Heading into Tuesday, Republicans hold a 30 seat margin in the House of Representatives. Throughout the year, a few Democrats voiced initial optimism that an anti-Trump wave could carry them back to the majority, few would say it was possible with a straight face at any time other than, perhaps the weekend following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tapes. Hillary Clinton’s own problems, coupled with the fact that a number of GOP incumbents have successfully straddled on Trump has left the GOP strongly favored to remain in control when the gavel pounds on January 3. But there may still be a few faces missing. Now, Democrats are in a position to get half of that. They will win most of the competitive seats in friendly terrain while Republicans will hold most – though not all in areas favorable to them.
A few highlights:
California-49
Darrell Issa, who for years used his perch as House Government Operations Chair to become the king of Obama investigations is now embracing Obama, vowing to give Hillary Clinton advice if asked, and telling his own party to “back off” the impeachment talk. Butt may not be altruistic as much as a recognition of the demographic changes that threaten to cost him his seat. Doug Applegate came within 5% of Issa in the June blanket primary and has made this a nationally watched race. It is also quite close. Issa has never faced a race anywhere remotely competitive so this is culture-shock and the sme. But a bigger problem is that California Republicans have been terrorized by a mountainous drop in registrants – a loss of 308,000 voters. Democrats meanwhile have gained 754,000. It’s hard to place nice with figures such as this but when your considered a divisive figure with a national target on your back in a swing district, overcoming it is a mission impossible. With California’s large vote-by-mail operation, this one will take time to settle but when the dust settles, this San Diego-Orange County district will have a new representative – and a giant killer at that.
Colorado-6
If Democrats can’t beat Mike Coffman this time, they’re not beating him ever. Coffman has done a true political metamorphosis since the 2012 redistricting moved his district about 6% left. Formerly arch-conservative who entertained birtherism, Coffman has embraced the left on immigration, gay right, and apparently, being anti-Trump. He called the GOP standard bearer to step aside and flat-out declared he wouldn’t vote for him. He has also garnered significant supporter from the district’s Ethiopian community for attentiveness to their issues. Coffman’s opponent is State Senator Morgan Carroll. At the end, Coffman may lose support from Trumpers in the district and while it might not be in super-abundant numbers, it’ll nonetheless be enough to deny him another term.
Illinois-10
It’s the best two out of three for these guys as Schneider beat Dold in ’12, then fell to him in ’14. Dold has done everything right in a 58% Obama district, including opposing attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but this is a district which will show little ambiguity about Trump. Dold has vowed to write-in his choice for President butthe organization will put Schneider over the top.
Minnesota-8
The sole Democratic Congressman in a toss-up election right now is Congressman Rick Nolan of Minnesota. Nolan may be the last while good old fashioned liberal in a swing district and that may be a deficiency this year. Stewart Mills is a wealthy heir of the Mills Fleet Farm whose Brad Pitt resemblance doesn’t hurt. Nolan squeaked by Mills by 4,000 votes in 2014, giving him a boast of surviving an anti-Democratic midterm. But that was anything but the case in Minnesota as Governor Mark Dayton and Senator Al Franken were winning re-election. Minnesota will be going Democratic for President but Nolan’s problem is that, this Duluth/Iron Range district won’t be. By Nolan’s own estimate, Trump may carry the district by 10-15%, which means he’s up against mighty headwinds. What Nolan does have on his side is labor. This will go into the wee hours of the morning but at the end of the day, it goes to Mills by a hair.
Florida-7
Perhaps one of the most rags-to-riches races is Florida-7 where Stephanie Murphy, the daughter of Vietnam refugees, is taking on the mighty John Mica. The incumbent has held his seat for 24 years and until recently, chaired the House Transportation Committee. But having faced a minor inconvenience only once in his re-election bids (in 2002 when he ultimately took 60%), Mica was slow to take his challenger seriously and boasted that he would be outspent, even after a mid-decade redistricting made the district about 3% more Democratic. Senior Republicans grumbled about the slowness of his recognition of the challenge. But while Murphy has the dynamism at her side, the incumbent will have just enough recognition and accomplishments to boast about to eke past Murphy by the skin of his teeth.
