2020 HOR elections

During tomorrow's suspenseful Super-Tuesday presidential primaries and caucuses, it would be good to notice that the nominees for just a little more than a quarter of all seats in the US House of Representatives will also be decided per primary for matchups in the November General election.

The following 5 states are also doing congressional primaries tomorrow (in ascending order of number of House seats).

Arkansas (4)
Alabama (7)
North Carolina (13)
Texas (36)
California (53)
Total: 113 CDs (25.98% of the HOR)

Let's start with the two states likely to be the least suspenseful: AR and AL.

All four of AR's seats are red. All four are incumbent races. 3 of those 4 seats were won by more than R+32 in the middle of a D-wave in 2018. AR-01 is a GOP-shutout race (no D candidate). The only AR seat that has been even remotely competitive was AR-02, which David French retained by +5.94 in 2018.

In AL, 5 of 7 seats are Incumbent races, 2 are OPEN seats (AL-01, AL-02). The leanest margin for any candidate in 2018 was R+22.13 (AL-05). Plus, 3 of 7 seats are shutouts: AL-05 and AL-06 are R-shutouts, while AL-07 is D-shutout.

You would think that with 53 seats, California would be the most exciting to watch, but with a D47/R7 spread and the fact that it's a jungle primary, pretty much anything can happen. 4 of 53 seats are officially open: CA-08, CA-25, CA-50, CA-53. At the current time, only one seat is guaranteed to be a shutout: CA-38 (D-shutout), but due to the nature of the jungle primary and the 15% threshhold, there is always the possibility that other seats that currently have a lot of candidates in the running can become shutouts, either because only 1 candidate gets over 15% or because the top 2 vote getters are from the same political party. Wait and see.

In Texas, 6 of 36 seats are open, all due to retirement, all Republican seats: TX-11, TX-13, TX-17, TX-22, TX-23, TX-24. In that mix are some very safe R seats, but also 4 very endangered seats. TX sports more candidates than any other state in the Union: 291 people vying for a fight in November for 36 seats. With such a huge R field in a number of seats, who knows what will happen, but the laws of chance tell me that a couple of surprises may happen tomorrow night in TX. In TX-22, Pierce Bush, grandson of Bush 41, is in the running against 14 other Republicans to get the nomination to try and hold this seat for the GOP in November. Pete Olson, who is retiring from this seat, won it by +4.94% in 2018, it is no longer a safe seat for the Republicans and to note, a Libertarian will also be on the ballot in TX-22 come November. There are some other seats that are not OPEN but which have become endangered: TX-31 (John Carter, R, +2.91% in 201, TX-21 (Chip Roy, R, +2.61% in 201, TX-10 (Michael McCaul, +4.27%). In the two D pickups from 2018 (TX-07, TX-32), both Democratic incumbents are running unopposed in their party's primary, clearing the way for them to prepare for November. Overall, on the R side, of the 18 R seats where the Incumbent is on the primary ballot, that Republican incumbent is unopposed in the primary in 7 of those seats: TX-02, TX-03, TX-04, TX-06, TX-10, TX-21 and TX-27. This means that in 11 R-seats where the Incumbent is on the ballot, he also has a Republican challenger in the primaries, kind of unusual for Texas. In a similar situation, of the 13 D-held seats, all with incumbents on the ballot, in only 5 seats is the D incumbent unchallenged in his or her own party: TX-07, TX-15, TX-16, TX-29, TX-32. In the other 8 D-held seats, the incumbent is a facing a challenger within the party. So, lots is going on in Texas and how the vote totals out will indeed be interesting to see, especially in parts of the state where voter registration has surged immensely. Naturally, for the Republicans, they will want the best and safest candidates to win the primaries in the 6 open seats and the Ds are hoping for weak R nominess in their 2 pickups from 2018. Because I don't live in TX, I am not going to wager any guesses except to rely again on the laws of chance, which tell me that we may have some surprises. Since TX is now considered a major battleground on the presidential, senatorial and House level, I expect the state to be blanketed with attention following the primaries.

In NC, with 13 districts, I really think tomorrow will be most suspenseful, for the simple reason that the courts struck down the GOP gerrymander and the newly drawn CD boundaries have never before been "tested in battle", electorally speaking. That said, of 13 seats in the Tarheel State, 3 are OPEN seats, all currently GOP controlled: NC-02, NC-06 and NC-11. In NC-02, George Holding, who held the seat by +5.46% in 2018, all but said that he is retiring because he knows that the redistricting makes NC-02 now much more Democrat-candidate friendly. And when you look at the money that the Ds are bringing in in a CD that just 4 years ago would have been unthinkable...



