You may remember that in the wake of the 2008 elections, I tried out a new quantitative project, developing an index for predicting vulnerability for House members based on a mix of PVI and previous House election performance. (It turned out to be pretty useful, in that 2006 numbers were pretty predictive of who actually got knocked off in 2008.)
I included, of course, what the index would predict for 2010, but with the caveat that things would change as we became aware of more open seats. With a number of open seats in key races now known -- and with SSP Labs gearing up to issue a Competitive House Race Ratings table -- it's time to re-crunch the numbers. Two other important modifications are being included here, too: back in January, we were still relying on 2000-04 Cook PVIs, but now we have 2004-08 PVIs. This can help us more accurately pin down where some of the races are headed, in view of accelerating pro-Democratic trends in, say, California or Illinois and pro-Republican trends in Arkansas and Tennessee. And rather than using 2008 margins in NY-20, NY-23, CA-10, CA-32, and IL-05, I'm using the narrower 2009 special election margins in each of those cases.
Here's a quick recap of how it works. Check out the chart of vulnerable Democrats below, which indicates that Bobby Bright is in the worst shape. Bobby Bright had the 3rd narrowest margin of victory of any Democrat (0.6%, behind only Tom Perriello at 0.2% and Scott Murphy at 0.4% in the NY-20 special), and he's in the district with the 4th worst PVI of any Democrat (R+16, behind only Chet Edwards, Gene Taylor, and Walt Minnick). Add them up for a raw vulnerability score of 7, the worst of any Democrat. Slightly below him you might notice that LA-03 gets a margin of 0 (despite that Charlie Melancon won unopposed in 2008); that's the tweak that I perform for all open seats. With PVI alone (R+12, 13th worst of any Dem-held seat), the raw score is 13, good for 3rd place.
I can already anticipate all the objections: it doesn't take into account the quality of the opposition, it doesn't take into account fundraising, it doesn't take into account whether a candidate is uniquely appealing or unappealing or campaign-savvy or rusty, and it doesn't take tough votes into account. That is all true. This is just a simple yardstick for getting the conversation started. And at any rate, if you want something more nuanced, Tom Schaller over at 538 recently put together a chart incorporating some of these other elements and still got... well... some weirder results (Gerry Connolly in VA-11 the most vulnerable? Doesn't seem likely.)
Rather than the 20 I featured in January, I'm expanding the Dem list to 50, as it looks like Democratic vulnerabilities may extend well beyond 20. Not to say that we're definitely looking at anything close to a 1994-sized event next year -- we don't have anywhere near the number of open seats up next year (yet) as in 1994, which was where the GOP did the most damage -- or that Democratic House losses in 2010 will exceed 20, but simply acknowledging that the NRCC has been successful in "spreading the field" by recruiting solid candidates in rarely-challenged Dem-held red districts, and some of the losses may come from seats outside the currently most likely suspects.
District
Rep.
Margin rating
PVI rating
Total
AL-02
Bright
3
4
7
ID-01
Minnick
6
3
9
LA-03
Open
0
13
13
MD-01
Kratovil
5
11
16
TX-17
Edwards, C.
21
1
22
AL-05
Griffith
11
12
23
MS-01
Childers
28.5
7
35.5
VA-05
Perriello
1
38
39
NY-29
Massa
7
36
43
NY-20
Murphy, S.
2
53
55
VA-02
Nye
17.5
40
57.5
GA-08
Marshall
42
16
58
PA-10
Carney
38
20
58
PA-03
Dahlkemper
9
50
59
NC-02
Open?
0
60
60
PA-04
Altmire
34
29
63
MI-07
Schauer
8
56
64
AZ-05
Mitchell
25
43
68
FL-08
Grayson
14
54
68
NM-02
Teague
36
34
70
TN-04
Davis, L.
61
9
70
NY-24
Arcuri
14
57
71
CO-04
Markey, B.
37
35
72
OH-16
Boccieri
30.5
48
78.5
AZ-01
Giffords
35
44
79
OH-15
Kilroy
4
75
79
NY-23
Owens
14
66
80
AZ-01
Kirkpatrick
49
32
81
ND-AL
Pomeroy
67
15
82
OH-18
Space
59
24
83
IN-09
Hill
57
27
84
WI-08
Kagen
22
62
84
NJ-03
Adler
16
70
86
TX-23
Rodriguez
40
47
87
NC-08
Kissell
30.5
59
89.5
UT-02
Matheson
85
5
90
NH-01
Shea-Porter
20
72
92
CA-11
McNerney
28.5
64
92.5
FL-24
Kosmas
48
45
93
SC-05
Spratt
68
25
93
OH-01
Driehaus
17.5
78
95.5
NH-02
Open
0
97
97
FL-02
Boyd
65
33
98
NC-11
Shuler
70.5
28
98.5
PA-07
Open
0
99
99
KS-03
Moore, D.
