Predict the number of House seats Dems will pick up in 2018 (May 2017 edition)

[Beet]

I see a lot of posters saying "this will not be a reverse 2010"

Lets please keep in mind that 2018 does not have to be a "reverse 2010" size wave in order for dems to retake the house, the have doesn't even have to be half the size.

No, it would have to be bigger. In 2006, the Dems had to win the popular vote by 7.7% to win a bare majority assuming a uniform swing, now it's 11.5%.

[Beet]

Given how few competitive House seats there are, 4 or 5 seats.

[Beet]

Given how few competitive House seats there are, 4 or 5 seats.

I'd love to hear an explanation for this...

Simple. The Democrats currently have an 8% lead in the generic ballot. Let's be conservative and cut that to 4%. The Republicans won the House popular vote by 1% in 2016. So if the Democrats won it by 4% in 2018, that's a 5% swing.

A list of House battlegrounds is found here:
https://ballotpedia.org/U.S._House_battlegrounds,_2016

The ones won by Republicans by less than 5% are CA-49, MN-02, NE-02, and TX-23. That's four. Not that I think those will be the four, but it's a general rough proxy for what can be expected.

[Beet]

Given how few competitive House seats there are, 4 or 5 seats.

I'd love to hear an explanation for this...

Simple. The Democrats currently have an 8% lead in the generic ballot. Let's be conservative and cut that to 4%. The Republicans won the House popular vote by 1% in 2016. So if the Democrats won it by 4% in 2018, that's a 5% swing.

A list of House battlegrounds is found here:
https://ballotpedia.org/U.S._House_battlegrounds,_2016

The ones won by Republicans by less than 5% are CA-49, MN-02, NE-02, and TX-23. That's four. Not that I think those will be the four, but it's a general rough proxy for what can be expected.

lol,  that's....entertaining.

So explain to me how they won 6 seats while the Republicans won the popular vote by 1% last year.

Because there was actually a 5% swing in their favor from 2014, when the Republicans won the popular vote by 6%.

I just noticed on the NY Times website that CA-10 was also within 5%, so I up my prediction to 5-6 seats.

[Beet]

Given how few competitive House seats there are, 4 or 5 seats.

I'd love to hear an explanation for this...

Simple. The Democrats currently have an 8% lead in the generic ballot. Let's be conservative and cut that to 4%. The Republicans won the House popular vote by 1% in 2016. So if the Democrats won it by 4% in 2018, that's a 5% swing.

A list of House battlegrounds is found here:
https://ballotpedia.org/U.S._House_battlegrounds,_2016

The ones won by Republicans by less than 5% are CA-49, MN-02, NE-02, and TX-23. That's four. Not that I think those will be the four, but it's a general rough proxy for what can be expected.

lol,  that's....entertaining.

So explain to me how they won 6 seats while the Republicans won the popular vote by 1% last year.

Because there was actually a 5% swing in their favor from 2014, when the Republicans won the popular vote by 6%.

I just noticed on the NY Times website that CA-10 was also within 5%, so I up my prediction to 5-6 seats.

Its doubtful there'd be a uniform swing nationally though...

No, but who says the swing will be distributed in such a way as to guarantee maximum seat change? Take this year's special elections. The biggest swing was in Kansas, which mean Ron Estes had a narrow, but still decisive, win. One of the few negative swings was in a Virginia state legislative race where even a tiny D swing would have caused a pickup. So there's no guarantee that close seats will have a bigger swing.

[Beet]

Given how few competitive House seats there are, 4 or 5 seats.

Lol, why are you the worst poster here. I could name 15 competitive seats off the top of my head.

Ironically, if we had proportional representation, a 4% popular vote victory would be a pickup of 32 seats. It's those rural voters you fetishize that make it more likely to be 5-6. They just aren't as Democratic as you think they are or would like them to be.