrats don't need OR-03 or WA-07 as they exist now - they could easily win with these districts being 60-65% Democratic instead of about 75-80%. The same - in Bay Area, in Los Angeles, Chicago,  and so on..

And VRA may play into Republican hands more then Democratic too. Yes, in Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana) with their extremely polarized voting habits that can help Democrats to get their lone black seats. But traditionally there was a number of 30-40% Black seats in the South, which usually elected moderate white Democrats. Most of these were eviscerated in attempts to create more "majority minority seats" and, as a result, for each such seat usually 2 (sometimes - 3) seats became solidly republican and ultraconservative. Was it good? Not sure.

So, for now i am a pessimist about Democratic chances in House. Even to simply mitigate present situation they will need big successes in Governor elections of 2018 and state legislative elections of 2018-2020. But even then because of the above mentioned reasons (and some other i didn't mentioned) it will be difficult. Demography? Yes. But it's a very slow process.

LePage won statewide by five, so of course he won this district by more.  However, even John Kerry won this district by five points.  Any Kerry district should be safe for Dems.

Theoretically. But Poliquin is a very good fundraiser, votes more like pragmatic conservative then ideologue, and Cain is so liberal, that many ethnic working class Democrats  (many of whom are socially conservative) don't especially want to vote for her. So, no, it's possible, but, surely, not guaranteed here.

I actually think that PR would be a swing state with maybe a slight Republican lean (the politics on the island are very different than those of other Hispanic groups in the US).  Also, the party that supports statehood is the more Conservative of the two Puerto Rican ones, so it would mean that it was having success.  It might take a couple cycles to know for sure, but keep in mind that it was thought that Alaska would be Democratic, while Hawaii would be Republican.

When Democrats re-implement a 50-state strategy and having socially conservative and moderate office holders in the South and Plains is a priority for them.

I don't know where the idea that only conservative Democrats can win came from. Check out the ideology of the only Democratic Senator from Idaho in the last 60 years.

They did exactly that in 2006-2008 cycles. And it worked then. And i am 101% for it. But, frankly, not sure that it will work in times of extremely high ideological polarization. I tried to pinpoint a disitricts, which could elect at least Gene Taylor/Barrow/McIntyre Democrat now (and they are far from being most conservative among Democrats in 20th century) - and came with none. The same (only slightly better, may be 2-4 districts) for moderate Republicans (and, again, i don't speak about Javits/Reid types, but about Shays/ Boehlert one)

Taylor? Or Church? And you really think Idaho would elect any of them NOW????

It's not really that they have to actually be conservative to win (I mean, no one would call Robert Byrd or Heuy Long conservative, would they?), but appearing socially conservative, IMO, gives a candidate more "folksy" credentials.  Can you think of a type of politician who's more inherently populist-sounding than a socially conservative, fiscally liberal Democrat from a rural district?

Church is the only one from the last 60 years, but good to see that the 2nd last Democratic Senator from Idaho was certainly no conservadem either. Idaho doesn't seem to be electing any Democrats of any ideology, so you might as well run someone who stands for something.

Well, it elected Minnick in 2008. And almost elected (49.35%) Jana Jones for Superintendent of Public Instruction last year . So, it's possible, though, admittedly, rare and difficult. And i don't support an idea to "run someone who stands for something", i like to win. Usually only conservative Democrats, like Minnick, now have any (small, but still...) chances to win in Idaho. So, we will surely disagree here

For the democrat's to win back the house, they have to do a few things.

I'll illustrate them using this map.

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• First, win all of the seats which they now have.  that is about 180 seats, assuming that Nevada 4 is an automatic Pickup. 
• Next, they have to defend all of the tossup seats that they have right now, that is 9, so they are at 189, or +1
• Next, take all of the Republican tossup seat, which adds 12 to the total, getting them to 201
• Next, the seats which are more safe, they need all of them as well.  There is 8, so were at 209
• They also have to win all of the seats which are leaning towards the Republicans, and that only gets them to 217.  They have to win every seat that is not likely or safe, and still get one or two of them to be able to get to the magic number. 

So, they won't get the house for at least 5 years, and that is hoping that the 2018 midterms are great for them.

Dems arent winning back House; they will get between 194-202 seats.

Reasonable guess. Then 2018 midterms will come, and, most likely, will reduce Democratic representation to about 190. Then 2020 will help Demcrats to get over 200 again, but not majority. And so on...

Very well done research job and map Jerry. Thanks.

Wooow, impressive job.

Thanks for the map, Jerry. Your 209 number for the Dems sweeping the "Leans R" seats lines up with my 206-210 estimate for a Democratic commanding victory in 2016 (something I doubt in itself, but may happen if the Republicans utterly screw up next year). They'd need to take those Likely R seats to get closer than that, and I don't really see that happening.

200 Dems after the next election is a good night, 208 Democrats is a spectacular night, I don't see it going much higher than that.