In a 24 year career, Florida Republican John Mica has never faced a race this tight. But his race against Stephanie Murphy (below) is a pure pick ’em
Photo via Florida Politics
Photo via Florida Politics
Other Florida races will offer mixed results for the parties. In St. Petersburg, ex-Governor Charlie Crist has been accused of political opportunism since he became a Democrat after having been an Independent after having served as Governor as a Republican. This has caused him problems in a newly redrawn seat that gave Obama 55%. But in South Florida, Democrats failed to get the candidate of their choice, instead winding up with ex-Congressman Joe Garcia, whom Curbelo beat in 2014. Garcia has been plagued by scandal and Curbelo will be able to overcome the beating that Trump will be taking. Florida Republicans will seize two seats from Democrats. The Tallahassee based Florida-2 was redraw to elect a Republican while the Palm Beach-St. Lucie based Florida-18 is a genuine mix.
Other Races
New York State began the cycle with as many as six competitive races, five held by the GOP. Thanks to luck and deft moves by freshmen, Democrats will capture just one while holding their own. That pick-up is in the Adorandacks where progressive favorite Zephr Teachout will overcome a strong challenge by veteran Republican John Faso to capture a seat being vacated by Chris Gibson. The GOP will hold a Central New York seat they initially had enormous reason to worry about but, not because of any profound stengths of their nominee, Claudia Tenney. But an independent is hampering the ability of Democrats to consolidate the anti-Republican vote and that’ll be enough to enable her to squeak into Congress.
Similarly in Iowa, Democrats had hoped two send two freshman GOP members packing, and were so confident about beating Rod Blum that even Republicans initially did little to help Rod Blum (it didn’t help that Blum’s first vote was to oppose John Boehner as Speaker). But despite two very colorful and appealing challengers, Trump’s prospects are better in Iowa than other swing states and both Blum and David Young will hold on.
And in Michigan, Republicans had as many as five seats that have been viewed as in some degree of danger, but this is one example of Trump’s recovery, and perhaps the Comey letter, has helped somewhat. It would be remiss, however, to also single out a map tailor made to maximize the Republicans in Congress.
So where will Trumpocalypse occur? In Northern Virginia where freshman Barbara Comstock will find it too much to bear. In the Philadelphia suburbs where even with a respected last name, Brian Fitzpatrick (his brother Mike is retiring), will be dragged down by Trump. Large Hispanic turnout in South Texas will enable Pete Gallego to win back the seat that he lost to Will Hurd, ironically due to low turnout two years ago. But the energetic and politically shrewd Hurd has impressed Republicans and could easily be talked into a rematch in 2018.And in California, where the Republican party has utterly collapsed demographically and politically to the point that Trump might not get 33%, Democrats will succeed in beating three of four targeted members of the delegation. A fourth, Jeff Denham, will hold based on millions of infusion from the GOP and select committees.
At the end of the day, Democrats will gain 16 seats. This will bring a little more parity with the dominant GOP conference but, with 204 seats compared with 231 for the Republicans, they’ll still be fairly deep in the minority. Furthermore, it will fall short of what the party had hoped for just a few months back.
Below, I have composed my predictions of every House race that I deem to be even the slightest bit competitive, complete with percentages. Note that because of the presence of minor party candidates, percentages will not always add up to 100%.
