2006 House

A Glance Inside the House Crystal Ball Republican Held Seats in Play: 63 (169 Safe/Solid R) Likely R (17) Leans R (18) Toss-up (16) Leans D (12) Likely D (0) CA-04 (Doolittle) AZ-01 (Renzi) CT-02 (Simmons) AZ-08 (OPEN) CA-50 (Bilbray) AZ-05 (Hayworth) CT-04 (Shays) CO-07 (OPEN) CO-05 (OPEN) CA-11 (Pombo) FL-13 (OPEN) FL-16 (OPEN) FL-08 (Keller) CO-04 (Musgrave) FL-22 (Shaw) IN-02 (Chocola) FL-09 (OPEN) CT-05 (Johnson) IL-06 (OPEN) IN-08 (Hostettler) IL-10 (Kirk) ID-01 (OPEN) IN-09 (Sodrel) IA-01 (OPEN) IN-03 (Souder) KY-03 (Northup) KY-04 (Davis) NY-24 (OPEN) IA-02 (Leach) MN-01 (Gutknecht) MN-06 (OPEN) OH-18 (OPEN) KY-02 (Lewis) NV-02 (OPEN) NM-01 (Wilson) PA-06 (Gerlach) NE-01 (Fortenberry) NV-03 (Porter) NC-11 (Taylor) PA-07 (Weldon) NH-02 (Bass) NJ-07 (Ferguson) NY-26 (Reynolds) PA-10 (Sherwood) NY-03 (King) NY-20 (Sweeney) OH-02 (Schmidt) TX-22 (OPEN) NY-19 (Kelly) NY-25 (Walsh) OH-15 (Pryce) NC-08 (Hayes) NY-29 (Kuhl) VA-02 (Drake) PA-04 (Hart) OH-01 (Chabot) WA-08 (Reichert) VA-10 (Wolf) PA-08 (Fitzpatrick) WI-08 (OPEN) WA-05 (McMorris) TX-23 (Bonilla) WY-AL (Cubin) WV-01 (Mollohan) VT-AL (OPEN) TX-17 (Edwards) SC-05 (Spratt) IA-03 (Boswell) OH-06 (OPEN) IL-08 (Bean) LA-03 (Melancon) GA-12 (Barrow) IL-17 (OPEN) GA-08 (Marshall) CO-03 (Salazar) Likely R (0) Leans R (0) Toss-up (0) Leans D (4) Likely D (8) Democratic Held Seats in Play: 12

A Glance Inside the House Crystal Ball Republican Held Seats in Play: 62 (170 Safe/Solid R) Likely R (20) Leans R (15) Toss-up (16) Leans D (11) Likely D (0) AZ-01 (Renzi) AZ-05 (Hayworth) CT-02 (Simmons) AZ-08 (OPEN) CA-04 (Doolittle) CA-11 (Pombo) CT-04 (Shays) CO-07 (OPEN) CA-50 (Bilbray) CO-04 (Musgrave) FL-13 (OPEN) FL-16 (OPEN) CO-05 (OPEN) CT-05 (Johnson) FL-22 (Shaw) IN-02 (Chocola) FL-08 (Keller) KY-03 (Northup) IL-06 (OPEN) IN-08 (Hostettler) FL-09 (OPEN) NV-02 (OPEN) IN-09 (Sodrel) IA-01 (OPEN) ID-01 (OPEN) NV-03 (Porter) KY-04 (Davis) NY-26 (Reynolds) IL-10 (Kirk) NJ-07 (Ferguson) MN-06 (OPEN) OH-18 (OPEN) IL-19 (Shimkus) NY-20 (Sweeney) NM-01 (Wilson) PA-06 (Gerlach) IA-02 (Leach) NY-29 (Kuhl) NC-11 (Taylor) PA-10 (Sherwood) KY-02 (Lewis) OH-01 (Chabot) NY-24 (OPEN) TX-22 (OPEN) MN-01 (Gutknecht) OH-02 (Schmidt) OH-15 (Pryce) NE-01 (Fortenberry) PA-08 (Fitzpatrick) PA-07 (Weldon) NH-02 (Bass) TX-23 (Bonilla) VA-02 (Drake) NY-03 (King) WY-AL (Cubin) WA-08 (Reichert) NY-19 (Kelly) WI-08 (OPEN) NY-25 (Walsh) NC-08 (Hayes) PA-04 (Hart) VA-10 (Wolf) WV-01 (Mollohan) VT-AL (OPEN) TX-17 (Edwards) OH-06 (OPEN) SC-05 (Spratt) IA-03 (Boswell) LA-03 (Melancon) IL-08 (Bean) LA-02 (Jefferson) GA-12 (Barrow) IL-17 (OPEN) GA-08 (Marshall) CO-03 (Salazar) Likely R (0) Leans R (0) Toss-up (0) Leans D (8) Likely D (5) Democratic Held Seats in Play: 13