50.5
49
99.5
FL-22
Klein
23
77
100
MO-04
Skelton
95.5
6
101.5
NV-03
Titus
19
84
103
NY-19
Hall
52
51
103
Again, some of these names may not be in much danger, because of a combination of their entrenchment and the lack of much of a GOP challenge so far (Chet Edwards, Marshall, Carney). And there are a few names who aren't on the list because they faced token or no opposition last year who are facing potentially worrisome challenges this year (Snyder, Tanner). Finally, bear in mind that some of these might still turn into open seats and get bumped much higher up the list, as some of the oldsters (Skelton, Spratt) might get tempted to say "Screw it" and throw in the towel a few years earlier than planned.
Now let's turn to the vulnerable GOP seats. The good news is: the Democrats start out with 4 pickups likely in their pockets, more vulnerable than any Democratic-held seat, which is a solid bulkhead against GOP gains elsewhere. The bad news is: after that, the pickings get pretty slim.
District
Rep.
Margin rating
PVI rating
Total
DE-AL
Open
0
2
2
IL-10
Open
0
3
3
PA-06
Open
0
4
4
LA-02
Cao
5
1
6
WA-08
Reichert
16
5
21
MI-11
McCotter
17
11
28
CA-50
Bilbray
11
23
34
MN-03
Paulsen
22
12
34
FL-12
Open
0
41
41
OH-12
Tiberi
34
8
42
IL-13
Biggert
28
15
43
NJ-07
Lance
24
20
44
CA-44
Calvert
3
48
51
FL-25
Diaz-Balart, M.
18
34
52
CA-03
Lungren
15
38
53
IL-06
Roskam
44.5
9
53.5
CA-26
Dreier
33
24
57
NE-02
Terry
7
53
60
MI-02
Open
0
62
62
MN-06
Bachmann
6
58
64
PA-15
Dent
58
6
64
CA-46
Rohrabacher
26
39
65
NV-02
Heller
29
37
66
MI-08
Rogers, M.
52
16
68
MN-02
Kline
39
29
68
For comparison purposes, the January charts are over the flip...
With the 2010 election season starting to heat up a bit in the House, we thought we'd take a look back at all the incumbents who didn't seek re-election to the 111th Congress, along with the date they officially announced they weren't running again (and their reasons).
Note: Mark Udall planned to run for Senate long before the 2008 cycle began, so we've just slotted him in at the top. And if you'd like to take a look back at Republican retirements in the 2006 cycle, click here.
As you can see, things unfolded rather differently over the last two Congresses, especially compared to what we've seen so far this year. Last cycle, there were already a number of outright retirements at this point (including several shockers, like Deborah Pryce and Chip Pickering), while only three reps had announced campaigns for higher office. There were also many more retirements to come, especially on the GOP side; the most fertile months for announcements turned out to be October-November and January.
This time, we have zero retirements and a whopping eighteen members of Congress who are running for a different job. It's easy to see why we have no retirements yet - Dems are in power, and the GOP is feeling better about its chances these days. I'm personally hoping that the combination of a real healthcare bill passing, plus some Dem victories in the three key races on Nov. 3 (NJ-Gov, VA-Gov & NY-23), will help re-demoralize the Republican Party and encourage some geezers to head for the exits. At the very least, barring some kind of crazy collapse on our side, we are extremely unlikely to see a repeat of 1994, when thirty Dems announced their retirements, and the GOP picked up twenty-two open seats. So far, there are just seven blue open seats this cycle, and only three are potentially competitive.
Last October, Representative Michele "Crazy as Steve King" Bachmann (MN-06) disgraced herself on "Hardball" and sparked a ridiculously successful fundraising drive for her Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and kicked in a few bucks for Tinklenberg myself, but I was dismayed to see bloggers continue to help him raise money even after he'd raised more than $750,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had promised to spend an additional $1 million in his district. Within a few days of Bachmann's notorious comments, Tinklenberg had more money than he needed to run a solid media and GOTV campaign during the final two weeks before the election.
Here is my analysis of the 2008 election in my home state of California. As I mentioned in my 50-state analysis, California was a mixed bag on November 4, 2008. The presidential results were anything but disappointing, while we came up short further down the ballot, from the House races to the state legislature and the 12 ballot measures.
I was amazed as I saw polls leading up to Election Day showing Obama up by more than 20 over McCain, and was astonished at the 61-37 Obama blowout that ended up occurring on Election Night (and the calling of the whole Left Coast for Obama, putting him over 270 electoral votes and making him the winner!). I couldn't wait to check out the county results and see which ones flipped for Obama and which ones were close.
As the final absentee ballots rolled in, I was able to check out the numbers, and see that Obama way outperformed Kerry, winning by 3 million votes and pumping up his national popular vote numbers very nicely. In fact, Obama outperformed every single Democratic presidential candidate except one, scoring the second-best Democratic presidential performance in California's history after Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. As you can see, Obama gained 1.5 million votes over Kerry, while McCain, who claimed he could compete in California, lost half a million votes from Bush.
