Predictions, forecasts, and guesses about the November midterms speak of a “red tsunami.” Amy Walter, editor of the highly regarded Cook Political Report, dampened some of that enthusiasm with her carefully reasoned article: Republicans are likely to flip between 15 and 25 seats in the House in November. Depending on who actually takes the oath of office in January 2023, at least the new Congress will have the ability to stop the madness.
On the surface, it looks as if the November elections are the Republicans’ to lose: The National Republican Congressional Commission (NRCC) just expanded its list of “vulnerable,” winnable districts from 72 to 82. Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House after the 1994 “red tsunami” flipped 54 seats, recently predicted:
I believe an immediate, consistent, and effective Republican application of the lessons of 2021 could lead to a 40- to 70-seat gain in the House; at least a four-seat gain in the Senate; and gains in governorships, state legislatures, and local offices including school boards next year.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, after reviewing a poll he conducted for NBC, concluded that the Democrats are “headed for a catastrophic election [in November].”
Walter’s reasoning:
In 2010, Republicans won the House vote by almost seven points, a 17-point improvement from their 2008 showing. They ended up winning a whopping 64 seats that year.
If that seven-point shift holds up, then it follows that, wrote Walter, “At a very crude level, we could say that it would shift the 2020 vote margin in every CD (congressional district by) about 7 points more Republican.”
There are 435 congressional districts. How many are in play? “Any district that Biden carried by less than 7 points would be in danger of flipping to the GOP.” That number, according to Walter, is just 21 congressional districts.
The good news is that Republicans already hold eight of those 21 districts. So, the contest will be decided in just 13 districts.
As Walter noted:
Every metric we use to analyze the political environment — the president’s approval rating, the mood of the electorate, the enthusiasm gap — all point to huge gains for the GOP this fall.
But those metrics are bumping up against an increasingly “sorted” House with few marginal seats and few incumbents sitting in the “wrong district.”
As such, the more likely scenario for this fall is a GOP gain in the 15-25 seat range.
Opinion pollster FiveThirtyEight agrees with Walter. In its own analysis, just 33 out of 435 House seats fall into its “highly competitive” category.
The first state primaries are 40 days away; the November midterm election is six months away. As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said, “A week is a long time in politics.”
That means that there’s still plenty of time for Republicans to blow an historic opportunity. And it’s also more than enough time for Biden and company to chip away at its dwindling Democrat base with its dangerous and treasonous buffoonery to make the Republican victory in the November elections even more historic than Gingrich or McInturff are predicting.
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