Mark Walker (NC-06) has thrown in the towel for similar reasons. As for Mark Meadows, I had mentioned more than once on this thread that he had not yet filed with the FEC, so his decision was not a snap-decision and likely had little to do with the map redraw.

Again, because the courts declared the GOP gerrymandered map of NC to be unconstitutional and the CDs were redrawn between 2018 and now, we are in new terroritory, much as we were in Pennsylvania in November 2018. Interesting to note is that there are no shutout races at all in NC: at least one D and one R is on the ballot for the primaries in all 13 CDs. In fact, in NC-03, NC-08 and NC-13, the primaries there are already decided, for there is exactly one D and one R on the ballot for the primaries in those 3 CDs. NC was once a state with 3 or 4 shutout seats per cycle. No more. And because it is expected to be a presidential battleground hotter than Alpha Cen A, these congressional race are going to get all the more attention.

So, that's just some information on the HOR level, before Super Tuesday gets underway.

 

*2,384*
FINAL PRE-PRIMARY REPORT​

On 22.08.2019, when I started this thread 5 1/2 months ago, there were 1,305 declared candidates for the US-HOR. The last time I reported on this thread (25.02.2020 - February 25th, 2020), there were 2,362 such candidates.

Today, 03.03.2020 (March 3rd, 2020), there are now 2,384 such candidates, a modest net-gain of 22 newly declared candidates since the last report and 1,079 more candidates than when I first started the thread:


There were changes in the following 27 CDs: CO-07, FL-01, FL-05, FL-26, GA-09, HI-02, IL-01, IA-02, LA-05, MI-05, NE-01,NE-02, NE-03, NH-02, NY-04, NY-07, NY-14, NY-26, OK-03, PA-07, TN-01, TN-02, UT-01, UT-03, UT-04, VA-11, WI-04.

The gender breakdown, as you can see, has remained now at M75/F26. In terms of sheer numbers of candidates, the Republicans have an almost 4% advantage over the Democrats, with 1,120 declared R candidate to 1,031 D candidates. To compare, in 2018, at this juncture, the Ds had a +28% edge in the sheer number of candidates. There has been a sharp upturn in Libertarian candidates for 2020 vis-a-vis 2018.

This report will be the last of it's type for 2020, since, logically, as of the results of Super Tuesday, the number of declared candidates will sharply drop due to primary results in CA, TX, NC, AL and AR, which account for 113 of the 435 HOR seats. This leads to the logical conclusion that the total of 2,384 candidates is absolutely the high-water mark for 2020 and cannot not be exceeded. Alone in TX, with 291 candidates vying for nominations for 36 seats, when you include the Libertarian Party, then when TX is decided, at a maximum, there will be 108 nominees on the November ballot from this state, so 183 candidates will fall from this list immediately, and so forth and so on.

But the statistic has served its purpose in measuring enthusiasm and $$$ in preparing for the HOR primary races, 5 of which finally get underway today!

Unopposed seats​

Since the last report, 2 more seats moved from unopposed to now competitive in both parties: TN-02 and VA-11 which brings us down to 49 currently unnopposed seats (shutouts), as follows:

18 GOP shutouts (no D-contender in the race):



31 D-shutouts (no R-contender):



Now, I will stop following this statistic for a while, but surely a number of these seats will eventually move out of the shutout category. They are in a number of states that have late primaries, so, in those states, there is still room for change. But once all the primaries are over with, on a different EXCEL table for the 2020 results vis-a-vis 2018 (and later, vis-a-vis 2016), I will also note the shutout CDs before election night.

To compare: in 2018, on election night, there were 39 shutouts left (36D, 3 R).

OPEN SEATS​

There are, as of 03.03.2020, 43 OPEN seats for 2020, due to death, retirement or resignation. I felt it would be appropriate for us to seal this moment in time, so here a screenshot of the EXCEL table that records those seats, in chronological order of announcement:



You will note that 532 candidates are vying in the primaries for these 43 OPEN seats. That's 22.32% of the entire amount of candidates for the HOR, or just a little more than 1/5th of all candidates.

THE HOTTEST SEATS, numerically​

Here, in descending numerical order, all seats with 9 or more contenders for that seat in the primaries:



That makes for 68 seats with 9 or more candidates, and a grand total of 851 candidates for those seats (which is 35.7% of all candidates). Unsurprisingly, most of the OPEN seats can be found in this category.

As I have written from day one in this thread (and also in the same type of thread for 2018 ), this kind of statistic I have been keeping for almost one half year does not and cannot speak to candidate quality, but it can measure interest, timing and funding. There is no doubt in my mind that with 2,384 candidates (a mind boggling number for HOR races), this is by far the largest field of pre-primary HOR candidates ever in the history of the USA. So, yeah, it's historic in a certain way.