2008: Obama 8,274,473; McCain 5,011,781
2004: Kerry 6,745,485; Bush 5,509,826
Looking through the voting histories of the California counties that went to Obama, I found that Obama broke some longtime Republican streaks in quite a few counties. Obama won a majority of the vote in two counties that last voted Democratic presidentially with more than 50% of the vote in 1976, Merced and Trinity.
Most significant are the six counties that in 2008 voted Democratic presidentially with more than 50% for the first time since 1964: Nevada, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Ventura
And finally, San Diego County, which last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate with a majority of the vote in 1944, also delivered a majority of the vote to Obama!
Obama also came close to winning majorities, instead winning close pluralities, in Butte, Fresno, and Stanislaus Counties. The last Democrat to win a majority in Butte and Fresno was Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and the last Democrat to win a majority in Stanislaus was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Now I will do a tour of the state, north to south. I will give a bit of an overall summary of California's counties: Obama improved upon Kerry's performance in all 58 of them. The amount of improvement varies from region to region, and the numbers are over the flip.
Now that I have some spare time, I can compare my predictions against the actual results from the presidential, governor, Senate, and competitive House races in 2008, and show the differences between the numbers. The difference is how much more Democratic/Republican my predictions are from the actual numbers. Some of my predictions were fairly accurate, while some were way off, due to lack of polling in the noncompetitive races (and I am not including the Arkansas Senate race due to no polling at all because Pryor was unopposed), and due to the difficulty of predicting some of the races, namely most House races, the Alaska races, and some other races due to huge third-party noise. Numbers are below the flip.
On January 3, 2008, roughly 240,000 Iowans attended Democratic precinct caucuses, and at least 90,000 of them ended up in Barack Obama's corner.
However we felt about Obama during the primaries or the general election campaign, whatever we think about his substantive and symbolic actions since the election, we can all agree that he would not be sitting in the Oval Office if Iowa caucus-goers had put him in third place, or even a distant second.
I started writing this diary several times last year. I kept abandoning it because emotions were so raw on Democratic blogs that I felt the piece would only ignite a flamewar. Since more than a year has passed, I decided to try one more time.
I do not mean to start an argument or pretend that I have all the answers. I just enjoy thinking about counterfactual history (such as this or this).
After the jump I will try to figure out whether Hillary Clinton or John Edwards could have beaten Obama in Iowa.
A Democratic President, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House. We've been waiting for this for fifteen years - that's half my lifetime. And it's finally here. Wow.
A year ago tonight, nearly 240,000 Iowans spent a couple of hours in overcrowded rooms during the Democratic precinct caucuses.
Thousands of others came to freezing cold Iowa to knock on doors or make phone calls for their presidential candidate in late December and early January.
Share any memories you have about caucusing or volunteering in this thread.
After the jump I re-posted my account of what happened at my own caucus. I was a precinct captain for Edwards.
I do most of my writing at the Iowa progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland.
Last year at this time I was scrambling to make as many phone calls and knock on as many doors as I could before the Iowa caucuses on January 3.
This week I had a little more time to reflect on the year that just ended.
After the jump I've linked to Bleeding Heartland highlights in 2008. Most of the links relate to Iowa politics, but some also covered issues or strategy of national importance.
I only linked to a few posts about the presidential race. I'll do a review of Bleeding Heartland's 2008 presidential election coverage later this month.
At long last, we've finally crunched the numbers on the 2008 edition of the Great Swing State Project Predictions Contest. Without further ado (and remember, the lower the score, the better), the winners are:
Place
User
Score
1
ahfdemocrat
59
T-2
Englishlefty
60
T-2
Tyler Oakley
60
What a photo finish - the next-closest score was 61! Congratulations to all our winners, and our deepest thanks to everyone who participated. We had over 110 entrants - double the number from two years ago.
If you're a winner, please email me so that I can send you some delicious chocolate babka, as promised (and check out Wikipedia to learn more about this wondrous treat, including the famous Seinfeld episode). Now, since I've been an utter bum and never managed to send prizes to the 2006 winners, all the previous victors (Democraticavenger, tyler, DCal and Craig) can also email me to collect. And if this year's runner up Tyler Oakley is the same person as "tyler" from two years ago, then that'll mean a double helping of babka!
If you're curious to see how you fared, I've uploaded a complete spreadsheet here. Note that I didn't compute the tiebreak as it wasn't necessary, but you can find those guesses on the third tab. (Also, a few users failed to offer predictions for all fourteen races or entered their results too late and thus aren't on this spreadsheet - sorry!) And here's how the community predicted things as a whole:
Race
SSP Avg.
Actual
WA-Gov
4
6
AK-Sen
10
1
MS-Sen-B
-5
-10
CA-46
-5
-10
FL-25
1
-6
LA-01
-13
-31
NE-02
-1
-4
NH-01
6
6
NM-02
4
12
NY-13
18
28
OH-02
-3
-7
PA-11
-2
3
TX-22
-6
-7
WY-AL
-1
-10
I'll leave it to you guys to grouse over where we missed things and why. In any event, thanks once again to everyone who submitted predictions, and we look forward to doing this again in two years' time!
