Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller have produced an excellent tool. They have given us a list of the 60 (.pdf) most likely to change hands Congressional seats. What’s more, they have provided a lot of useful information, including how much cash the candidates have on hand, how their districts tend to vote, and more. We need 15 seats to make John Conyers Jr. the head of the Judiciary Committee and Henry Waxman the chairman of Government Reform. That is Swinging Dick Cheney’s most Big Time nightmare. Let’s make it happen!! Or else, why go on living?
Bowers predicts 15-25 seats. Markos predicts 7-14. I am more optimistic (all caveats to proper tabulation still apply).
MyDD lists 22 Republican seats that are leaning Dem or are toss-ups. They list no Dem seats that now lean Republican, no Dem toss-ups, and only three Democratic held seats in all of Congress that even merely Lean Dem.
Here is a list of the most likely Dem pick-ups. Republicans are listed first.
CT-02 Lean Dem Simmons Courtney
CT-04 Lean Dem Shays Farrell
IN-09 Lean Dem Sodrel Hill
IA-01 Lean Dem Whalen Braley
NY-24 Lean Dem Meier Acuri
PA-06 Lean Dem Gerlach Murphy
TX-22 Lean Dem ????? LampsonTier 1 Projected Gain: 8-12
AZ-08 Toss-up ????? ?????
CO-07 Toss-up O’Donnell Perlmutter
CT-05 Toss-up Johnson Murphy
FL-22 Toss-up Shaw Klein
IL-06 Toss-up Roskam Duckworth
IN-08 Toss-up Hostettler Ellsworth
KY-04 Toss-up Davis Lucas
MN-06 Toss-up Bachmann Wetterling
NM-01 Toss-up Wilson Madrid
NC-11 Toss-up Taylor Schuler
OH-01 Toss-up Chabot Cranley
OH-18 Toss-up ???? Space
PA-07 Toss-up Weldon Sestak
PA-08 Toss-up Fitzpatrick Murphy
WI-08 Toss-up Gard ?????
WA-08 Toss-up Reichert Burner
First things first. Patrick Murphy is going to win in PA-08. Bet on it. Joe Sestak is going to wipe the floor with Curt Weldon in PA-07. The only way he can lose is if he fails to go negative and point out that Curt Weldon is certifiably insane. We are going to pick up between 5 and 7 seats in Pennsylvania and Connecticut alone. I believe we will win the 6,7,8, and 10th disticts in PA, and the 2,4, and 5 in CT. We must make sure that Ken Lucas gets the cash he needs to win in KY-04. But there are some second tier races that I am confident we will win too.
McNerney is going to take down Pombo in CA-11. I think Wulsin will take out Mean Jean Schmidt in OH-02. Stender is poised to take out Ferguson in NJ-07. Gillebrand will knock off Sweeney in NY-20.
The Republicans are not likely to pick up any Democratic held seats anywhere in the country with the possible exception of WV-01, where Mollohan is mired in a corruption scandal. That is amazing in and of itself. But even more amazing is that the Dems have a real shot at the Wyoming at large seat held by Cubin and the ID-01 held by Sali. Dems are targetting Florida seats in 9, 13, 16 and 22. Dems are looking at IN 2 and 8, and KY 3 and 4. We have already picked up Tom DeLay’s TX-22.
My feeling is that we are going to lose a couple of Bower’s Tier One races, but we are going to clean up on a lot of tier two and three races and more than make up for it. Say goodbye, J.D. Hayworth.
In the Senate I predict that we will win the seats in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Montana, Missouri, and Virginia. Tennessee is another real possibility. And if we get really lucky, we can pick up Nevada and Arizona. Best case scenario, we will have 53 Democratic seats and one held by Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont. More likely, we will have 51 seats with one held by Bernie Sanders.
In Congress, I predict a pickup of between 23-32 seats.
Of course, this all depends on the country being at peace and the votes getting counted accurately.
What are your projections and what is going on in your congressional race?
