First 2008 House Forecast, Part One: Democratic Targets

by: Chris Bowers

Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 18:09


I just spent the last five hours putting together my first comprehensive look at Democratic House targets for 2008. In the target list, you can see all seventy-seven seats I listed, including:

  • The 21 "top tier" targets that Democrats have hte best chance of capturing from Republicans;
  • 15 other target seats that were close in 2006 (Tier 2A);
  • 21 other seats with a Partisan Voting Index lower than the amount Democrats won by in 2006 (Tier 2B);
  • 20 other developing targets (Tier 3).

So, check it out: 2008 Democratic House Targets. I will be slowly building this first target list into a full-blown forecast over the next few months. Hopefully, it will be half as good as the one I put together in 2006. Your comments always help me make better forecasts, as well.

Partisan Voting Indexes are produced and provided by the Cook Political Report. 

Chris Bowers :: First 2008 House Forecast, Part One: Democratic Targets

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First 2008 House Forecast, Part One: Democratic Targets | 23 comments
Nebraska (0.00 / 0)
I'm glad to see NE-02 and NE-03 in there. 

If Kleeb runs for the house seat (rather than the senate) I think he can really win that race.  Especially with Jane Flemming helping to run the campaign. 

I would mark that one as the tightest race in Nebraska in 2008. 

...unless Jim Esch gets back in the game in NE-02 like he did in 2006. 

To be fair, I worked for Jim in '06, so I'm biased.  But I consistently said Jim would come closest to knocking out a GOP-er in Nebraska in '06, and low and behold, he did.  Only 9,000 votes from winning, and closer than Kleeb came to defeating Smith, even though Jim spent 1/3 as much money and was outspent 3:1. 

So keep an eye on both those races. 

Florida (4.00 / 1)
There are a lot of great races in Florida in 2008, especially in the Tampa area. 

One race that's not on anyone's radar yet, but should be, is the FL-12 race against Adam Putnam. 

Putnam has never recieved a serious challenger (one that spent over 40k that is)... ever.  Despite the fact that his district  is majority Democratic, and voted 60:40 for Bill Nelson (D) in 2006. 

Now that Putnam is the 3rd ranking house member for the GOP, and is on the cable news constantly attacking Pelosi and spreading GOP talking points, you should expect him to get his first real taste of what a grassroots challenge is like. 

More info about the district, and about Adam Putnam, can be found at the Putnam Report

http://www.putnamrep...

One Possible Enhancement (0.00 / 0)
What about the regional norming of winnable seats by Joshua Grossman of Progressive Punch that Kid Oakland wrote about here?

It would be helpful to have a column right next to the PVI that would give the regionally-normed range that the seat is in.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

NJ-5 (0.00 / 0)
This was a pretty close race in 2006 and Republican winger Scott Garrett has lost ground every time out of the box.  This deserves to be somewhere on your list.

Garrett is vulnerable not because of the district but because of Garrett.  It's a moderate Republican district.  Garrett is not a moderate Republican.

BTW, NJ has the most moderate Republican House delegation in the Northeast for any state with more than one GOPer, boasting an average Progressive Punch rating of 16.61. (NY by contrast averages 12.30 with a low of 6.59 in Tom Reynolds)  Everybody else is 15.96 or higher; Garrett is a truly pathetic 4.48.  Add to that his poor, even rude, relationship with groups in the district and he is begging to be picked off.

Progressive Punch Scores (0.00 / 0)
Might be good to add.  We know they're all low, but as David points out, there's low, and then there's low.

The question is, would they add anything useful in the presentation format used here, or are they only useful in the broader context that David's commentary provides.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
FINALLY!!! (4.00 / 1)
Charlie Brown gets some love!

On twitter: @BobBrigham
to clarify (0.00 / 0)
Early love.


We're going to win this seat, Brown has game!


For more, here is Stoller and Charlie Brown.




On twitter: @BobBrigham

[ Parent ]
Now let's spell his name right n/t (0.00 / 0)


John McCain opposes the GI Bill.
[ Parent ]
MI-07 (0.00 / 0)
Walberg is a freshman.

I think both seats should be ranked higher.. DCCC polling shows Schauer (D) actually ahead of Walberg (R) at this point. The rumor is that MI-09 polling for Peters is also good.

Where are the results of that poll... (0.00 / 0)
Online?

If not NOW, when?
[ Parent ]
Here (0.00 / 0)
http://www.mirsnews....

Subscription-only though.

"..polling from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that shows him beating U.S. Rep. Tim WALBERG (R-Tipton) in a head-to-head match-up in the 7th Congressional District by three percentage points, according to one source. Once positives and negatives are read to those polled, Schauer's margin grows to as much as eight percentage points."

[ Parent ]
A few disagreements... (4.00 / 1)
MI-07 and very likely MI-09 too should be on the top list, as noted above.

Plus, like we're assuming with VA-SEN, we should already assume Ralph Regula will retire, and probably Bill Young too.

