Today, the non-partisan election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted another 10 races towards Democrats. Sabato’s Kyle Kondik noted that the culture of corruption surrounding House Republicans is no help towards their chances in November.
“Democrats have built the largest battlefield in over a decade, and are connecting with voters on the issues of lowering the cost of healthcare, increasing wages, and protecting Social Security and Medicare,” said DCCC Spokesperson Tyler Law. “Increasingly desperate and vulnerable House Republicans are facing reelection under a dark cloud of corruption and a historically unpopular agenda.”
Here’s a roundup of the districts that moved towards Democrats:
- AK-AL (Don Young)
- Safe R to Likely R
- CA-50 (Duncan Hunter)
- Safe R to Leans R
- IL-13 (Rodney Davis)
- Likely R to Leans R
- IL-14 (Randy Hultgren)
- Likely R to Leans R
- NC-09 (Open)
- Toss-up to Leans D
- NJ-03 (Tom MacArthur)
- Leans R to Toss-up
- OH-14 (Dave Joyce)
- Likely R to Leans R
- TX-02 (Open)
- Safe R to Likely R
- TX-22 (Pete Olson)
- Safe R to Likely R
- WA-08 (Open)
- Toss-up to Leans D
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For Republicans, Cohen and Manafort news exacts an opportunity cost
Sabato’s Crystal Ball
By Kyle Kondik
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/2018-house-update-12-ratings-changes/
Tuesday’s episode of real-life Law and Order involving two figures close to the president, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, may not directly hurt the GOP in the midterm. But given their current position, the Republicans need a little help, and Tuesday didn’t provide it.
Cohen, Manafort, and the dwindling electoral clock
Tuesday’s bombshell developments — the conviction of President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, followed in swift succession by a guilty plea from the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that seemed to implicate the president in a scheme to skirt campaign finance laws — may very well not move the president’s approval rating. Previous developments related to Robert Mueller’s investigation of the 2016 campaign and Russian involvement really haven’t. But it would be wrong to look at what happened earlier this week and argue that the Cohen/Manafort news doesn’t mean anything to the battle for the House.
To us, it does. Not because this news changes the current trajectory of the House race, but because it doesn’t.
Previous negative stories about Trump related to the Mueller investigation haven’t moved the needle much because, in all likelihood, opinions about the president are so hardened. But they are hardened in a way that is poor for the president, and for his fellow Republicans. The president’s approval rating is stuck in the low-to-mid 40s. If one assumes that the president’s approval rating is perilously low for a party playing defense in a midterm — and we do — then consider these questions: Will Tuesday’s developments cause Trump’s approval rating to rise? Will these developments help Republican candidates focus on the issues they want to emphasize in their campaigns right now? Our sense is that the answer to both questions is no.
Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking toward Election Day. A month ago, when we installed the Democrats as favorites in the House, we noted how the electoral environment — Trump’s consistently weak approval rating, the usual midterm drag on the president’s party, and House generic ballot polling showing a Democratic lead in the mid-to-high single digits — has been largely stable throughout the cycle.
[…] In other words, if one believes the Democrats are favored in the race for the House — and we do, although we don’t think the result is locked in concrete — then something in the political environment needs to change, in a positive way, for Republicans to regain the advantage. The Cohen/Manafort news was not that.
Ratings changes
[…] We’ll get to those ratings changes below, but first let’s update the national state of play. After today’s changes, there are 205 seats rated Safe/Likely/Leans Democratic, 198 Safe/Likely/Leans Republican, and 32 Toss-ups, of which 30 are currently controlled by Republicans and two are currently controlled by Democrats.
Let’s start with the three biggest moves, which push Toss-up races into the Leans column.
Despite voting for Trump by a dozen points, the open NC-9 has long looked like an attractive Democratic target. The district, which covers some of the Charlotte suburbs and extends east into more rural territory, has a weak incumbent, Rep. Robert Pittenger (R), who lost his primary to Mark Harris (R), a former pastor with a history of controversial comments, such as expressing the belief that wives should “submit” to their husbands. In a time where college-educated, suburban women are already revolting against Trump and Republicans, Harris seems like a poor fit for a suburban district with an above-average share of residents with a four-year college degree (a metric that is often a good shorthand for a district’s reticence about the president). Meanwhile, Democrats have a strong recruit in Marine veteran Dan McCready (D), who holds a huge six-to-one cash on hand advantage against Harris. We like McCready’s chances, so we’re moving this race from Toss-up to Leans Democratic.
