2016 House Ratings: Nowhere But Up From Here

[Torie]

What's the student population in the 24th district? You're going to see an exaggerated swing between off-year and regular electorates there. I think that either anti-Bush or the first Obama wave even knocked off a Republican state senator there.

About 21,000 students attend Syracuse University. How many of them actually vote is another matter.

True, but the popular conception at least is that they showed up against Bush twice (’04, '06) and for Obama twice, just not in 2010 or 2014.

I suppose you could tease it out of the data, but those precincts around the University (high Dem predominately white ones) gave maybe about a 4,500 vote margin (5,250 to 800) to Obama in 2008 (not all university related), and if you are looking for a drop off more than other heavily Dem precincts, you might get about 1,000 votes at most as a wild guess. So it would be minor factor. It's tough to dump competent incumbents in upstate New York in any event.

[Nyvin]

This might have to be updated for the Florida redistricting soon!

[free my dawg]

This might have to be updated for the Florida redistricting soon!

Already have:



FL-2: Safe R
FL-5: Safe D
FL-7: Retirement Watch (Mica could very well retire if his district gets more hostile - plus it's trending Democratic)
FL-10: Toss-up (I could see Demings or another opponent actually taking out Webster - God knows Boehner won't be chomping at the bit to defend him)
FL-13: Toss-up/Tilt D
FL-26: Toss-up (unchanged)

[muon2]

This might have to be updated for the Florida redistricting soon!

Already have:



FL-2: Safe R
FL-5: Safe D
FL-7: Retirement Watch (Mica could very well retire if his district gets more hostile - plus it's trending Democratic)
FL-10: Toss-up (I could see Demings or another opponent actually taking out Webster - God knows Boehner won't be chomping at the bit to defend him)
FL-13: Toss-up/Tilt D
FL-26: Toss-up (unchanged)

At least one seat becomes a safe D in Orlando. Are you giving that to FL-9? There could be the twist of making FL-10 the Orlando safe D and FL-9 a toss-up. It's also possible that after a safe D seat is placed in Orlando the surrounding CDs are all R+4 or better, so between FL-9 and 10 there is only one D seat.

[free my dawg]

Yep, that goes to FL-9.

[ElectionsGuy]

My initial ratings:



Overall Rating: Likely R

Updated Florida. The old districts represent the new districts.

FL-02: Toss-Up to Safe R
FL-07: Safe R to Likely R
FL-10: Safe R to Safe D
FL-13: Toss-Up to Likely D
FL-26: Toss-Up to Lean D

D to R flips: FL-02, FL-18.
R to D flips: FL-10, FL-13, FL-26, IA-01, NV-04, and NH-01.

I think this is going to be too generous to the Republicans as we go forward. When going through this I basically analyzed three things...

 - 2012 and 2014 results for incumbents
 - 2012 presidential numbers
 - District circumstances (ex: Andrew Cuomo dragging down Democrats everywhere in NY)

I assumed non-incumbents will perform better in 2016 than 2014 (as is usually the case in the House), though that could be dangerous given 2014's wave status. The most troubling states for me were the massively gerrymandered states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. There seems to be a lot of potentially competitive districts, but they all lean Republican, and all the Republican incumbents massively over perform the top of the ticket. I ended up going Safe R for most of them, but I have a gut feeling that Likely R will be more appropriate for some of them later. Overall, I think the 2014 cycle is just having too much of an influence on the ratings and this map will eventually get a little more friendlier to Democrats.

[Kingpoleon]

Hardy(NV-04) is a super-duper strong candidate. Flores is the only I'd give >45% chance of beating him. She has about a 47% chance there, Mayor John Lee has 45%, and Susie Lee has 40%.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Hardy(NV-04) is a super-duper strong candidate. Flores is the only I'd give >45% chance of beating him. She has about a 47% chance there, Mayor John Lee has 45%, and Susie Lee has 40%.

What about Kihuen?

[publicunofficial]

Hardy(NV-04) is a super-duper strong candidate. Flores is the only I'd give >45% chance of beating him. She has about a 47% chance there, Mayor John Lee has 45%, and Susie Lee has 40%.