A Glance Inside the House Crystal Ball Republican Held Seats in Play: 56 (176 Safe/Solid R) Likely R (24) Leans R (10) Toss-up (18) Leans D (4) Likely D (0) AZ-01 (Renzi) AZ-05 (Hayworth) AZ-08 (Kolbe) CO-07 (OPEN) CA-11 (Pombo) CT-05 (Johnson) CT-02 (Simmons) IA-01 (OPEN) CA-50 (Bilbray) CO-04 (Musgrave) CT-04 (Shays) PA-06 (Gerlach) FL-09 (OPEN) NY-20 (Sweeney) FL-22 (Shaw) TX-22 (OPEN) FL-13 (OPEN) OH-01 (Chabot) IL-06 (OPEN) FL-16 (Foley) OH-15 (Pryce) IN-02 (Chocola) ID-01 (OPEN) PA-08 (Fitzpatrick) IN-08 (Hostettler) IL-10 (Kirk) TX-23 (Bonilla) IN-09 (Sodrel) KY-02 (Lewis) WI-08 (OPEN) KY-04 (Davis) KY-03 (Northup) WY-AL (Cubin) MN-06 (OPEN) MN-01 (Gutknecht) NC-11 (Taylor) MN-02 (Kline) NM-01 (Wilson) NV-02 (OPEN) NY-24 (OPEN) NV-03 (Porter) OH-18 (OPEN) NH-01 (Bradley) PA-07 (Weldon) NH-02 (Bass) PA-10 (Sherwood) NJ-07 (Ferguson) VA-02 (Drake) NY-03 (King) WA-08 (Reichert) NY-19 (Kelly) NY-25 (Walsh) NY-29 (Reynolds) NY-29 (Kuhl) NC-08 (Hayes) OH-02 (Schmidt) WV-01 (Mollohan) VT-AL (OPEN) WA-02 (Larsen) TX-17 (Edwards) SC-05 (Spratt) OH-06 (OPEN) OH-13 (OPEN) IA-03 (Boswell) LA-03 (Melancon) GA-12 (Barrow) IL-17 (OPEN) IL-08 (Bean) GA-08 (Marshall) CO-03 (Salazar) Likely R (0) Leans R (0) Toss-up (1) Leans D (7) Likely D (6) Democratic Held Seats in Play: 14 (189 Safe/Solid D) The Brutal B, September 2006: +12 to

A Glance Inside the House Crystal Ball Republican Held Seats in Play: 62 Safe R Likey R (22) Leans R (23) Toss-up (15) Leans D (2) Likely D (0) Safe D 180 seats AZ-01 (Renzi) WY-AL (Cubin) AZ-08 (OPEN) PA-06 (Gerlach) CA-04 (Doolittle) WY-AL (Cubin) AZ-08 (OPEN) TX-22 (OPEN) TX-17 (Edwards) IL-17 (OPEN) IL-08 (Bean) AZ-08 (OPEN) TX-22 (OPEN) 180 seats Safe R Likey R (0) Leans R (0) Toss-up (1) Leans D (10) Likely D (11) Safe D Democratic Held Seats in Play: 22 The Brutal B, August 2006: +12 to 15 D

With less than two weeks to go before the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the fall election season, there’s never been a better time to take stock of the races that will determine partisan control of Congress beyond 2006. In some races, the same elements have been at play for many months and little has changed to give one party an unexpected advantage or setback heading into the homestretch. In plenty of other races, the political winds are shifting faster than you can say “Macaca.” And in the end, as the Crystal Ball will reveal later in this article, the totality of the midterm maelstrom for control of Congress just might be decided by a single shootout. The battle for the House in this “sixth-year itch” election has proven especially volatile. As the Crystal Ball outlined at the outset of August, the vast majority of campaign developments that have taken place this summer have boosted Democratic fortunes. And in the absence of a truly major rally-around-the-flag intervening event, that unidirectional movement shows no signs of reversing course: every news day that goes by gives us more and more confidence that Republican losses in the lower chamber will number in the

