Jim Gerlach retiring

[DrScholl]

Bye, trick. I don't care if Republicans on here get angry and start calling names, this is a good pickup opportunity for Democrats.

[DrScholl]

D+1

Would've been true in his old district, but this new one is safely R.

Are you on narcotics? Open R+2 seat, with the worst governor in the country heading the ticket, and it's safe?

Voted for Romney by 3 points while the country voted Obama by 4; it's R+7, and that's combined with a history of voting more Republican downballot (Gerlach survived 2006 and 2008 without much experience or seniority under his belt in a more Democratic version of this district). Safe, on second thought, is an exaggeration, but it's still no worse than Likely R.

Anyways, I'm wondering about the three candidates floated on PoliticsPA. Could Phil give us some info on them?

I second this

It's not R+7, it was EVEN in 2008, R+4 in 2012, that doesn't anywhere close to equal R+7.

[DrScholl]

D+1

Would've been true in his old district, but this new one is safely R.

Are you on narcotics? Open R+2 seat, with the worst governor in the country heading the ticket, and it's safe?

Voted for Romney by 3 points while the country voted Obama by 4; it's R+7, and that's combined with a history of voting more Republican downballot (Gerlach survived 2006 and 2008 without much experience or seniority under his belt in a more Democratic version of this district). Safe, on second thought, is an exaggeration, but it's still no worse than Likely R.

Anyways, I'm wondering about the three candidates floated on PoliticsPA. Could Phil give us some info on them?

I second this

It's not R+7, it was EVEN in 2008, R+4 in 2012, that doesn't anywhere close to equal R+7.

PVI wise its R+3/4, although margin of victory wise its R+7.

Maybe under Dean Chambers math, but it went for Romney 51-48, which is a 3% margin of victory, not 7%.

[DrScholl]

You were also lucky with the rounding, it's actually about 6.3 more R than the nation in 2012 and about 0.2 more R than the nation in 2008.
But yeah, I've no idea where Invisible Obama gets the "+4 in 2012" idea from.

I think some people are confused about the actual percentage. Romney got 47% nationwide and 51% in this particular district, which is about R+4 in 2012 alone. It's a 51-48 Romney district. Check the numbers before being condescending, okay?

[DrScholl]

D+1

Would've been true in his old district, but this new one is safely R.

Are you on narcotics? Open R+2 seat, with the worst governor in the country heading the ticket, and it's safe?

Voted for Romney by 3 points while the country voted Obama by 4; it's R+7, and that's combined with a history of voting more Republican downballot (Gerlach survived 2006 and 2008 without much experience or seniority under his belt in a more Democratic version of this district). Safe, on second thought, is an exaggeration, but it's still no worse than Likely R.

Anyways, I'm wondering about the three candidates floated on PoliticsPA. Could Phil give us some info on them?

I second this

It's not R+7, it was EVEN in 2008, R+4 in 2012, that doesn't anywhere close to equal R+7.

PVI wise its R+3/4, although margin of victory wise its R+7.

Maybe under Dean Chambers math, but it went for Romney 51-48, which is a 3% margin of victory, not 7%.

PVIs are calculated according to the difference between the margin in the area whose PVI is being discussed and the margin nationwide, not by the former on its own.

I know that, I'm not an idiot. What I don't get is where the R+7 number comes from, Cook has nothing like that on his site. If people have their own system of PVI, that's fine, but it's clearly not the same as what Cook has, which is R+1.

[DrScholl]

You were also lucky with the rounding, it's actually about 6.3 more R than the nation in 2012 and about 0.2 more R than the nation in 2008.
But yeah, I've no idea where Invisible Obama gets the "+4 in 2012" idea from.

I think some people are confused about the actual percentage. Romney got 47% nationwide and 51% in this particular district, which is about R+4 in 2012 alone. It's a 51-48 Romney district. Check the numbers before being condescending, okay?

Obviously, I did check the numbers. Given that you wrote "even in 2008, then R+4 in 2012" the confused person would have been you. Although thanks for clearing the source of your confusion up, I see where you got the idea from now.

(And I haven't the slightest clue what it says on Cook's website. Maybe he has his own set of election results that are different from the Kos-compiled ones?)

EVEN means that the district voted that same as the nation, I should have put it in caps, but I assumed people here would get what I meant. Cook averages numbers out over two cycles, so EVEN in 2008 and R+4 in 2012 averages out to R+1 according to his averaging.

[DrScholl]

D+1

Would've been true in his old district, but this new one is safely R.

Are you on narcotics? Open R+2 seat, with the worst governor in the country heading the ticket, and it's safe?

Voted for Romney by 3 points while the country voted Obama by 4; it's R+7, and that's combined with a history of voting more Republican downballot (Gerlach survived 2006 and 2008 without much experience or seniority under his belt in a more Democratic version of this district). Safe, on second thought, is an exaggeration, but it's still no worse than Likely R.

Anyways, I'm wondering about the three candidates floated on PoliticsPA. Could Phil give us some info on them?

I second this

It's not R+7, it was EVEN in 2008, R+4 in 2012, that doesn't anywhere close to equal R+7.

PVI wise its R+3/4, although margin of victory wise its R+7.

Maybe under Dean Chambers math, but it went for Romney 51-48, which is a 3% margin of victory, not 7%.

Yes, Romney won by 3%, but Obama won overall by 4%, therefore its 7 points more republican than the nation. That's what I'm talking about.

That's your own math, it's not PVI. PVI is Charlie Cook's method and that's not how he does it.

[DrScholl]

Bye, trick. I don't care if Republicans on here get angry and start calling names, this is a good pickup opportunity for Democrats.

Nobody's saying it's not. It's a narrow district. Please stop projecting.

What projecting? At least one poster already declared the seat safe.

[DrScholl]

D+1

Would've been true in his old district, but this new one is safely R.

Are you on narcotics? Open R+2 seat, with the worst governor in the country heading the ticket, and it's safe?

Voted for Romney by 3 points while the country voted Obama by 4; it's R+7, and that's combined with a history of voting more Republican downballot (Gerlach survived 2006 and 2008 without much experience or seniority under his belt in a more Democratic version of this district). Safe, on second thought, is an exaggeration, but it's still no worse than Likely R.

Anyways, I'm wondering about the three candidates floated on PoliticsPA. Could Phil give us some info on them?

I second this

It's not R+7, it was EVEN in 2008, R+4 in 2012, that doesn't anywhere close to equal R+7.

PVI wise its R+3/4, although margin of victory wise its R+7.

Maybe under Dean Chambers math, but it went for Romney 51-48, which is a 3% margin of victory, not 7%.

Yes, Romney won by 3%, but Obama won overall by 4%, therefore its 7 points more republican than the nation. That's what I'm talking about.

That's your own math, it's not PVI. PVI is Charlie Cook's method and that's not how he does it.

I never claimed that was PVI, that wasn't supposed to be PVI. When I said that it was margin of victory wise, that's what I meant.

But that's not how margin of victory is even calculated. That's very odd math.