What makes you say Hardy is a strong candidate? He seems like a poor fit who just got swept in by the wave.

[Asian Nazi]

Hardy(NV-04) is a super-duper strong candidate. Flores is the only I'd give >45% chance of beating him. She has about a 47% chance there, Mayor John Lee has 45%, and Susie Lee has 40%.

What makes you say Hardy is a strong candidate? He seems like a poor fit who just got swept in by the wave.

Kingpoleon is an expert at this election prediction thing, man.  Just nod along and accept the Truth.

[Maxwell]

I would say Hardy definitely an underdog, but what he lacked in ideological fit and neat packaging  (he's kind of a gaffe machine) in 2014 he made up for in terms of pounding the pavement, meeting voters, and retailing. I don't think its smart to underestimate him, even if he's not an especially strong candidate on paper.

Especially with how weak the Nevada Democratic Party, I mean, my god, they are throwing away a toss-up district that Heck used to occupy.

[JerryArkansas]

[publicunofficial]

Bumping my old thread (With a map!)



Safe D:
VA-04 (OPEN)
FL-10 (OPEN)

Likely D:
CA-26 (Brownley)
CA-36 (Ruiz)
CA-52 (Peters)
FL-13 (OPEN)
MD-06 (Delaney)
MN-07 (Peterson)
NY-18 (Maloney)

Lean D:
CA-07 (Bera)
CA-24 (OPEN)
IA-01 (Blum)
MN-08 (Nolan)
NV-04 (Hardy)
NH-01 (Guinta)

Toss-Up:
AZ-01 (OPEN)
CO-06 (Coffman)
FL-18 (OPEN)
FL-26 (Curbelo)
IL-10 (Dold)
IA-03 (Young)
ME-02 (Poliquin)
MI-01 (OPEN)
MN-02 (OPEN)
NE-02 (Ashford)
NV-03 (OPEN)
NY-01 (Zeldin)
NY-03 (OPEN)
NY-19 (OPEN)
NY-22 (OPEN)
NY-24 (Katko)
PA-08 (OPEN)
TX-23 (Hurd)
WI-08 (OPEN)

Lean R:
AZ-02 (McSally)
MI-07 (Walberg)
MN-03 (Paulsen)
NJ-05 (Garrett)
NY-23 (Reed)
UT-04 (Love)
VA-10 (Comstock)

Likely R:
AK-AL (Young)
CA-10 (Denham)
CA-21 (Valadao)
CA-25 (Knight)
CA-39 (Royce)
CA-49 (Issa)
CO-03 (Tipton)
FL-06 (OPEN)
IL-12 (Bost)
MI-08 (Bishop)
MT-AL (Zinke)
NY-21 (Stefanik)
PA-06 (Costello)
VA-05 (OPEN)
WA-08 (Reichert)
WV-02 (Mooney)

Safe R:
FL-02 (OPEN)

[136or142]

Sorry, I didn't notice this thread when I posted my thread

Competitive and potentially competitive U.S House Democrats.  
A potentially competitive district I defined as a district that the Democrats lost in 2014 by less than 20%.  Normally I think 'potentially competitive' would be defined as a less than 15% loss, but since 2014 was a waive Republican year, I decided to increase it to 20%.  Potentially competitive also includes all Republican held open districts, some of the districts clearly won't be competitive, but they're low on the list anyway.  There are also four or five Democrats in historically competitve districts where no Democrat ran in 2014.  

I would have hoped to have culled this list by now, but if opensecrets.org is as updated as they say they are, March 31 fundraising reports weren't as updated as I would have hoped.  This list is in order of most winnable in my opinion.  Interestingly enough, the list seems to break down into four groups of twenty in regards to how competitive I consider them to be.  Where I'm not certain, I put a question mark by them with a brief explanation. I haven't listed the district number, just the state.  Of course, there are still a handful of states where the filing deadline has not passed, and many of these candidates are facing primaries.

Agreements? Disagreements? Corrections?


