Analysis of House Races- 2004

[zorkpolitics]

I don't expect much excitement in the House races, the number of competitive seats is at an all time low, mostly as a result of a redistricting cycle that focused on incumbent protection, (only one competitive seat in CA!).  Incumbents typically win reelection at >98% (in 2002 only 4 incumbents lost to a challengers, though due to redistricting, 4 others lost in districts in which 2 incumbents faced each other).  The real action is usually in open seats, in 2002 6/31 open seats switched party.  So far 2004 has a low number of open seats (this site tracks open seats:
http://www.dcpoliticalreport.com/OpenSeat.htm
Only 6 Democrats and 10 Republicans are retiring or running for another office.
Although there is likely to be only about 2 dozen competitive races, here is Roll Call's top 10 endangered incumbents:
Rodney Alexander, Democrat (LA-5)
Max Burns, Republican (GA-12)
John Hostettler, Republican (IN-8)
Bill Janklow, Republican (SD-AL)
Ken Lucas, Democrat (KY-4)
Jim Marshall, Democrat (GA-3)
Jim Matheson, Democrat (UT-2)
Dennis Moore, Democrat (KS-3)
Rick Renzi, Republican (AZ-1)
Mike Rogers, Republican (AL-3)

[zorkpolitics]

I think it is a mistake to choose a vulnerable incumbent simply because he had a close race the last time, or he is representing a district that votes for the opposite party in state wide races.  Often a weak incumbent attracts multiple challengers, who end up increasing the negatives for each other in the primary battle, or split the vote so that a more extreme challenger wins the primary, who is out of step with the philosophy of the.  The key to vulnerable incumbents is who has a strong challenger (i.e. someone who has district wide name recognition, who can raise money to buy media time, and who has a philosophy that fits the district).  After reviewing the Oct30, 2003 CookReport's list of competitive districts (19 Democrats and 17 Republican), I think the following are the most vulnerable:

Democrats = 9
Florida-02
Georgia-03
Kentucky-04
Louisiana-05
New York-01
Pennsylvania-13
Texas-11
Texas-17
Utah-02

Republicans = 4
Arizona-01
Georgia-12
Indiana-08
New Mexico-01

This list is will change as the actual challengers are defined for each district next year.  But it is important to remember, for many of the vulnerable incumbents, this will be the first election they have represented the same voters, since redistricting added new voters to their district in 2002.  So I would expect more of these will end up increasing their winning margin over the 2002 result, than will see their margin decrease.  

[zorkpolitics]

The House is currently leaning GOP.  
Even though Bush lost the popular vote by 500,000 in 2000, he won more Congressional districts (228) than Gore (207).  Since Reapportionment in 2002 moved seats from Gore states to Bush states, I expect the Republican districts have actually increased over 2000 (which partly explains why Republicans picked up 6 seats in 2002).

The Senate leans even more to the GOP than the House, since Bush won 30 states in 2000, without the advantage of incumency and assuming equally good candidates, the Senate would probably be closer to 60 Republicans.

[zorkpolitics]

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Well I strongly disagree.
The 2000 election provided an excellent opportunity to determine the underlying preference of voters in each Congressional District.  The Presidential race was not swayed by any large event: no war, economy was OK, no big scandal (I’m assuming Gore was not overly smeared by the Clinton scandal).  Both candidates were mediocre campaigners and neither communicated a vision that inspired voters.  
Of course in many districts the Presidential candidate had fewer votes than the Representative of that district, but that, at least in part, reflects the political reality that most voters defer to incumbents (in 2000 and 2002 >98% of incumbents were re-elected).  Most voters feel their Representative does a good job (the incumbent advantage) even when voters feel Congress does not.
In 2000 Democratic Representatives won in 25 districts Bush won, but Republicans won in only 12 districts Gore won, again suggesting that the tendency for the House is to be Republican.

[zorkpolitics]

Are you seriously suggesting that PA-12 is naturally GOP?

No, the current PA-12 district (Democrat won in 2002 with 74%) was won by Gore 55% vs Bush 44%, so I would call it a natural Democratic district.  
see:
http://www.ncec.org/redistricting/district.phtml?district=pa108

[zorkpolitics]

---got this off another board--very good list of incumbants being challenged itn eh primaries

Looks like good info, What's the link to the source?

[zorkpolitics]

The current Rothenberg Political Report has an analysis of Senate, House and Governor races.  A subscription is needed to see the analysis, but all the competitive House races are listed at the free site.  As of Jan 10, only 17 Republican and 15 Democratic seats are listed as competitive.  With such a small number of competitive seats it is unlikely the Democrats can win control of the House.  Given the new TX redistricting the Republicans will very likely expand their control.
see:
http://www.rothenbergpoliticalreport.com/

[zorkpolitics]

DC Politics is the only site I've found that predicts every race, using a 5 star system 1* boringly safe to 5***** very exciting.

http://www.dcpoliticalreport.com/Ratings.htm

So far he has picked 4 seats to go from R to D (the two specials SD and KY-6) and GA 11 and GA12.  In contrast the only D seats to switch to R are three new TX seats, but the TX seats have not been updated since the final filings last Friday.