"Sleeper" House Seats

[cinyc]

In general, the sleeper House seats are in the suburbs of the Northeast and Midwest where the incumbent doesn't know that he or she is in trouble and won't campaign much.  Most of these incumbents do have large war chests, which they are already spending on something - though I have no idea really what.

In the NY portion of the NYC metro area, you're not talking about NY-01 (Bishop), NY-13 (McMahon) or NY-19 (Hall) - all of whose incumbents should know their races will likely be close and run for their lives.  You're talking about the next tier of candidates - NY-02 (Israel), NY-04 (McCarthy) and NY-18 (Lowey) - all of whom are real longshots to lose, but might not sense that they may be in trouble.  The good news for Israel and Lowey is that their potential Republican opponents are underwhelming and underfunded.  

In Connecticut, CT-04 (Himes) and CT-05 (Murphy) should be somewhat competitive  - and the incumbents probably already know it.  CT-02 (Courtney) is probably the only sleeper CT district that I could possibly see flip, depending on who ends up winning the Republican nomination.  It won't be Rob Simmons, who would have given Courtney a real run for his money in Simmons' old district.  Calling CT-02 a sleeper may be a bit of a stretch given that Courtney barely beat Simmons in 2006, though.

In Massachusetts, the only seat on anyone's radar is the open MA-10.    It's really hard to see any other MA seat flipping, but MA-05 (Tsongas) or MA-06 (Tierney) would probably be the next most likely.  If you assume Brown outperformed in MA-03 because it included his hometown, he performed next best in MA-02, MA-05 and MA-06. Republicans have always hoped Tsongas was vulnerable, though it has never happened.  In MA-06, with his own money included, Hudak almost raised as much money as Tierney in the first quarter, but Tierney has a huge warchest.  None of the MA-02 candidates seems impressive or capable of fundraising or winning.

[cinyc]

I can't think of many sleeper House seats in SoCal. 

I suppose Loretta Sanchez's CA-47 will be on the Republicans' radar, as it always is, and her opponent, Assemblyman Van Tran, seems to be relatively well-funded for a Republican challenger in SoCal - but Sanchez always seems to win by large margins, despite the hype. 

CA-51 (Filner) would be a real longshot that's probably not on anyone's radar.  His opponent is a retired Marine with a good backstory - but at least so far, little cash.   Unemployment is really high in parts of the district, though, which could be worth a few points.  But I doubt Popaditch can pull it out.

Every other SoCal district currently represented by a Democrat seems too Gerrymandered to possibly flip.  And even if they weren't Gerrymandered, the Republican who had some money lost the primary in CA-27 (Sherman), and the Republican opponents in CA-29 (Schiff) and CA-36 (Harmon) don't seem to be well-funded.  All three districts voted for Schwartzenegger, but have PVIs in the low teens - and probably are not winnable by Republicans on the federal level.

[cinyc]

You can cross NY-18 off of the list, now that the self-funded guy with some money who had a small chance of knocking off Nita Lowey announced he's out of the race.  The Republicans are putting up the guy who got crushed last cycle - and he'll lose again by double digits.

To finish California, in NorCal, CA-11 (McNerry) ought to be competitive and isn't really much of a sleeper since it is a R+1 district that Bush won in 2004.  The only NorCal sleeper may be CA-18 (Cardoza), a D+4 district in the Central Valley - though I don't have much faith in a candidate whose website is down, even if he can self-fund to some extent.

There actually may be more Republican incumbents in danger in California than Democrats.

[cinyc]

You would think that with a Diverse statewide ticket, the Republican Party in California could have gotten some more viable and diverse candidates to run.

Blatant Gerrymandering makes very few seats held by Democrats competitive in California.  CA-23 is a joke, almost on par with FL-22 and 23.

I'd have added the Fresno-area's CA-20 (Costa) to the list of possible sleepers if the Republican candidate did a slightly better job at fundraising and didn't face a primary battle.  It's a Hispanic-majority D+5 district that Schwartzenegger won - winnable in a wave election in theory, but probably not in practice.