There's a few fantasies on the 3rd list: Jim Ramstad in particular, and Paul Ryan probably too. Paul has been facing the same dead-beat candidate 3 cycles in a row; I'd like to see how vulnerable he really is, but it'd still be tough.

MO-06 and WV-02 deserve to be on a Tier 1.5 too, as they've got great challengers and none of them sit on safe ground.

I also wonder if Democrats are going to give Drake (VA-02) a free pass. That'd be horrible, IMO, seeing as how she nearly lost in '06. The Hampton Roads (and Virginia Beach in particular) is the place we've gotta carry if we want to win statewide in Virginia.

Would like to second that. (4.00 / 2)
Based on recruiting, MO-06, MI-07, MI-09, WV-02, and OH-16 all should be... well, probably in that "top 21 targets" section.

I'd guess that the DCCC will spend more seriously in each of those five districts than they will in CO-04, WY-AL, and maybe more than in OH-02 and PA-15. (Who is this Slobhan?  I hadn't heard about him/her yet.)

Granted, the DCCC's attitude is not the only metric we in the netroots should be using to define "top targets."  But still, by most standards it looks like these are gonna be heavily targeted seats. (WV-02 might be bluster, I dunno.)

--------

It looks like 2008 is gonna be for the Great Lakes what 2006 was for the Northeast Corridor.  We're actually going for Reynolds, Kuhl, Walsh, English, Regula, Pryce, Chabot, Schmidt, Knollenberg, Walberg, Kirk, Hastert, and maybe Mike Rogers or Jerry Weller or Mark Souder if we get lucky in recruiting.  That is a big Great Lakes push, and that's just the seats the DCCC has a declared interest in.  In other words, that's leaving out undeveloped possibilities like McHugh, Tiberi, McCotter, Roskam, and Paul Ryan.

We also still have some mop-up to do in the Northeast Corridor:  Shays, Gerlach, Ferguson, Castle, King, Fossella, and Sununu in the core; Dent, Tim Murphy, Drake, and Susan Collins in the periphery.  There might be other winnable seats in New Jersey, I don't know that delegation well.  We're not playing for all of this list so far, but as a national strategy it would make bigtime sense to push hard in the Northeast.  The GOP is down down down in this region and we should move in for the kill.

Incidentally, it makes excellent national sense to be making a big push in the Great Lakes this cycle.  The Northeast and West Coast have always led in anti-Bush sentiment, with the more temperamentally conservative, but economically desperate, Great Lakes lagging a bit behind.  Michigan was already more hostile to the GOP than most people expected in 06; by 08, the energy in this region should have really ripened into a situation where we can make big sweeping gains.  The Northeast Corridor gave us eight House seats and three Senate seats in 06, and nearly gave us three more House seats (Shays Gerlach Drake).  I would be completely unsurprised to see us win nine or ten seats in Ohio+Michigan+Illinois+westernNY this time around.

Outside those two regions, I don't see the same kind of thing going on; at least not in the House.  In the West, there's a few urban districts (Wilson, Porter, and Reichert), there's one open swing district (Renzi), there's a few nutcase seats (Cubin, Musgrave, Sali, Adrian Smith), and a few corruption seats (Doolittle, Gary Miller, Don Young).  But I don't see the systematic opportunity that the Great Lakes and Northeast present us with: a once healthy and competitive party that has seen its longterm base of support completely erode out from under it.  There are individual targets of opportunity in the West and the South, sure, but in 06 we saw a lot of Republicans in the Northeast and Great Lakes post poor numbers for no particular reason (Jeb Bradley, Nancy Johnson, Charlie Dent, Phil English, Joe Knollenberg, Lincoln Chafee, etc).  I take that as a sign of fundamental weakening, and I think it has yet to hit the West and South as hard as it is about to hit the Great Lakes and the leftovers in the Northeast.

[ Parent ]
Agreed (0.00 / 0)
We really should focus attention regionally where there is broad erosion, and the Great Lakes region plus upstate New York (hey, I sang "The Erie Canal" as a kid, upstate NY is the Great Lakes Region!) certainly fills the bill.

However, I also think that the West in general is vulnerable if we make the right case on a regional basis, which is basically that the GOP has turned into a Southern Party of sleaze and sanctimony, which is totally out of touch with the West's more libertarian sentiments and its pressing reality-based needs to adjust to the changing realities of global warming, economic revitalization, finding cooperative approaches that preserve the environment and promote sound economic growth, etc.

In short, forget the actual top of the ticket, we need to run a virtual campaign of Brian Schweitzer vs. Tom DeLay.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
VA-2 (0.00 / 0)
It's a gerrymander.  Driving around while on vacation, you can tell whixh towns are in Bobby Scott's district and which towns are in Thelma Drake's just by the racial composition.  Bobby's district winds around quite a bit to pick up as many black (and Democratic) voters as possible.

Virginia Beach is a strange town.  Pat Robertson and Edgar Cayce both in the mix.  Most of it looks like suburban type sprawl.  Lots of developments and some older neighborhoods.

If we can win in Virginia Beach plus NoVA, Richmond, Norfolk, Chesapeake,Hampton, the rest of the state just doesn't have enough votes to elect somebody statewide.