For those who would like to visit the EXCEL TABLES, the link is HERE. You may find it to be a useful resource.

After the primaries tonight, I will then be moving to the 2020 HOR results (vis a vis 2018 ) tables that I have already prepared, awaiting challenger candidates names, and of course, November results. If you go to the document now, you will see the candidates names for 2018 also in the 2020 column. I did that deliberately, as there will be a certain amount of duplication of names and going this way saves me some typing work later on. After tonight's primaries, I will then be listing the correct 2020 R and D nominees for the 133 seats in CA, TX, NC, AL and AR that will be decided tonight.

This has been a fun project for me, more than enlightening, also very relaxing in a certain way. I'm also thrilled to have done this a second time, because we now have a baseline for the future.

So, this thread will be continuing, but now in much more detail for nominees as they are elected. And in the Fall, when all the primaries are over with, I will focus on polling, target seats, battlegrounds, predictions and the like.

So, those are the current stats!

-Stat

 

So, as promised, this thread moves from measuring candidate interest to actual candidates who have made their way onto the November ballot.
When it comes to actual candidate names, I am sticking to only the D and R candidates in 434 out of 435 seats, for obvious reasons.

So, there is a completely new EXCEL table out there:

435 House Races 2020 over 2018.

The table is in exactly the same format as the 2018 over 2014 table I used for the mid-term elections. Enjoy!

When the primary results for the HOR for a state have come in, I then give the tab a dark-purple color:



On to some interesting details.

In California, before the jungle primary, there was only one guaranteed shutout seat (CA-3. As a result of the jungle primaries, there are now at least 3 CA CDs that will be shutouts, all of them D-shutouts: CA-29, CA-34 and CA-38. This means that in CA-29 and CA-34, no Republican came over the 15% margin. And in all 3 CDs, it will be a Democrat-vs-Democrat race.

Also, in California, there are a number of re-matches from 2018; some of them are bound to become marquee races: CA-01, CA-02, CA-19, CA-21, CA-30, CA-32, CA-39, CA-47 and CA-51.This is how I mark the rematches in the Excel tables:



In a number of California CDs, the call has not been made yet, since the mail-ballots will be counted until the beginning of April (standard procedure for this state), so, based on the information I see, there is also the possibility that CA-42 and CA-45 can also become rematches. The CDs that I underlined above the screenhot are D-pickups from 2018, which automatically means that the former incumbent before the 2018 election is on the ballot again (or in CA-45, may be on the ballot again). In CA-25, former R-incumbent Steve Knight lost his primary bid. Interesting to note in CA-25 is that both winning candidates, more moderate, won both the primary for the Fall and the primary for the special election to fill this seat on May 12th, 2020, and that the firebrands of both parties lost the primary.

There are a couple of carpetbaggers worth noting: in 2018, Maria Livengood (R) was the nominee for CA-09 and lost the election. This time around, she was an R-candidate for CA-10, but lost the primary. In CA-50, where convicted Republican felon Duncan Hunter was forced to resign in disgrace and then timed his resignation as late as possible in order to make it literally impossible to have an election to fill that seat this year, Darell Issa, former Republican incumbent from CA-49, was on the primary ballot, which is not yet decided on the Republican side. So, wait and see.

In Texas, some primary races are also not decided quite yet, but there are also some rematches here: TX-10, TX-14, TX-25, and TX-34. Three of those four seats are likely competitive in this year. In TX-22, a Bush family offspring will not be on the November ballot: Pierce Bush lost the primary. There are a surprising number of runoffs in TX this time around: TX-02, TX-03, TX-15, TX-17, TX-22, TX-24 and TX-31, for either one party, or in the case of TX-17, both. Texas does an outstanding job of getting 100% of results in. Because of the massive increase in and participation of the Libertarian Party in this state, it may end up that we are looking at polling data from the 6 Texodus-seats (plus at least 4 more very competitive seats) in order to see how the Conservative winds are blowing in what certainly is going to be a major battleground on the presidential and senatorial and very possibly, on the HOR level.

In North Carolina, there are no rematches from 2018 to report, but the open seats will be interesting to follow. Since Pres. Trump just named Mark Meadows (NC-11) to be his White House Chief of Staff, there will be a vacancy in that seat. Wait and see how NC decides to fill the seat. Currently, in 8 of 13 CDs, it will be a woman-vs-man race. And in NC-11, where Meadows was retiring, anyway, it looks like a Republican runoff between a woman and a man, so we may end up with 9 of 13 Tarheel seats with a gender race going on. If you look at the ballots from just 12 years ago from NC, it looked very, very different than now.