1.Val Demings, Florida (open seat)
2.Charlie Crist, Florida (open seat)
3.Donald McEachin, Virginia (open seat)
4.Bill Phillips, Florida ?  (I've read this district has been made much more Democratic, but the Republican incumbent is still running)
5.Brad Schneider, Illinois
6.Pete Gallego, Texas
7.Shawn O'Connor, New Hampshire (if Guinta is renominated, this district would move up, but the filing deadline hasn't passed yet.)
8.Monica Vernon, Iowa
9.Josh Gottheimer, New Jersey
10.Lon Johnson, Michigan (open seat)
11.Angie Craig, Minnesota (open seat)
12.Steve Santarsiero, Pennsylvania (open seat)
13.Shelli Yoder, Indiana (open seat)
14.Victoria Steele, Arizona
15.Joe Garcia, Florida
16.Anne Throne-Holst, New York
17.Morgan Carroll, Colorado
18.Ruben Kihuen, Nevada
19.Gretchen Driskell, Michigan
20.Jim Mowrer, Iowa
-----------------------------------
21.Tom Nelson, Wisconsin (open seat)
22.Jim Keady, New Jersey
23.Doug Owens, Utah
24.Steve Lindbeck, Alaska
25.Lu Ann Bennett, Virginia
26.Emily Cain, Maine
27.Will Yandik, New York (open seat)
28.Jacky Rosen, Nevada (open seat)
29.Kim Myers, New York, (open seat)
30.Michael Eggman, California
31.Mark Hunt, West Virginia
32.Bruce Davis, North Carolina ? (open seat)  I've not seen any redistricted 2014 results for North Carolina
33.Nathaniel McLaughlin, Kansas
34.Denise Juneau, Montana
35.Melissa Gilbert, Michigan
36.Charles (C.J) Baricevic, Illinois  based on recent fundraising reports, could be moving on up
37.Ryan Greene, Wyoming (open seat) (would likely move up if Liz Cheney is the Republican nominee)
38.Christina Hartman, Pennsylvania (open seat)
39.Jane Dittmer, Virginia (open seat)
40.Frank Accavitti, Michigan (open seat)
--------------------------------------------
41.Dwayne Taylor, Florida ? (open seat) I'm not sure if this district was affected by the redistricting
42.Michael Lorentz, Ohio ? (was not challenged in the primary, but his primary vote totals were still surprisingly low)
43.Steve Larchuk, Pennsylvania
44.John King, South Carolina
45.Anil Kumar, Michigan
46.Daniel Parra, California
47.Colleen Deacon, Illinois
48.Joel Lewis, Wisconsin
49.Paul Clements, Michigan
50.Richard Reichard, New York ? (low profile candidate in a should-be competitive district, not sure of his fundraising abilities)
51.Rick Daugherty, Pennsylvania
52.Dave Koller, Florida ? (open seat) I'm not sure if this district was affected by redistricting
53.Lou Vince, California
54.Mike Derrick, New York ? the Democrat in 2014 lost by slightly more than 20% in 2014, but the Republican, Elise Stefaniuk won with only 55% of the vote as a high profile Green Party candidate took around 10% of the vote. Unfortunately for the Democrats, that Green is running again.
55.Mike Parrish, Pennslvania ? His primary opponent, Lindy Li, recently dropped out, was this an indication that Parrish has improved his fundraising?
56.Mike Coblenz, Kentucky
57.Mark Wicklund, Illinois ?, A former Democratic nominee here, David Gill is running as an independent
58.Chase Iron Eyes, North Dakota
59.Douglas Smith, Michigan ? Don't know anything about him
60.Sarah Lloyd, Wisconsin
---------------------------------------------------
61.Misty Plowright, Colorado
62.Mal Hyman, South Carolina
63.Dianne Curry, Arkansas ? A should-be competitive district based in Little Rock and Curry is fairly high profile as the past President of the Little Rock School Board, but her fundraising was anemic.
64.Matt Detch, West Virginia
65.Christian Cano, North Carolina ? (no idea what the 2014 redistricted results are)
66.Minnesota 6, no Democratic candidate as of yet.
67.Mike Pryor, Kansas
68.Indiana 3, (open seat) several Democrats running, not really winnable
69.Talia Fuentes, Arizona (open seat)
70.Shaun Brown, Virginia (open seat)
71.Joyce Nolin, Georgia
72.Jarakus Cook, Georgia (open seat)
73.Tom Osborne, Kentucky (open seat)
74.Tennessee 8, (open seat) several Democrats running, not really winnable
75.Florida 1, (open seat) Two Democrats running so far, not really winnable
76.Florida 4 (open seat) no Democratic candidate as of yet, has this district been affected by the redistricting?
77.Louisiana 3 (open seat) no Democratic candidate running as of yet
78.Louisiana 4 (open seat) no Democratic candidate running as of yet.  In recent history the Democrats have been reasonably competitive in one of these two districts I believe.
79.North Carolina ?
80.North Carolina ?  Again, I need to see the redistricted 2014 Congressional results or the 2012 redistricted Presidential results.

