Charlie Cook on the 108 Most Competitive House Races

Good news/bad news: Cook rates 81 of these seats lean Democrat or better, and a mere 27 as lean Republican or better. But that's a bit misleading, because most of the competitive seats are held by Democrats -- in other words, the GOP has lost most competitive/swing districts, and so any most competitive seats we could win represent pick-ups.

A little bit of more good news: Many of the seats rated as lean Democrat are actually Republican district. Cook is factoring in the power of incumbency, I guess, which may be a dubious advantage, given that anti-incumbent sentiment is at its highest level in two decades.

Cook's report seems exactly congruent with his previous forecast -- it's likely that the GOP will pick up seats, and 20 is about the median number. I sort of think he's trapped by his previous analysis, because the Democrats' situation has in fact deterioriated since his last forecast, but that doesn't seem reflected in this new analysis.

There doesn't seem much recognition here that Gallup shows a big shift to the Republicans on the generic ballot, or that the unemployment rate is at 10.2% officially and will likely go to 12%, and that the real unemployment rate is somewhere around 17.5% (and some argue it's as high as 22%), and that the employment situation is just dismal in virtually every way.

Update: For instance:

For how unrealistic Cook is, just look at Carol Shea Porter the two termer from NH listed as likely D. In two very large D years (06 and 08) she had 51% and change against the sitting rep Jeb Bradley. Bradley challenged her again in '08. She is a liberal nut who is a reliable vote for Pelosi. '10 is going to be VERY anti incombent and although most people believe NH was a republican state, it was never. It is a strong libertarian state. They have no sales tax, no income tax, the state legislature is part time and get paid something like $200 per year, etc. So to think a very liberal rep who does not fit her district and couldn't break 52% in the two strongest years for D's since '92 is crazy. She has a very good challenger in Manchester NH mayor and the R candidate for senate Kelly Ayotte is ahead in the polls and will be a very strong candidate (she's the former AG, AG's are appointed by the Gov in NH, not elected but she is very well known statewide.

Yeah, and Owens in NY win's by 5% in a mess of a special election, breaks 4 promises that he ran on the first day and it's lean D.

Cook should include a muliplier with his predictions. What he says will happen then apply the multiplier to see what will happen. But yeah, independants break 2 to 1 in NJ and VA and he just ignores it.

Thanks to CraigA. for pointing that out.

So bad, in fact, that Obama and Reid are cooking up Stimulus 2.0. Because, you know, the last one worked so well, why not do it again?

I mean, when you've got yourself a $1.4 trillion deficit, why not throw another $250 billion into the National Money Hole?

posted by Ace at 01:18 PM

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