In Alabama, AL-01 goes into a runoff election for BOTH parties, AL-02 goes into overtime for the R-candidate, there are no rematches from 2018 and there are, exactly as predicted, three shutouts: AL-05, AL-06 and AL-07. With Martha Roby retiring from AL-02, the GOP will lose a female Representative who will have served 10 years. But on the D-side, there is a female candidate in AL-02, a race that is sure to be similar to Don Quixote swacking at a windmill with a wooden sword somewhere...

And just in case you were having trouble getting to sleep, let's talk about Arkansas, where all 4 seats are in Republican hands, all four seats are incumbent races and 1 seat (AR-01) is an R-shutout seat. The only seat that could maybe become interesting is AR-02, but then again, maybe not. Don Quixote may make a trip to Arkansas as well, as long as he's not infected with COVID-19.

It should be noted that on the coming Tuesday, there are presidential primaries in 6 states (plus Democrats abroad): Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington State, but there are congressional primaries going on only in Mississippi (4 CDs).

-Stat

 

Rofl. Well done.

Thanks for the info Stat.

 

My Prediction.

Dems Hold the House.

The GOP Dreams of Bernie hurting House Chances are dashed.

 

An update to the Cook's Report:


The differences are pretty minimal: There is one new Democratic Toss Up (VA-07 Spanberger) and two fewer Likely Republican Seats (WI-07 and PA-16)

 

An update to the Cook's Report:





In comparison to the previous report, there are now:

Solid Democrat - 2 More
Likely Democrat - 1 Fewer
Lean Democrat - 1 More
Toss Up Democrat - 3 Fewer
Republican Toss Up - 1 More
Lean Republican - 3 More
Likely Republican - 3 Fewer
Solid Republican - No Change

On the whole, the Democrats appear to be in a stronger position on this report as compared to the last time, which was all the way back in early March (Jesus, **** 2020 has been a long year).

That position is also reflected in the Generic Ballot which has Democrats ahead by 11.0 points in the RCP average of polls and ahead by 8.9 points in the 538 average of polls.

 

When was the last time something like this happened, I wonder.

Cook Political Report moves 20 House races toward Democrats

 

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA-05), one of the longer serving members in the US House of Representatives (a little more than 33 and 1/2 years
) and a Civil Rights icon in America, has died. He died in the evening on Friday, 2020-07-017.

His death is being reported with due respect and kindness in media all over the place, here some examples:



Therefore, GA-05 is now an open seat. It is also a rock-solid D seat, so whoever is either elected via a special primary (or selected by the Georgia Democratic Party) to be the nominee for GA-05 will surely retain this seat for the Democratic Party. I will reseach the GA rules about this.

RIP, Rep. Lewis.

-Stat

 

Update: the Georgia Democratic Party will decide on the replacement for the candidate John Lewis:

http://ballot-access.org/2020/07/19...ose-new-nominee-for-u-s-house-fifth-district/

 

Cook's Political Report just issued their newest House Ratings. They adjusted 15 seats in total, 11 of which were shifted towards the D. Overall, the Cook Political Report thinks the most likely outcome in the House is that the Democrats will expand their majority.

Here is where things sit right now.



In the last month, alone, Cook's has shifted a total of 46 seats. Of those 46, a full forty were shifted towards Democrats!

 

Sooooo, after a very long absence from this thread, it's time to pick up where we left off.

I have an online excel-compendium for the 2020 House of Representatives elections, it is available for everyone to access HERE. (Read-only).

The excel-compendium has a tab (far left) for the statewide results, when they happen, and then a tab for each of the 50 states that has more than one Representative. For the states that only have on Rep-AL, there is a tab for the 5 Red states and the 2 blue states.

Here two examples, one from Iowa, the other, from California.

IOWA:​

Everything is color coded (blue = D, red = R).

The blue shaded field though IA-01 and IA-03 from 2018 indicate a seat pick up, in this case, for h the Democratic Party. A red-shaded field would indicate an R-pickup.

The two grey-shaded fields in column N, for IA-02 and IA-04 indicate that those are open seats.

The candidates names are in columns R and S. Bolded = incumbent. Italic = candidates from 2018.

For IA-03 you will see that all four candidate names are shaded in a light orange-yellow color. When this shading covers both columns and of course, both cycles, then that means this is a rematch with exactly the same candidates as in 2019.

If the orange-yellow shading is only in one column, then that indicates a 2nd time challenger (IA-04).

CALIFORNIA:​

In column A, if the name of the CD and year is shaded in either dark blue, dark red or a weird purple, that indicates a shut-out race. This can be informative. We can see that in CA-08 and CA-13, both were shut-out races in 2018, CA-08 for Republican Paul Cook and CA-13 for Democrat Barbara Lee. The purple for CA-12 in 2020 means that it is a shut out for the Democratic Party, but there are actually two Democrats on the ballot. Actually, that was also the case for the Republicans in CA-08, but literally everyone knew that the incumbent would win, so yes, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's seat is about as safe as they get.