Other potentially competitive Democrats
1.John Plumb, New York
2.Terri Bonoff, Minnesota
3.Gail Schwartz, Colorado
-----------------------------
4.David Orentlicher, Indiana
5.Al McAffrey, Oklahoma
6.Tony Ventrella, Washington
7.Douglas Applegate, California
8.Paula Hawks, South Dakota
9.Lynn Coleman, Indiana
10.Bill Otto, Missouri
11.Tom Breu, Wisconsin

[PAK Man]

55.Mike Parrish, Pennslvania ? His primary opponent, Lindy Li, recently dropped out, was this an indication that Parrish has improved his fundraising?

No, she dropped out before the primary because Parrish challenged the validity of her signatures. I'm not sure this race is on the radar for Dems; Parrish was recruited by national Dems in 2014 to run for this seat when it was open, but he dropped out and deferred to a perennial candidate who lost pretty badly.

[Maxwell]

I would love to see Al McAffrey competitive but he wasn't in 2014 and I don't think he will be against Steve Russell, who is more moderate than expected.

If McAffrey weren't a gay and Russell got primaried, McAffrey would have a real shot.

[publicunofficial]

Update; now that filing deadlines are mostly passed and some competitive primaries have shifted races a bit.



Safe D:
VA-04 (OPEN)
FL-10 (OPEN)

Likely D:
MD-06 (Delaney)

Lean D:
AZ-01 (OPEN)
CA-07 (Bera)
CA-24 (OPEN)
FL-13 (Jolly)
IA-01 (Blum)
MN-02 (OPEN)
MN-08 (Nolan)
NV-04 (Hardy)

Toss-Up:
CA-25 (Knight)
CO-06 (Coffman)
FL-18 (OPEN)
FL-26 (Curbelo)
IL-10 (Dold)
IA-03 (Young)
ME-02 (Poliquin)
MI-01 (OPEN)
NE-02 (Ashford)
NH-01 (Guinta)
NV-03 (OPEN)
NY-01 (Zeldin)
NY-03 (OPEN)
NY-19 (OPEN)
NY-22 (OPEN)
NY-24 (Katko)
PA-08 (OPEN)
TX-23 (Hurd)
UT-04 (Love)
WI-08 (OPEN)

Lean R:
AZ-02 (McSally)
MI-07 (Walberg)
MN-03 (Paulsen)
NJ-05 (Garrett)
NY-23 (Reed)
VA-10 (Comstock)

Likely R:
AK-AL (Young)
CA-10 (Denham)
CA-21 (Valadao)
CA-49 (Issa)
CO-03 (Tipton)
IL-12 (Bost)
MT-AL (Zinke)
NY-21 (Stefanik)

Safe R:
FL-02 (OPEN)


RACES TO WATCH:
CA-39 (Royce)
FL-06 (OPEN)
FL-07 (Mica)
IN-09 (OPEN)
KS-03 (Yoder)
MI-08 (Bishop)
WA-03 (Herrera Beutler)
WA-08 (Reichert)