House Math
House math is decidedly more complex than Senate math if for no other reason than the number of House races. All the seats are up for grabs every two years.
At present, the mix is 255/178 Dems (with two vacant I believe). However, when you look at the races, and consider “safe seats”, the mix goes to 123/163 GOP. That’s right, the GOP holds a 40 seat advantage in the “safe seat” category.
If we add “likely” for each of the parties, the mix becomes 148/176 GOP. 218 is the number needed for a majority.
That brings us to the “leans” either Dem or GOP category. Assuming all those in the “likely” category go to the designated party, “leans” is the first category where things could go either way. While it is likely that it will go to the party in which the polls “lean”, it isn’t certain.
As it breaks down, there are 29 likely to go Dem and 48 likely to go GOP. The difference is that of the 29 likely to go Dem, only 2 are seats presently held by Republicans. However, on the other side, of the 48 seats leaning toward the GOP, 42 are seats presently held by Democrats – most of them Blue Dogs.
Here’s where you have to decide how many on each side will actually go to the party to which the district now leans. In my case it comes down to a SWAG (Scientific Wild Assed Guess). I’m saying 70% on each side. That’s pretty conservative given the way I see this election shaping up. However that brings our mix to 179/222 GOP (and a majority in the House for the Republicans).
That’s not even counting the 34 “toss up races”. Of those 34 races, 32 involve incumbent Democrats while only 2 involve Republicans. Again, going conservative, let’s say they split 50-50. 17 to each side.
The final mix?
196/239 GOP – a solid majority. Not quite as robust as the existing Democratic majority now, but a huge swing. And again, note that Republicans can win the majority in the House by winning 70% of the “lean GOP” races and without winning a single “toss up”.
So – my prediction?
GOP picks up 61 seats. That’s actually 6 more seats than I was figuring last week.
~McQ
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I’m expecting to wake up Wednesday morning to read that four or five of those “likely Democratic” seats end up becoming Republican seats. I think a lot of the seats presumed safe are presumed so simply because no one has done any decent polling in a while.
Take my district, for example: TN 5. It has not had a GOP congressman since 1875. The GOP challenger this year is an underfunded building contractor. Local coverage of the race has been sporadic, and national coverage has been virtually non-existent.
But the congressman, Jim Cooper, is an Obamacare backer, and Tennessee has a lot of healthcare companies who are not fond of Obamacare. I don’t see any yard signs for Cooper when I cruise around town, but I do see some for his opponent David Hall, mainly really big ones that people have clearly spent some of their own money to construct. Early voting has been pretty heavy for a non-presidential year, according to the poll watchers I talked to, and I’m pretty sure people are not coming out because they’re excited about the quasi-RINO, “pragmatic” GOP candidate for governor.
I don’t think David Hall needs to be booking any travel to DC just yet, but my jaw won’t drop if we wake up Wednesday to a Cooper loss. Tennessee is hard to predict; just ask Al Gore, who would be president today if he could have taken his home state. Instead he lost 53-47 to Bush in 2000.
If Pelosi needs some place to put that giant gavel, I have a few suggestions for her…
Prediction: GOP + 59
I’m crossing my fingers, toes, eyebrows, etc. that I wake up on Nov 3rd to hear that Nancy, Harry, Barney, and Henny are ex-elects. Of course, it will be a racial matter .. just give it 48 hours.
70 seat pickup.
I predicted +64 for the GOP about two weeks ago and watched as the “professional” pollsters kept adjusting upward. Real Clear Politics now has the projected House average at…wait for it!…+63.
We might indeed win 61 or more contests, but outright voter fraud by the democrat machine will peel away at least 5 to 7 of those. They are going all out with the fraud effort now. Here in Texas we have video taken by someone’s phone that shows them pushing the republican buttons and sending out their votes and they are all registered democrat.
If they got to the voting machines then there is no telling how this thing will come out.
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