[ Parent ]
one correction (0.00 / 0)
The PA-15 challenger is Siobhan "Sam" Bennett.
IL-10 Dan Seals campaign deserves the (0.00 / 0)
Tier 1 consideration. Mark Kirk, the incumbent is jockeying mightily these last few weeks. He is finally appearing to perform as what we should expect from an elected official: opposing the BP Amoco announcement of dumping toxins into Lake Michigan to an actual real, face-to-face town hall meeting just this week. Who knew?

Dan Seals officially launches his nomination petition drive this weekend. The district experienced a strong grassroots effort in '06 and has the interest of the many energetic and committed volunteers once again. This district deserves better and can gain an actual representative of the district by electing Seals.

A coupla issues with that list (4.00 / 1)
Dan Seals has a primary opponent, a very well funded washington insider and Lieberman supporter named Jay Footlik.  I think Dan will beat him if he can overcome the fundraising disadvantage.  Footlik's a carpetbagger (grew up in the district, but hasn't lived there in decades), and he's doing everything in his power to alienate local activists.  His proxies run around on local blogs and trash dan seals while telling us that the only person on earth who can beat kirk is Footlik, and if you don't understand that, you are a moron. 

Anyway, Seals is going to need all the help he can get to overcome this challenge from Lieberdem Footlik.  (He worked in a high level job for Lieberman's Presidential run, and he has donated to Lieberman on a number of occasions, including the 2006 general election).

In regards to IL-11, there is a candidate named Jerry Weber.  He seems to be solid on the issues, but, at this point, seems like nothing more than a sacrificial lamb. 

In regards to IL-6, I haven't heard a word of challenging Peter Roskam.

IL-18 seems to be getting a very strong candidate for that open seat.  Dick Versace (former head coach of the Indiana Pacers and Bradley University basketball team-Bradley's in Peoria, and Versace is well known in those parts) is exploring a run.  At this point, IL-18 is a better pick-up opportunity than IL-6 is.  There are some other candidates exploring a run as well, but if Versace runs, he'll be the favorite by far (I think) due to his high name recognition.  There's going to be a bitter Republican primary in 18, as well.  Aaron Schock, the 26 year old GOP wunderkind from Peoria (and LaHood protege) is running for the seat, but so is LaHood's kid.  Schock won a state legislature seat in 2004, which was a big Democratic year in Illinois.  He beat an incumbent Democrat in a blue district.

The other big opportunity in Illinois is primarying Dan Lipinski.  Mark Pera is running to Lipinski's left and is doing pretty decently in fundraising.  However, Lipinski has lined up a proxy to run alongside Pera and split the reform vote, which is standard machine practice to derail a reform candidate.  Pera's got a lot to overcome as a result.

clarification (0.00 / 0)
Versace would be the favorite to win the Dem primary if he wins.  The republican would likely be favored in the General Election, whether it's Schock or LaHood's kid.

LaHood, for the record, counseled his kid not to run, though he said he'll support his kid if he does run.

[ Parent ]
I essentially (0.00 / 0)
agree with you but I think that your assessment that Dan Seals is at a fundraising disadvantage is wrong. Seals raised seriously good cash in the last cycle besides nearly winning the seat. And, these 2 reasons are what attracts a carpet bagger and wedge issue candidate such as Footlik. From all appearances, Jay has raised East Coast $$ from Lieberman and other East Coast candidate lists.

The difference between Seals and Footlik are stark: Dan had a 6-mo fellowship @ Lieberman's Hill office. Footlik chose to work for Lieberman. Dan lives and votes in the state. Footlik chose the Beltway. Dan appeals to all voters in the district. Footlik chooses hairsplitting Zionist vs Jewish terminology to drive a unwelcome wedge between voters in the district.

[ Parent ]
Though in general (0.00 / 0)
I don't like to see Dem candidates getting trash talked, in this case I find it completely delightful.  Dan is an exceptional candidate, and I hope he chews Footlik up and spits him out, and then does the same to Kirk in November.

What is really so upsetting about this is that there wouldn't even have been a competitive race in that district in 2006 without two things:

1. Years of incredibly hard work by local activists to build an organization and recruit candidates -- and Dan is the one that they want. In fact, Footlik was one of the people they talked to about running in 2006 but he turned them down.

2. Well over a year (perhaps years) of incredibly hard work by Dan himself, who has stepped into his role as candidate with humility and grace.  Running for office is NOT an easy thing to do.  He deserves to be there, he can win, and he WILL win.

No contest -- go Dan Seals! :-) 

[ Parent ]
AK-1 (0.00 / 0)
Sending Don Young into retirement won't be easy, which is why we're starting early with the fundraising and TV ads.  Here's our first one, a :30 spot running Alaska-wide starting tomorrow morning: wish us luck!


TBD (0.00 / 0)
Is that ANY race with more than one person running? Or do they have to be seen as credible challengers?

John McCain opposes the GI Bill.
First 2008 House Forecast, Part One: Democratic Targets | 23 comments
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