The nice thing about having the 2018 results under the fields for 2020 is that we can see the votes, percentages and margins for the last time there was a congressional race in that CD.

When the results are certified by each state within the 6 weeks following election day, 2020, I will input all of the results in the excel tabs for each state, which then automatically calculates the statewide results, which I then carry-over to the first tab, for the nationwide results overall.

There are a number of specialty tabs at the end of the excel-compendium, tabs I think you will find to be very interesting:



So, let's start with re-matches, which I indicated about about IA-03:



At the tab itself are the 56 races that are rematches from 2018. This is far higher number of matchups as happened in 2018.

What is very surprising is that only nine of these rematches are from races that were party-flips in 2018, 8 of them D, the other 1, R. The Ds flipped 44 seats in 2018, whereas the Rs flipped three and the majority of those D flips were still incumbent races. I was really expecting to see more blowback from the Republican party, wanting to re-seat some well known incumbents, but they either did not run in this year or were defeated in the primaries.

Of the 9 flips listed as rematches, I expect tight marquee races that will hold our attention in: CA-21, CA-39, maybe GA-06, definitely MN-01, NM-02 and NY-22. Noticeably absent from the rematch list are all of the D-pickups from Pennsylvania.

There's also this category of 2nd-time challengers that caught my attention:



There are 9 races on the ballot where the challenger is the same as 2 years ago. All nine of these races are open seats and open seats, by their nature, throw a certain amount of unpredictability into the race. Also, all 9 of these 2nd-time challengers are Democrats, which surprised me a great deal.

Now, just spitballing here, but it would seem to me that there is more than one way to think about this:

-a 2nd-time challenger has the baggage of having lost once already, but that is not necessarily bad.

-because a 2nd-time challenger has now had 2 years since an electoral defeat to learn the lay of the land for the CD in which he or she is competing better.

I think that looking at the 2018 margins is only partially helpful in this case. There are two CDs that stick out where the former incumbent was incredibly unpopular and is either now in jail (NY-27) or lost his primary bid (IA-04) and although JD Scholten and Nate McMurray are young, energetic, dynamic figures, both of their CDs have traditionally been between R+30 and R+40. So, I would say that they are going to have a hard uphill climb. A candidate like Gina Ortiz Jones in TX-23, who only lost by -0.44% to Will Hurd in 2018 in a state that that has experienced a record number of resignations (TEXODUS) and has suddenly become a true presidential battleground state, could very well win this time around. The story in CA-50 is especially bizarre. Ammar Campar-Najjar, a muslim, whose grandfather (who died before Ammar was born) was one of the terrorists in Munich in 1972, almost toppled Duncan Hunter in 2018. Both Duncan Hunter and his wife are now in prison. Enter former GOP-congressman Darrell Issa (from CA-48 ), who was the richest congressman in the HOR in all of history, who, after a very nasty intra-party battle, carpetbagged his way over to CA-50. For all intents and purposes, Campar-Najjar should lose this election by a wider margin that he lost in 2018, only, California has swung about 10 points deeper in the blue direction and there are Republicans who really ARE pissed off that Issa carpetbagged his was from CA-48 to CA-50. After all, he still lives in CA-48, but he knew he would get beat like a drum by Mike Levin (D), so we are looking at an interesting night shaping up in CA-50.

My money is on at least 3 of these 2nd time challengers picking up formerly GOP held seats.

And then there is the issue of women, who have grown in strength in the governing of our Republic.

There is a tab only for women candidates for 2020, here an except:



It's a nice, clean alphabetical listing of the 286 women (198 Democratic and 88 Republican) who are nominees for the 2020 HOR elections.

Not only that, there are 44 CDs where we are 100% guaranteed of having a Congresswoman come 2021 regardless who wins as both parties have fielded women for those seats:

CA-06, CA-26, CO-03, CT-03, FL-10, FL-14, FL-21, FL-23, FL-24, FL-27, GA-05, GA-06, IL-02, IL-15, IL-17, IN-02, IN-05, IA-01, IA-02, KS-01, KS-03, MA-05, MI-10, MO-02, MO-04, NV-01, NJ-11, NM-01, NM-02, NM-03, NY-21, OH-11, OK-05, PA-04, PA-07, TN-01, TX-12, TX-16, TX-24, TX-29, VA-10, WA-03, WV-03 and WY-AL.

But for better purposes of comparison, you can also compare that to 2018. It's more to have to look at, could be worth the look:



I'm still working on the tab for the count of open races and shut outs, should be done in the next days.