Crass’s Calls:
Alaska-At Large Don Young* (R) 48% Steve Lindbeck (D) 46%; Arizona-1 Tom O’Halleran (D) 54% Paul Babeu (R) 43%; Arizona-2 Martha McSally*(R) 50% Matt Heinz (D) 48%; California-7 Ami Bera* (D) 54%, Scott Jones (R) 46%; California-10 Jeff Denham (R) 51% Mike Eggman (D) 49%; California-21 Emilio Huerta (D)50.3% David Valadao* (R) 49.7%; California-24 Salud Carabajal (D) 54% Justin Fareed (R) 46%; California-25 Bryan Caforio (D) 54% Steve Knight* (R) 46%; California-39 Ed Royce* (R) 52% Brett Murdock (D) 48%; California-49; Colorado-3 Scott Tipton* (R) 53% Gail Schwartz (D) 45%; Colorado 6 Morgan Carroll (D) 49% Mike Coffman* (R) 47%; Florida-7 John Mica* (R) 50.3% Stephanie Murphy (D) 49.7%; Florida-13 Charlie Crist (D) 52% David Jolly* (R) 48%; Florida-18 Brian Mast (R)52% Randy Perkins (D) 47%; Florida-23 Debbie Wasserman Shultz* (D) 56% Joe Kaufman (R) 42% Florida-26 Carlos Curbelo* (R) 52% Florida-26 Joe Garcia (D) 48%; Florida-27 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen* (R) 53% Scott Fuhrman (D) 47% Illinois-10 Brad Schneider 52% Bob Dold* (R) 48%; Indiana-2 Jackie Walorski* (R) 51% Lynn Coleman (D) 46%; Indiana-9 Shelli Yoder (D) 51% Troy Hollingsworth (R) 46%; Iowa-1 Rod Blum* (R) 51% Monica Vernon (D) 49%; Iowa-3 David Young* 51% Jim Mowrer 45%; Kansas-3 Kevin Yoder* (R)52% Jay Sidie (D) 45%; Maine-2 Bruce Poliquin* (R)51% Emily Cain (D) 49%; Michigan-1 Jack Bergman (R) 49% Lon Johnson (D) 47%; Michigan-6 Fred Upton*(R)52% Paul Clements (D) 46%; Michigan-7 Tim Walberg* (R) 51% Gretchen Driskell (D)47%; Michigan-8 Mike Bishop* (R) 51% Stephanie Shkreli (D) 46% Michigan-11 David Trott* (R)52% Anil Kumar (D)45%; Minnesota-2 Angie Craig (D) 47% Jason Lewis (R) 44% Paula Overby (I) 9%; Minnesota-3 Erik Paulsen*(R) 51% Terri Bonoff (D) 49%; Minnesota-8 Rick Nolan* (D) 50.5% Stewart Mills (R) 49.5%; Montana-At-Large Ryan Zinke* (R) 51% Denise Juneau (D) 46%; Nebraska-2 Brad Ashford* (D) 52% Don Bacon (R) 46%; Nevada-3 Jacky Rosen (D) 50% Danny Tarkanian (R) 45%; Nevada-4 Ruben Kihuen (D) 51% Crescent Hardy* (R) 44% New Hampshire-1 Carol Shea-Porter 47% (D) Frank Guinta* (R) 43% Shawn O’Connor (I) 10%; New Jersey-5 Josh Gottheimer (D) 52% Scott Garrett* (R) 45%; New York-1 Lee Zeldin* 52% (R) Anna Throne-Holst (D) 48%; New York-2 Peter King* (R) 53% DuWayne Gregory (D) 47% New York-3 Tom Suozzi (D) 54% Jack Martins (R) 46%; New York-19 Zephyr Teachout (D)52% John Faso (R) 48%; New Tork-22 Claudia Tenney (R) 42% Kim Myers (D) 41% Martin Babinec (I) 17%; New York-23 Tom Reed* (R) 55% John Plumb (D) 45%; New York-24 John Katko* 54% (R) Colleen Deacon (D) 46%; North Carolina-9 Robert Pittenger* (R) 53% Christian Cano (D) 47%; Pennsylvania-8 Steve Santarsiero (D) 51% Brian Fitzpatrick (R) 47%; Pennsylvania-16 Lloyd Smucker (R) 50.2% Christina Hartman (D) 49.8%; Texas-7 John Culberson* (R) 54% James Cargas (D) 46%; Texas-10 Michael McCaul* (R) 56% Tawena Cadien (D) 44%; Texas-23 Pete Gallego (D) 52% Will Hurd* (R) 46% Texas-27 Blake Farenthold* (R)54% Roy Barrera (D)46%; Utah-3 Jason Chaffetz* (R)54% Stephen Tryon (D) 46% Utah-4 Mia Love* (R) 51% Doug Owen (D) 45%; Virginia-5 Tom Garrett (R) 53% Jane Dittmar (D) 46%; Virginia-10 LuAnn Bennett (D) 52% Barbara Comstock* (R) 46%; Washington-3Jamie Herrera Beutler* (R) 51% Jim Moeller (D) 49%; Washington-5 Cathy McMorris Rodgers* (R) 52% Joe Pakootas (D)48% Wisconsin-6 Glen Grothman* (R) 53% Sarah Lloyd (D) 45% Wisconsin-7 Sean Duffy* (R) 54% Mary Hoeft (D) 47% Wisconsin-8 Mike Gallagher (R) 52% Tom Nelson 45%;Wyoming-At Large Liz Cheney(R)55% Ryan Greene (D) 39%
photo credit: E. B. Walker Photography On The Hill via photopin (license)