The Yellow Brick Road to Maintaining a House Majority

Recently, the University of Virginia Center for Politics laid out a roadmap Democrats could follow in order to take back the House of Representatives.  The road map categorized the seats by competitiveness.  I have laid out a “yellow brick road” that Republicans can follow in order to maintain control of the House of Representatives.  Take a look:

 

1.      Minimize losses in California.  Republicans have to defend seven Republican-held seats won by Hillary Clinton in the Golden State, which has effectively turned into a one-party state at the state level thanks to fifty years of low-skilled immigration.  While the top-two primary shut Republicans out of the Senate race, a Republican emerged as the second in the gubernatorial race, meaning that conservatives have a reason to come out and vote on Election Day, especially if they want to do away with the gas tax.  Republicans look doomed in California’s 49^th Congressional District, which I included on my list of the top 10 most likely Democratic House pickups.  On the other hand, Republicans look well-positioned to hold California’s 21^st Congressional District.  I included the open California’s 39^th Congressional District on my list of the top 10 closest Congressional races.  Republicans probably cannot afford to lose any more than two additional seats in California.  As of right now, California’s 45^th Congressional District looks like the most likely pickup, while the Democrats still hope to flip California’s 10^th Congressional District, California’s 25^th Congressional District, and California’s 48^th Congressional District blue.  In order to do that, they would have to oust incumbents, always a harder task than winning an open seat. The Democrats hope that California’s 50^th Congressional District will turn blue as a result of the indictment of its Congressman, Duncan Hunter. (Total: DEM +3)

2.   Run the table in Florida, Illinois, Texas, and Washington.  In these four states, the Republicans have to defend seven seats carried by Hillary Clinton.  It looks like they may actually have a shot to successfully defend all of them.  Real Clear Politics lists Florida’s 26^th Congressional District, Florida’s 27^th Congressional District, Illinois’s 6^th Congressional District, Texas’s 7^th Congressional District, and Washington’s 8^th Congressional Districts as toss-ups. Republican Will Hurd has a huge lead in Texas’s 23^rd Congressional District, which looked like one of the Republicans’ most vulnerable seats at the beginning of the cycle. It looks like Republicans may have the hardest time holding onto Texas’s 32^nd District.  The race in Florida’s 15^th Congressional District seems unusually tight and therefore it has found a spot in the toss-up section of the Real Clear Politics House map.   (Subtotal: DEM +3)

3.      Break even in Minnesota.  Republicans have two solid targets in Minnesota, in the form of open seats.  At the same time, the Democrats have decided to target Minnesota’s 2^nd and 3^rd Congressional Districts.  I included the 3^rd District on my list of the top 10 most likely Democratic House pickups and included both the 1^st and 8^th Districts on my list of the top 10 most likely Republican House pickups.  Real Clear Politics lists MN-2 and MN-3 as “lean Democratic,” MN-8 as “lean Republican” and MN-1 as “toss-up.”  (Subtotal: DEM +3)

4.      Minimize losses in Pennsylvania.  Thanks to court-ordered redistricting, it looks like Democrats will pick up at least four seats in Pennsylvania this year. The previous map of Congressional districts, Hillary Clinton won six of the eighteen Congressional districts while President Trump won the remaining twelve.  Under the new map, Hillary won eight of the eighteen Congressional districts, while President Trump won ten. Under the new map, Pennsylvania’s 6^th District, narrowly won under the old map by Hillary Clinton, became more Democratic, while All four of these districts have secured spots on my top 10 most likely Democratic House pickups.  Democrats also have their eye on Pennsylvania’s 1^st District, narrowly won by Hillary Clinton under the new map.  Democrats would also like to pick up Pennsylvania’s 10^th Congressional District, a solid Republican district on the old map, as well as Pennsylvania’s 16^th Congressional District, which became slightly less Republican as a result of the redistricting.  Republicans can probably afford to lose no more than four seats in Pennsylvania if they want to hold onto the House. (Subtotal: DEM +7)

5.      Minimize losses in New Jersey. As of right now, it looks like the Democrats will pick up open seats in New Jersey’s 2^nd and 11^th Congressional Districts.  Republicans may also end up losing New Jersey’s 7^th Congressional District and New Jersey’s 3^rd Congressional District but they should try and keep their losses in New Jersey at a minimum.  Considering the fact that Real Clear Politics changed the rating for New Jersey’s 7^th Congressional District from “toss-up” to leans Democratic, which makes sense considering the fact that Hillary Clinton carried the district.  With that in mind, Republicans can probably afford to lose no more than three seats in the Garden State.  (Subtotal: DEM +10)