Very soon, I will be feeding this thread regularly with a lot of information. But this is where we stand right now, before the official general election start of campaign 2020.

-Stat

 

https://www.ppic.org/blog/voter-registration-is-up-sharply-as-is-partisanship/

Voter registration in California is soaring: at 83% of all eligible voters. It is expected to rise again, possibly as high as 85%.

The D-R divide is the widest it has ever been in history, moving from D+10.5 in 2000 to, currently: D +22.3

And for the first time, the Independents (who, in California, tend to tack more Left than Right in a binary contest) are now at parity with the Rs.




Democrats have added 1.5 million voters to their party's rolls, 800,000 independents have been added. The number of Republicans has shrunk, greatly.

This has real implications in two ways:

1.) A Biden +35% margin in California would me upwards of +7 million RAW votes in margin for him in California alone. If it's a tie in Texas, with either Trump or Biden just barely ahead, there will no longer be the huge buffer of +R raw vote from Texas to cancel out the monstrous D-raw vote margin from California. Extrapolate that out farther to the national level: if 150 million end up voting (this is very conceivable) and Biden wins by "just" +12%, then he wins by 18 million votes nationally, thus breaking Nixon's 1972 raw vote record, an amazing record that has held until this day.

2.) of the 7 remaining GOP held HOR seats in CA, people had better start polling, because right now, with these kind of of statistics, for 6 of those 7 are obviously no longer safe. In fact, all 7 of them may not be safe. Even Darrell Issa is struggling in CA-50 and as the richest man who ever sat in congress, one who could finance his own campaign with his petty cash fund, this say something. I know that the prez race has caught everyones' attention, but the Senatorial, HOR, Gubernatorial and a slew of down-ballot races are also important.

We could end up seeing a California House delegation of D50-R3 come January 2020. Even McCarthy's district and Cook's old district can no longer be considered safe, not by a longshot.

 

The fact that TX is moving every closer to being a battleground should be a concern since it was always the bastion of the GOP in the past. If AZ and TX were to both go blue then the entire southern border with Mexico would be blue.

 

Evidence is mounting that the GOP is going to have a really hard run of it in the HOR elections and in some cases, Biden is providing positive coattails in very red areas of the country.

One of the most convincing pieces of data is the newest polling for Arkansas-02 (French Hill, R):

https://talkbusiness.net/2020/09/poll-razor-close-race-in-cd2-between-french-hill-joyce-elliott/

Talk Business / Hendrix College, 698 LV, conducted over 5 days from 2020-09-004 to 2020-09-009, MoE = +/-4.3

Hill (R) 47.5%
Elliot7 (D) 46.0%
Margin: Hill +1.5

Biden/Trump in AR-02 alone:

Biden (D) 49%
Trump (R) 45%
Margin: Biden +4

So, for historical perspective, here the margins from 2018 and 2014:




So, if this poll holds, French's margin has eroded from +8.2 to +1.5%.

Hendrix is in no way a liberal leaning polling group. Here the polling for 2020 (to date), 2016, 2012 and 2008 on the presidential level:






The Hendrix poll from 2016 had Trump +21 over Clinton.
The last Hendrix poll from 2012 had Romney +21 over Obama.

See a pattern?

Hendrix was not polling yet in 2008.

Why is this important? Well, it's been 10 years since a Democrat represented AR-02, but as the state has drifted more and more to the right on the presidential level, all four districts, including AR-02, did likewise, until 2018. In 2018, 2 of 4 AR CDs showed a swing to the left over 2014.

How is Hill's challenger? Her name is Joyce Elliot, she is a black educator who has served also in the AR HOR and the AR Senate.

On the presidential level, in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016, the republican nominee won all four congressional districts.

The last time that a Democrat won at least one CD in Arkansas was Al Gore, in 2000.

Since Arkansas does not award it's electors per CD, the point is somewhat moot, but the fact that Joe Biden is on track to win 1 of the 4 CDs is a sure sign that something is up in the bible belt.

Now, go look at the prez polling again, this time, for the entire state. Remember, Hendrix had both Romney and Trump up +21 against their respective opponents. Fast forward to 2020: Trump +2 over Biden. That's a 19 point erosion in margin, at least for now.

Why is this important? Well, in 1976, Arkansas was Jimmy Carter's third strongest state on election night (+30.01%, behind his home state of Georgia and of course, DC.
In 1980, polling showed that Reagan was catching up on Carter fast and it was at that moment that the Carter team knew they were headed for a landslide loss against the Gipper. And on election night, 1980. Reagan flipped Arkansas from D +30.01% in 1976 to R +0.61%, a swing of 30.62% to the Right.

