Cook: 12 Dem incumbents are underdogs - Alex Isenstadt - POLITICO.com
charlie cook, received as gospel by the insiders, who almost never alters his projections, the personification of caution, moved TWELVE troubled dems saturday from tossup to lean republican
his reasoning was thus:
“Longtime readers will observe that while we rarely rate unindicted incumbents worse than a Toss Up to win reelection, today we are moving 13 incumbents, 12 Democrats and one Republican, into the opposite party’s column to reflect their underdog status,” wrote Cook’s House Editor David Wasserman. “It’s not that these endangered members’ prospects have suddenly taken a turn for the worse, or even deteriorated gradually over the last several months. Most of these members have trailed all year, and it’s simply exceedingly rare to see a candidate in their position in October come back to win reelection, especially now that early voting will be underway in many states very soon.”
mr cook, who has been predicting for months a net red pickup of 40 to 50 seats, with a greater likelihood of a larger gain than a smaller, has suddenly become more BULLISH
what cook is seeing are unprecedented, historical, revolutionary trends discovered by poll after poll after poll---in the areas of voter enthusiasm (a 20-ish point spread), independents (also around 20%), undecideds (47 to 29 according to clintonista mark penn), a sapping of hispanic support (cut in half), a doubling of gop preference by working class whites (the old reagan democrats who comprise 40% of the electorate)...
so much in this election is firmly set and not to change---but INDEPENDENTS, UNDECIDEDS, ENTHUSIASM, these outcomes are the open parameters, and they will prove determinative
and, like i said, they appear revolutionary in range
mr cook now has NINETY dem seats in danger, with the roster steadily rising
The Cook Political Report | The insider's choice for election analysis
and i can tell you with confidence that at least a few incembent dems NOT on cook's stove WILL ALSO go, it's the nature of house races
that'd be someone like JOHN DINGELL, health care warrior from MI15 since 1955, BARNEY FRANK, DAVID OBERSTAR, PETER DEFAZIO, RAUL GRIJALVA (who encouraged the other 49 to BOYCOTT his arizona), JOHN SPRATT (budget chair), NICK RAHALL (resources), IKE SKELTON (armed services)...
the hill last week surveyed 12 dem freshmen from AZ, CO, IL, MD, MI, NV, NM, OH, PA and VA and found ELEVEN trailing their upstart opposition and the twelfth (mark schauer in MI) tied
District by district: 12 freshman Democrats in danger - TheHill.com
further, mark penn and the writers at the hill (where msnbc's chuck todd got his start) worry that none of the incumbents comes even close to 50%, indeed, all are under 40, and their net average is exactly 40% support in their own districts
knowing which way UNDECIDEDS are likely to go, and by what margin, knowing how ENTHUSED are the opp's and INDEPENDENTS, there is indeed very little chance that a sitting incumbent in this position (even if he or she were conducting any kind of VALID campaign, which she can't these days) has virtually zero chance of returning
next week the hill is going to examine the FIFTEEN open seats abandoned by dem vets for whatever reasons, many of them former GIANTS of the house---david obey, charlie melancon, brad ellsworth, bart gordon, joe sestak, marion berry, vic snyder, brain baird, paul hodes, mike delahunt...
but we already know what the results are gonna be, penn and the hill telegraphed it, cook agrees, so do sabato and rothenberg, as well as jay cost and sean trende, all nicely summed up daily on rcp
FOUR of the 15 opens are LIKELY RED---melancon, snyder, john tanner and eric massa
TEN are LEAN R---berry, stupak, sestak, hodes, gordon, baird, obey, ellsworth, alan mollohan (22 year vet from WV) and mrs moore in KS
ONE is TOSSUP---delahunt in cape cod, MA10
next in the series for the hill, after telling us what we already knew about the opens, will be a look at 2 termers in trouble
and then, finally, in the fourth week, the BULLS---frank, dingell, defazio, grijalva...
fascinating
i'll be sure to keep you informed
as for blue takeovers of red districts, there are FOUR in play, nationally
charles djou in HI1 who only won his special a few months ago cuz bull senator daniel inouye revolted against his state party
but djou took obama's childhood home with 39%, which is a pretty good start, and folks in pineapple land think he's done a good job
a DAILY KOS poll (the only people who picked martha coakley in chappaquiddick teddy's seat) last week showed honolulu council woman colleen hanabusa leading mr djou by only a point
the governorship of the islands, democrat for 42 years, is also bizarrely close---something definitely is going on in the middle of the pacific
anyway, djou, who started as a sure blue pickup has suddenly been moved to tossup
another sure to go blue was sposed to be joseph cao, the vietnamese seminarian from new orleans who was the only republican in pelosi's place to vote for obamacare
he was also always a safe pickup, but then suddenly last week he too was leapfrogged to tossup, tho cook moved him back to lean dem (not likely dem) saturday
the other two red seats in play are mike castle's at large in delaware, LEAN dem
and mark kirk's IL10, gop for 100 years, but very uniquely so, a tossup
kirk is running against alex giannoulias for IL senate, burris/obama's seat, (giannoulias testified yesterday on mtp that he was not aware of the "extant" of the criminal behavior engaged in by so many of the people to whom his bankrupt bank lent tens of millions, all lost)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43377.html
kirk might be the most liberal republican i have ever encountered, i actually saw him once equivocate on partial birth abortion
anyway, IL10, kirk's seat is open, and it's tossup
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2010/house/2010_elections_house_map.html
take care