6.      Lose no more than one seat each in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.  Republicans look underwater in Colorado’s 6^th Congressional District, Kansas’s 3^rd Congressional District, and Virginia’s 10^th Congressional District. Real Clear Politics assigned all three seats into the “lean Democratic category.”  Hillary Clinton carried all three of those districts in the 2016 Presidential Election.  Republicans may end up losing Trump-won seats in Iowa and Kentucky, in addition to an open seat in Michigan that President Trump narrowly carried.  In North Carolina, Republicans will probably have the most trouble hanging onto the 9^th District, where Incumbent Robert Pittenger lost renomination.  In New York, the Democrats have devoted most of their energy to ousting two first-term incumbents; John Faso, who represents New York’s 19^th Congressional District and Claudia Tenney, who represents New York’s 22^nd Congressional District.  President Trump narrowly carried Faso’s district, which I included on my list of the top 10 closest Congressional races.  President Trump improved on Mitt Romney’s performance in NY-22, one of three districts in New York that Romney carried in 2012.  Incumbent Claudia Tenney, who recently replaced RINO Richard Hanna.  Tenney won a plurality in a three-way racein 2016.  She does not have the same luxury of the presence of a left-wing independent candidate on the ticket this time around.  Thanks to charges of insider trading against Republican Congressman Chris Collins, the race in the most Republican district in New York State has become unnecessarily competitive.  In Utah, Republican Congresswoman Mia Love of the 4^th District looks increasingly vulnerable.  While Hillary Clinton did terrible in her district, so did President Trump.  He only won 39 percent of the vote in the district, with Hillary Clinton carrying 32 percent, and independent candidate Evan McMuffin taking in most of the remaining vote. Since Utah’s Republican Senate candidate Mitt Romney will likely do very well in her district, that alone may help carry Love over the finish line.   (Subtotal: DEM +18)

7.      Maximize pickups in other parts of the country.  Outside of Minnesota and Pennsylvania, Republicans still have some targets where they can play offense.  Republicans should try and sweep as many of them as possible. A win in Arizona’s 1^st Congressional District would cancel out a likely loss in the 2^nd Congressional District and a win in Oregon’s 5^th Congressional District would cancel out a loss elsewhere.  Republicans could also pick up one or two seats in Nevada, especially if Republican Senator Dean Heller wins re-election.  Real Clear Politics has included Nevada’s 3^rd Congressional District and Nevada’s 4^th Congressional District on its list of toss-ups and I included both seats on my list of the top ten most likely Republican House pickups. As of right now, Democrats still look like marginal favorites in those two districts.  (Subtotal: DEM +17)

 

My “yellow brick road” assumes that Republicans would pick up Pennsylvania’s 14^th Congressional District, which they held at the beginning of the cycle, leaving their starting total at 241.
  



Not listed above, Republicans find themselves vulnerable of losing their only seat in New England; Maine’s 2^nd Congressional District.  In 2016, Maine voters approved a Constitutional amendment that would implement ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting.  The winners of many statewide races in Maine have won without a majority of the population voting for them.  In 2010, Maine Governor Paul Lepage won with just 37 percent of the vote.  Liberals found that incorrigible, as 63 percent of Maine residents did not want Lepage to become governor.  In 2014, Congressman Bruce Poliquin of the 2^nd Congressional District won with a plurality of the vote; he won re-election in 2016 with a majority.  For example, in the Maine Senate race, a Republican would probably rank Republican candidate Eric Brakey as their 1^st choice, Independent Angus King as their 2^nd choice and Democrat Zak Ringelstein as their third choice. Most Democrats would probably list Ringelstein as their first choice, King as their second choice, and Brakey as their third choice.  It looks like Ringelstein will end up with the least number of votes on the first ballot, meaning that his votes would likely transfer to King on the second ballot.  In the case of the Maine Senate race, that might not matter.  King could easily win more than 50 percent of the vote on the first ballot, avoiding the need for a second ballot.

Only one hypothetical poll of the race in Maine’s 2^nd Congressional District has taken into account ranked-choice voting.  That poll, an internal poll conducted on behalf of Democrat Jared Golden, finds Poliquin beating Golden on the first ballot with 40 percent of the vote.  Golden took 39 percent, independent Tiffany Bond took 3 percent of the vote, and independent Will Hoar took 1 percent of the vote.  Hoar would face elimination and on the second ballot, Poliquin and Golden would each take 48 percent of the vote and Bond would take 4 percent.  On the third ballot, which would come down to a contest between Golden and Poliquin, Golden would win with 51 percent of the vote.   All of the other polls do not take into account ranked-choice voting, and therefore, the numbers only reflect how the voting would go down on the first ballot.  The remaining polls in Maine 2 either show a tied race, Golden leading, or Poliquin leading.  In the one poll showing Poliquin in the lead, he only has 47 percent support; meaning that he may end up losing on the third or fourth ballot if Golden ends up taking up most of the votes previously given to independent candidates.
      
Assuming Republicans lose Maine’s 2^nd Congressional District, that would bring their total number of seats down to 223; no doubt Republicans will lose seats but hopefully this “yellow brick road” will give them a big enough majority to successfully implement the America first (and Marxism last) agenda over the next two years.