Yes, we know college basketball is a distant memory by now from the perspective of these hot summer months, but looking at the list of potentially competitive races beyond those listed in our Dirty Thirty, we can’t help but be reminded of the perennial spectacle of bracket selection. Much as slightly above-average college basketball squads covet at-large berths to the Big Dance given out on Selection Sunday in early March, the underdog candidates in borderline-competitive House races are scrambling for their share of the spotlight in this difficult-to-read midterm election cycle. Of course, the distinction between barnburners and forgettable match-ups is never all that bright a line in the realm of congressional elections, and it isn’t announced by a selection committee after a hasty closed-door meeting. But as of mid-July, we’re starting to acquire a better sense of how “bubble races”–those floating between real turnover possibility and true long-shot status–are shaking out. Although summertime is typically the quiet before the storm of the full-blown, post-Labor Day election season, it’s a critical time for national parties to finalize their lists of targeted races by evaluating whether their candidates, especially challengers, are making the grade both in fundraising and in auditions before

Just how perilously close are Republicans to losing their congressional majority in 2006? The way several independent observers and Democrats are talking and acting these days, you might guess the GOP’s demise was all but a done deal. Only last month, veteran bipartisan polling team Thom Riehle and Lance Tarrance concluded that Republicans were “on the road to losing their majority status” after finding that by a margin of 44 percent to 32 percent, registered voters nationwide preferred the generic Democratic candidate for Congress in their district to the generic Republican. In Texas Hold’em poker terms, Riehle and Tarrance argued then that “Republicans need some great flop cards, a lucky turn card and a killer river card if they have any hopes of avoiding an all-in disaster in November.” And earlier this month, veteran western Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha made a splash by preemptively announcing a bid for House majority leader should his party take the body, only to suspend his campaign next week after acknowledging he had jumped the gun. Murtha, who at age 74 only recently soared to celebrity status in the eyes of rank and file anti-war Democrats across the country thanks to his November 2005

We all live in the moment, and we often mistakenly believe that what is true today was true always. Not so in politics, and especially in Congressional elections. Turnover in the modern U.S. House of Representatives is minimal. Redistricting and the advantages of incumbency help to insure it. Take a look at the last couple of midterm elections for proof. In 1998, President Clinton’s sixth-year election, just 33 House members out of 435 stepped down from their posts–many to seek another elected office such as a Senate seat or a Governorship. A mere seven U.S. Representatives lost their House seats through defeat, one in a primary and the other six in the general election. The overall reelection rate for House members seeking another term was 98 percent. In 2002, President Bush’s first midterm election, just 35 House members retired–almost a carbon copy of 1998. But wait, what’s this? Sixteen House members were beaten for reelection, eight in primaries and eight in the general election. It looks like an outbreak of competition, except for two factors: (1) 2002 was the first election after the 2001 Census-driven redistricting, and some incumbents were drawn into the same districts–so a few incumbents had to

With upside-down congressional approval ratings showing few signs of rising from the depths anytime soon, 2006 promises to be one of the more volatile (and dare we say, anti-incumbent?) House election cycles in recent memory. So looking ahead to November, how best might Democrats and Republicans prepare to face this specter? For starters, we suggest each side begin by taking a page out of Comedy Central notable Stephen Colbert’s playbook: take good, hard, looks at all kinds of House districts right now. The constant possibility of new theaters of battle being opened by scandal, retirement, or other factors certainly means that parties “better know their districts.” But before party insiders start canceling their Cook Political Report subscriptions in favor of tuning in to the Colbert Report, we would caution that predicting 2006 House race volatility beyond that of recent cycles doesn’t amount to saying very much. Since 1994–and especially since 2000–federal election years have experienced both low levels of competition and notoriously few instances of upsets by challengers. Still, each federal election year we usually see some surprising outcomes on election night in districts that had eluded pundits’ pre-November radar screens. Whether it’s simply an unexpected close call for a

Fresh off the Superbowl, Americans are once again reminded that every once in a while, an underdog team can come back up from the depths, run the table, and pull off a remarkable victory. This year, congressional Democrats, ever-so-desperate to pick up the 15 seats they need to reclaim the lower chamber this year, are crossing their fingers for some of the against-the-odds Steelers magic they’ll need to last them through November 7th in order to reshuffle the congressional deck. Gradually for House Democrats, however, their dream of ending their twelve years in the wilderness seems less and less far-fetched with each passing week. For one, Bush fatigue is emerging as a very serious electoral drag on the GOP in elections all across the nation, and the threat to Republicans of a big old traditional “sixth year itch” midterm election remains very real. The president’s approval ratings, not considerably altered by the State of the Union, continue to weigh down the House GOP, whose scores in generic ballot tests give the majority’s members pause even as public opinion of both parties in Congress grows colder yet. Moreover, the persistence of congressional scandal continues to hamstring the party in power, compounding

