2010 House Forecast

by: Matt

Wed Jul 01, 2009 at 15:00:00 PM EDT

Welcome to the first edition of the 2010 DemConWatch House Forecast, a summary of the best House forecasts.

House Forecast: 253.6 (-3.4) (See the latest Senate Forecast here)

The House Forecast is an average of the projections of the Democratic held seats in the 2011 House.

This early in the cycle, only two of our sources, Cook Political Report, and Rothenberg, have issued House Forecasts so far, and they average out to a net loss of 3.4 seats for the Democrats in the House. Note that with the large majority the Democrats currently have, Democrats would gladly trade a single digit loss in the House for a pickup of 2-3 seats in the Senate.

But it remains early in the cycle. Swing State Project lists 44 Representatives who might still decide not to run for reelection, either due to retirement or deciding to run for another office. If half of them move on, and half of those seats are competitive, another 10 seats could see significant battles next year.

Another issue is that, with redistricting coming in 2012, challengers are looking at whether it makes sense to run now, or possibly wait until 2012 to see how their district is reshaped, or even if it exists at all!

Here's The Fix's list of the top 10 seats most likely to switch (All seats show up on our chart except DE-AL):

10: CA-44 (R currently) - Dems just fell short of a big upset here in '08.
9: MS-1 (D) - Childers won this in the '08 Special Election, but Obama got only 38% here.
8. AL-2 (D)
7. PA-6 (R) - Will Gerlach (R) even stick around to run?
6. NY-23 (R) - With McHugh departing to be Secretary of the Army, the Special Election will be a tossup.
5. MD-1 (D)
4. NH-1 (D) - Rep. Carol Shea Porter (D) will have a tough fight.
3. DE-AL (R) - Assuming Castle retires or runs for Senate.
2. ID-1 (D) - The toughest Democratic hold in this really red district.
1. LA-2 (R) - This district is way bluer than ID-1 is red.  The only question is, who wins the Dem primary?

The House Forecast for each source gives Democrats 1.0 seats in a race that is projected Solid/Likely (D)  for the Democrat, 0.8 seats for a Democrat-Lean (DL), 0.5 seats for a a Tossup (T), 0.2 seats for a Republican-Lean (RL), and obviously 0 seats for a solid/likely (R) Republican seat.

The House seats are sorted by the likelihood of the seat being won by a Democrat, so the most solid Democratic seats are at top, the most solid Republican seats are at the bottom, and the Tossups are in the middle. Only those seats that have at least one of the rankings showing the seat as Lean or Tossup are shown.