The Democrats need 6 seats to break even. Using this year's result as a baseline, the seats that could be competitive within the next decade are:
(numbering goes east -> west)
-SD1 (the notheastern coast): The Republican won by 39 votes.
-SD9 (New Hanover County): Only slighty red, but Team D will need a high-caliber candidate.
-SD12 (centered in Harnett County): The Republican won with 51%.
-SD15 (northwestern Wake): The incumbent, Neal Hunt, is popular but may retire within the next few cycles. Trending D.
-SD17 (southern Wake): The Republican won the open seat with 54% but its also trending D.
The 6th pickup would be less obvious. Here are a few possibilities:
-SD47: If Walter Dalton wanted to make a legislative comeback, this would be the best place for it. Its actually a few points more Democratic than the district he held for 14 years. Dalton would keep his home of Rutherford but trade Cleveland for a few locally-Dem counties plus deeply Republican Mitchell. The incumbent, Ralph Hise, is only in his second term.
-SD50: In 2010, this was the closest race in the State; Sen, Martin Snow (D) lost by a few hundred votes. This year, he lost by 14 points in a rematch. I'm convinced Democrats can compete here with the right candidate. Hayden Rogers lives here. This is the type of district where the Democrat would probably be better off without having Obama at the top of the ticket.
-SD10: This district flipped in 2010 and was redrawn to include a sizable slice of Johnston County. The incumbent Republican is a freshmen, and Sampson and Duplin Counties usually support Democrats, but I'm not sure if they'd be enough to offset the 37% of the district that Johnston now makes up.
Add the Cumberland County district to the list (Wesley Meredith). I think he got a bad challenger this year but he was once considered the most vulnerable Republican.
So much for Governor Moderate. With the Republicans having a veto-proof majority I expected whatever moderate-ness Pat McCrory has will be irrelevant, but with McCrory himself appointing Pope to write the state budget, it looks like North Carolina may have officially gone to Hell.
Walter Jones was one of the Republicans that Boehner punished for voting against Ryan's budget in the 112th Congress.
Jones was stripped of his seat on Financial Services; with the departures of Don Manzullo and Ron Paul, Jones would have been the 4th most senior Republican on the committee. Not surprisingly, the newly-elected Robert Pittenger was appointed to that committee. He'll obviously be far more inclined to tow the party line.
Haha. Of course the Republicans would appoint the guy from Charlotte to the financial services committee, who totally won't be in the pocket of big banks. :sarcasm:
Jones, though, is pretty pissed off at Republicans, but I wouldn't expect him to make a party switch as some have speculated. He considers himself to be in the Tea Party/Ron Paul wing of the Republican party, although it's sometimes hard to tell since he votes with Dems so often.