[…]In the open WA-8, a district Hillary Clinton carried by three points, physician Kim Schrier (D) emerged from a crowded field to face Dino Rossi (R), who has lost three competitive statewide bids. Rossi is one of the best candidates Republicans have in an open seat, but seats like WA-8 — an open seat held by the presidential party that the other party’s presidential nominee carried two years earlier — have often flipped to the non-presidential party in recent midterms. The last such seat that didn’t was IA-2 all the way back in 1990, which voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and then narrowly elected a Republican in an open-seat race, according to Crystal Ball friend Scott Crass. The two-party vote in WA-8 was 51.7%-48.3% in favor of Democrats; is any Republican going to be able to improve on that enough to win in an open seat in an environment like this?
[…] A commonality between NC-9 and WA-8, the two seats we’re moving from Toss-up to Leans Democratic, is that they are open seats. Incumbency may not matter the way it used to — see Noah Rudnick’s piece in this week’s Crystal Ball for more on that — but open seats are still often the most vulnerable seats for both sides. As our ratings stand now, we favor Democrats outright in 13 Republican-held House seats, and all of them are open seats except for VA-10, where Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) is trying to hold on in a district Clinton won by 10 points, and PA-17, a newly-drawn district where Reps. Conor Lamb (D) and Keith Rothfus (R) are running against each other.
Those who think we’re going overboard moving NC-9 to Leans Democratic — and maybe we are — should still consider that this cycle’s special elections, where Democrats have on average been running 11 points or so ahead of Clinton’s 2016 margin, are more comparable to open seats in November as opposed to ones defended by incumbents. If the NC-9 general election contest featured a GOP incumbent, we probably wouldn’t move it to Leans Democratic. But because it’s open, we are moving it, under the assumption that double-digit Trump-won open seats are not unwinnable for Democrats, particularly when the Democratic candidate benefits from a massive resource advantage and the Republican candidate has some liabilities he will need to overcome. If a seat like PA-18 can flip in a special election, a less Republican seat like NC-9 can flip in the fall, too.
We have nine other changes. In CA-50, Republicans are not defending an open seat, but they probably wish they were. Easy to miss amongst the Cohen/Manafort drama Tuesday was the indictment of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R, CA-50); he and his wife are accused of using campaign funds for personal use (and rather brazenly so, at least according to the indictment).
[…]Republicans combined for more than 60% of the total vote in the June top-two primary, which shows what an uphill climb this district is for a Democrat, but the Hunter indictment puts into play a district that is otherwise a place where one would not expect Democrats to truly compete.
In New Jersey, a state where Republicans are already playing a lot of defense, we’ve been resistant to moving Rep. Tom MacArthur (R, NJ-3) from Leans Republican to Toss-up, but we’re going to go ahead and do it. A recent Monmouth University poll showed an effective tie in the race between MacArthur and former Obama administration official Andy Kim (D). […] On the other hand, MacArthur played a key role in getting the Republican Affordable Care Act alternative through the House (it died in the Senate), and Democrats will use that against him.
Illinois may end up being a rough state for Republicans this year given that businessman J.B. Pritzker (D) appears to hold a decent-sized lead over incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner (R), which could have consequences down the ballot. NBC News/Marist recently found Democrats up 14 points in a statewide House generic ballot. That’s hard to translate to individual races in a state where Democrats already control 11 of 18 seats, but Rep. Peter Roskam (R, IL-6) is already in a Toss-up race, and Reps. Rodney Davis (R, IL-13) and Randy Hultgren (R, IL-14) have credible opponents and should have challenging races. IL-13 and IL-14 move from Likely Republican to Leans Republican. Also moving from Likely Republican to Leans Republican is Rep. Dave Joyce (R, OH-14), who has avoided hard races after Rep. Steve LaTourette (R) left the ballot relatively late in the 2012 campaign, giving Joyce an easy path to Congress (he survived primary challenges from the right in 2014 and 2016; there are some conservative activists in the district who did not like the late LaTourette and do not like Joyce).
[…] Two other sleepers in typically Republican suburban districts where Trump underperformed are two affluent, highly-educated Houston-area districts where Trump ran well behind Mitt Romney’s 2012 showing but still won: TX-2, an open seat, and TX-22, held by Rep. Pete Olson (R). The latter district is former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R) old seat. We’re moving both from Safe Republican to Likely Republican as a precaution in case Republicans get absolutely swamped in traditionally Republican suburban/exurban areas.
Finally, Rep. Don Young (R, AK-AL) returns to our ratings, moving from Safe Republican to Likely Republican. He’s been in the House for more than four decades now — he was first elected in a 1973 special election — but he sometimes has close races, and he has drawn a spirited challenge from Alyse Galvin, an education advocate who is running as an independent but was just nominated in the Democratic primary. Young should be fine but here’s one more race on the competitive periphery that merits inclusion as something other than “Safe” in our ratings.
[…] Election Day is less than 11 weeks away.