Rahm Emanuel no longer heads the DCCC, but he’s paying close attention. And he’s giving people a head-fake, setting low expectatations:
“North of 20 and less than 30,” is how Emanuel answers when I ask how many seats he expects his side to gain. “Yesterday I would have said 22, today I’m at 26. The way things are going, I need to keep opening up a bigger band.”
Based on the latest available polling, the Democrats are set to lose two seats: PA-11 Paul Kanjorski and FL-16 Tim Mahoney. Let’s look at the Republican-held seats where the Democratic challenger is ahead in at least one recent poll.
1. AK-AL Berkowitz, 2. AL-02 Bright, 3. AZ-01 Fitzpatrick, 4. AZ-03 Lord, 5. CA-04 Brown, 6. CO-04 Markey, 7. CT-04 Himes, 8. FL-08 Grayson, 9. FL-24 Kosmas, 10. ID-01 Minnick, 11. IL-10 Seals, 12. IL-11 Halvorson, 13. KY-02 Boswell, 14. MD-01 Kratovil, 15. MI-07 Schauer, 16. MI-09 Peters, 17. MN-03 Madia, 18. MN-06 Tinklenberg, 19. MO-09 Baker, 20. NC-08 Kissell, 21. NJ-03 Adler, 22. NJ-07 Stender, 23. NM-01 Heinrich, 24. NM-02 Teague, 25. NY-13 McMahon, 26. NY-25 Maffei, 27. NY-29 Massa, 28. OH-01 Driehaus, 29. OH-15 Kilroy, 30. OH-16 Boccieri, 31. PA-03 Dahlkemper, 32. VA-11 Connelly, 33. WA-08 Burner, 34. WY-AL Trauner.
Now a couple of these races, like Gary Trauner’s in Wyoming, have some conflicting polling that shows the Republican ahead. But the Democrats should be favored to win close to 100% of these seats. And these are only the seats where at least one recent poll shows the Democrat ahead. Accounting for the two anticipated Democratic losses, this looks like the floor for the Democrats is a pick-up of approximately 32 House seats. No, we won’t win all of the above contests, but we’ll win plenty that are not on that list. I still think 45 seats is a good plus or minus to work with. Where will we get the extra 13 seats?
There are a half-dozen potentially competitive seats in California, two seats in Nevada, a seat in Nebraska, two seats in Texas, a second Alabama seat, five more in Florida, one in South Carolina, three more in Virginia, two more in New Jersey, two more in Pennsylvania, two more in New York, two more in Ohio, and two more in Illinois. Even Minnesota has another potential seat. Iowa has two potential pick-ups. Oklahoma has a potential seat. And then there are seats that are on no one’s radar.
Obama is creating a turnout with characteristics that no one has seen before. It’s very hard to poll. There’s a lot more early voting. Black turnout is extremely high. When Rahm tells you that he expects to pick-up less than thirty seats, he’s lowballing you and setting expectations.
