Chris Cillizza’s The Fix: washingtonpost.com’s Politics Blog
The Line: Open-Seat Advantage for House Dems?
The retirements just keep coming for House Republicans.
In the past month, five more Republican incumbents decided against seeking another term in 2008. Two hail from districts — New Mexico’s 1st and Ohio’s 16th — where Democrats will be even money bets (or better) to win next year. Democrats are also making noise about two other newly open GOP seats — New Mexico’s 2nd District and Alabama’s 2nd, though both are much longer shots given their clear Republican tilt.
With the new batch of retirements, 13 Republicans will be leaving the House in 2008, compared with just two Democrats. The Cook Political Report lists only three other Democratic House members as potential retirees, while 14 Republicans make the potential retirement list.
Since open seats have historically proven the most likely to change party control, it got us to thinking about the two parties’ retirements in a historical context.
In 2006, 21 Republican incumbents decided to leave the House, compared with 12 Democrats. Democrats went on to pick-up eight open seats, while Republicans failed to pick up even one. Two years earlier, Republicans had 19 open seats to defend, compared with 15 for Democrats; four open seats changed hands that cycle — two went from ‘R’ to ‘D’ (Colorado’s 3rd and Louisiana’s 3rd) while two others went the other way (Kentucky’s 4th and Louisiana’s 7th).
The largest disparity in open seats between the parties in recent history was in 1992 when 41 Democrats and just 24 Republicans retired or ran for higher office. Despite the disparity, Republican pick-ups of open seats that cycle were modest: The GOP won 11 Democratic-held open seats while Democrats won eight seats held by Republicans — a net three-seat gain.
That election points underscores the truism that open seats are not created equal. An open seat may be just as safe for the incumbent party as a seat where the incumbent is running for reelection.
The problem shaping up for House Republicans in 2008 is not the raw number of their retirements but the demographics of the districts their incumbents are leaving. Of the 13 seats, seven are districts where President Bush won with 55 percent of the vote or less in 2004. It’s never good news for a party when more than half of their current open seats are that competitive on the presidential level.
And things could get worse for the GOP. Of the 14 potential Republican retirements listed by Cook, five districts would be ripe Democratic pick-up opportunities, including two — Connecticut’s 4th and Delaware’s at-large seat — that John Kerry carried in 2004.
Given those stats, it’s no surprise that open seats dominate this month’s Line. As always, the No. 1 ranked race is the seat we consider most likely to switch parties in 2008. Agree? Disagree? The comments section below awaits your thoughts.
To the … but first a few new features. Before every House and Senate Line, we’ll have a brief summary of the races that have been added (and subtracted) since the last month’s installment. We’ll also pick a runner-up race from each party that just missed the cut for the updated list.
And now, to The Line!