In May, the Crystal Ball argued that the 2006 midterm elections would present a whole new opportunity for Democrats to nationalize the ethics charges mounting against Rep. Tom DeLay and to use “the Hammer” as a tool of their own for chipping away at the GOP majority. In light of this month’s news, this has never been more the case. Last week’s indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX 22) on charges of improper transfers of funds between federal and state PACs stung the GOP badly and ignited a firestorm of reaction, both on Capitol Hill and in competitive congressional districts from coast to coast. Democrats, who have made a sport out of indicting Tom DeLay in the press for years, seemed downright giddy as they caught wind of the Texas grand jury’s decision and pounced without hesitation. Across the aisle, Republicans, already hampered by President Bush’s stalled, low-40s approval ratings amid questions concerning handling of crises ranging from Baghdad to the Bayou, appeared weary but determined on damage control duty. Additional charges lodged against DeLay this week have only deepened GOP gloom and inflated Democratic spirits. To be sure, as top House Republicans under the direction of

Between 1934 and 1994, the party in charge of the presidency lost House seats in midterm congressional elections without fail. And for years, political scientists have elaborately laid out logical reasons for this to be the case: some have theorized that midterms serve as natural electoral “reflexes” to counterbalance strong party showings in presidential cycles, and others have advanced the idea that retrospective voting is responsible for consistent issue-based backlashes against the incumbent White House party. The durability of this pattern prior to 1998 led most midterm cycle analysts to speculate almost exclusively on how severe a White House loss of seats would be rather than whether a loss would occur in the first place. Yet remarkably, the 1998 and 2002 congressional midterms consecutively turned conventional wisdom on its head. In the midst of the 1998 impeachment saga, Clinton-loyal congressional Democrats added five new representatives to their ranks, stunning Republicans who had crossed their fingers in hopes that a “six year itch” would increase their slim majority and forcing incumbent GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich out of power. And in the midst of the 2002 build-up to the Iraq War, Bush-loyal Republicans defied the pattern once again, managing an overall gain

(Editor’s note: Sabato’s Crystal Ball is delighted to present Professor Alan Abramowitz‘s original work in this week’s Crystal Ball Email Update, for the enjoyment and enlightenment of our faithful readers. Dr. Abramowitz is one of the most distinguished political scientists in the nation. A Stanford PhD and the Alben W. Barkley Chair-holder at Emory University, Alan’s many works on elections–presidential and congressional–are standard references for everyone in the field. Just as he has done so many times before, Alan has exploded the conventional wisdom about a topic: this time, partisan redistricting for Congress. You can contact Prof. Abramowitz directly at [email protected]. -Larry J. Sabato) “Here is a telling statistic. One hundred fifty-three of California’s congressional and legislative seats were up in the last election, and not one, I repeat, not one, changed parties. What kind of democracy is that?” With those words in his 2005 State of the State address, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced a proposal to radically reform the electoral process in the Golden State. The problem with California’s congressional and legislative elections, according to Schwarzenegger, is that the Democratic majority in the Legislature has used its control over redistricting to maximize the number of Democratic seats by packing

At this point in a midterm cycle, the Crystal Ball would normally lead off its analysis of the House landscape with a discussion about prospects for six year itches, open seats and early money. But alas, we’ve come to accept that nothing’s quite normal in Washington these days–and the fixation of the city’s media and political establishment on the ethics troubles of one prominent House figure is no exception. If last week’s hastily planned GOP gala-style pep rally was any indication, there now exists genuine concern in conservative circles about the political vulnerability of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Although the “Hammer” has earned his stripes by aggressively and impressively keeping his party in line over the years, it is clear the Texan faces tough battles on two fronts in the run-up to 2006: he must both defend his overseas travels before the House Ethics Committee and defend his increasingly marginal Houston-area seat against a seasoned challenger. (Our use of the word “marginal” must be qualified. Only in this day and age of nearly uniform, landslide House reelections could DeLay’s Houston CD be called marginal–but DeLay’s unimpressive 55 percent in 2004 and a strong 2006 challenger in former Democratic Congressman