Now, fast forward to 2016. In 2016, Arkansas was Trump's 9th strongest state (+26.92%) which means that for at least for now, if the Hendrix figures hold (the probably won't), then AR has swung 25 points to the Left. Alone, polling in Arkansas and Missouri showing the race being very close, when it shouldn't be close at all, is a sign of an impending landslide loss.

So, the takeway here is that the Ds are far better positioned to take more HOR seats and polling like this shows that the presidential race is starting to look pretty desolate for Trump.

In 50 days, a lot can change, so, let's wait and see.

 

Yet another strong piece of evidence that the DEMS are not only going to hold the HOR, but rather, increase their majority:

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/9...ver-owens-in-utahs-4th-congressional-district

The pollster is Rasmussen, for UT-04 (800 LV, MoE = +/-3.5):

McAdam (D-inc) 45
Owens (R-challenger) 41
Third party 3
undecided 11
Margin: McAdams +4

McAdams, who already suffered a bout of COVID-19 and survived it, just barely flipped this seat in 2018, in arguably the reddest state in the Union. If there was ever a seat that should be ripe pickings for the GOP to reclaim, this seat would be it. But McAdams is AHEAD, and according to Rasmussen, of all pollsters, who has a knack for finding a way to keep every single Democratic candidate under 50% and who has a verifiable house effect of 4 points to the right.

This text is buried in the article:

 

Another piece of evidence that things are not going well at all for the GOP vis-a-vis the HOR races and also, that Biden is drastically improving on Hillary Clinton's 2016 statistics literally everywhere.

Case in point: CA-49

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=86df313b-f6b9-44f3-9232-fa50052c2628

Democratic incumbent Mike Levin, who won this seat in 2018 by:



His +12.84% win represents a 33.18% shift to the left over the mid-term election 4 years before. This is the district that Darell Issa, the richest person to ever sit in the US HOR, gave up in 2018 (Issa has since then carpetbagged over to CA-50).

According to SUSA, Levin is up by +12 over his opponent:



Notice that Levin is getting 13% of the R-vote and is at +26 among women. He is likely to do better than this on election night, assuming that forest fires are not destroying this CD.

But the big story in this poll is actually about Joe Biden:



Imagine that: a California CD that was won by R +20 for a HOR race 6 years ago, now +20 for the D nominee for President.

This is proof of electoral shift and also, that the GOP is in danger of losing even more of the remaining 7 seats that they have in California. Usually, when a seat is flipped in one cycle, the party now out of power in that seat does everything possible to get that seat back the next time around. So, let's look at the finances in CA-49:



Right now, more than 7 weeks before the GE, Mike Levin has $ 1,057,393 in his warchest. Bryan Maryott has $203,063. This means that the incumbent is in a far better position going into the final weeks of the campaign.

-Stat

 

Annnnd, in neighboring CA-50, where former Representative Duncan Hunter and his wife are now sitting in jail, the race in a CD that was once R +30, is a barnburner:

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=70533721-42f4-4add-968f-eb3e564bd7f1



Here is how the race looked in 2018 and 2014:




Again, the big story, other than that Ammar Campa-Najjar might even win this CD, is that here, as in CA-49, Biden is winning the CD:



And the current finances:



Right now, more than 7 weeks before the GE in this open seat, Darrell Issa has $ 515,745 left in his warchest, while Ammar Campa-Najjar has $887,135 after disbursements. This means that the candidate of the incumbent party (R) is in worse shape than the challenger. But Issa is, as I already noted, super rich, he can self-fund himself any time of his choosing.

-Stat

 

A plot twist in Minnesota.

Adam Charles Weeks, the Legal Marijuana Now Party nominee for U.S. House in MN-02, just died. Under a unique Minnesota law passed in 2013, the death of the nominee of a qualified party in a partisan race closer than 79 days before an election means the seat can’t be filled until the following February. Now, here's the kicker: although voters will still see the race on their November ballots, the votes in that race will not be counted. The election will be February 9, 2021.

Here is some pertinent data on MN-02:





Democratic incumbent Angie Craig, who flipped this seat in the 2018 mid-term elections (partisan shift over 2012 = D +22.7) is up against Tyler Kistner.

Here the latest FEC filing data:



As you can see, Rep. Craig has a much stronger campaign warchest than Mr. Kistner.

MN was unique in 2018 in that it was the only state to have 50% flip/turnover: of 8 CDs, 2 flipped blue, while 2 flipped red. In 2018, only 3 seats overall flipped red, while 44 seats flipped blue (net D +41), so 2 of those three seats were directly in Minnesota. Many are keeping an eye on MN-07 to see how Colin Peterson, arguably the most conservative Democrat in all of Congress, will fare this time.

And of course, the barnburner race in MN this time around will be MN-01, a rematch of Jim Hagedorn and Dan Feehan. Hagedorn won by only +0.45% in 2018.

From this information, we know know for sure than only 434 out of 435 US HOR seats will actually be contested and decided based on GE 2020 on November 3rd. But one could really make the argument that the death of a 3rd party candidate, who never had a snowball's chance in hell of winning the GE, should not have held up this race, but alas, again we see the weird, unpredictable side of Federalism in electioneering.

-Stat

 

Again, evidence is mounting that the GOP is heading for a major pasting on November 3rd, 2020.

Case in point: NY-24.

Republican John Katko flipped this seat for the GOP in 2014:



As you can see, he won his first election by almost +19% in 2014 and was down to single digits against Dana Balter in 2018. Dana Balter is running against him again in 2020:




Also, in 2016, while winning NY big on the whole, Clinton barely eeked out a win in NY-24:




Enter the latest poll from NYT/Siena (Siena is based in NY and is considered the premium pollster for that state):

https://scri.siena.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CD240920-Crosstabs.pdf

In this CD, where a Republican is congressman, Trump's favorability is underwater, at -25. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is at +13.

Dana Balter is leading John Katko by +3:



This is a very likely D-pickup in 2020.

But on the presidential level,woah...



In NY-24, Biden is beating Trump like a drum, by a whalloping +19. Please note that Biden is up +31 among women and also gets +13% of people planning to vote for John Katko. Also, Biden is winning in every single county. In 2016, Trump won in Cayuga, Oswego and Wayne counties.

Now, you might say ---- bläääää, blue state, who cares, but it is important. This shows a shift of 16 point to the left in right-leaning areas of New York state, a phenomenon we are seeing happening pretty much all over the place.

Now, that the race was going to be competitive was pretty easy to figure out: Katko won in 2018 by only +5, his challenger is the same as before, but there is no doubt that politically, Donald Trump is like a huge millstone around John Katko's neck and Biden is riding high here. Presumably, his coattails could sweep Dana Balter to a substantial victory on November 3rd.

There were 25 other GOP held seats that were won by margins less than Katko's in 2018:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YImqztjULARyZjEl1GxmznC73t0z58RQ/view?usp=sharing

Open the second tab and you will be able to see it for yourself.

 

Evidence is continuing to mount that the GOP is heading for a major pasting on November 3rd, 2020.

Case in point: NJ-02.

Former Democrat Jeff Van Drew, who, flipped this seat for the Democratic Party in 2018 and then switched parties in late 2019, is losing against a Kennedy:

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_NJ_100520/

Amy Kennedy (D) 49
Jeff Van Drew (R) 44
Kennedy +5

And on the presidential level:

Biden (D) 50
Trump (R) 45

For historical perspective, NJ-02 (after the 2010 census) was by far the reddest district in an otherwise pretty blue state.

Frank Lo Biondo (R) won re-election in this district in 2014, a mid-term election year, by +24.2%
He then retired after 2016 and Seth Grossman won the primary in 2018 and there the Republican Party was upset by then Democrat Jeff Van Drew, who flipped the seat with a solid winning margin of +7.7, showing an electoral shift of 31.9 points toward the Democratic Party. This is historical fact:




With the poll showing Biden +5 over Trump in this district, which Trump won by +4.6 in 2016, this shows Biden once again recovering lost ground for the Democrats from the 2016 election. It also shows how weak Van Drew has become.



Now, no one is expecting Trump to win NJ, anyway, but as I have been saying over and over and over again, margins matter. A sure sign of a losing team is one in which the margins in their expected areas of win are reduced (or flipped to the other side), which the other side is experiencing expanded margins.

And let's not forget, NJ was not always a blue state. It was considered a battleground state through 1988. In the very close election of 1976, Republican incumbent Gerald R. Ford won NJ, but it took a while for the networks to call the race as it had been close the entire time.

-Stat

 

COVID-19 has claimed it's first victim in the US-Congress:

Luke Letlow: Congressman-elect dies after battling Covid-19 - CNNPolitics

Congressman-elect Luke Letlow (R-LA), who was only 41 years old and in good shape, died of COVID-19.

He was just diagnosed with C19 11 days before, on 2020-12-018. He was hospitalized about one week ago.

RIP, Luke Letlow

This also means that there will be a special election in Louisiana.

 

He died of a procedure that caused a heart attack.

Without further details we can't say that covid 19 played any role in his death.

Yes he had covid which resulted in the procedure but still not his death.

 

This is false. His own doctor said quite clearly that the heart attack was a direct result of C19. Stop lying about stuff this serious. Learn to be an adult about this. That is the absolute MINIMUM that should be expected of all human beings: to behave like adults.