2006 House Election Rundown

I spent more time on the Senate write-up than I wanted to, and I want to get this finished soon, so this won't be quite as in-depth as I wanted.

Here's a list of the ten most vulnerable Republican seats, courtesy of Rich Lowry on The Corner:

AZ-8: Randy Graf v. Gabrielle Giffords
CO-7: Rick O'Donnell v. Ed Perlmutter
FL-16: Joe Negron v. Tim Mahoney: This is Mark Foley's old seat.
IN-2: Chris Chocola v. Joe Donnelly:
IN-8: John Hostettler v. Brad Ellsworth
OH-18: Joy Padgett v. Zack Space
PA-10: Don Sherwood v. Chris Carney
PA-7: Curt Weldon v. Joe Sestak
TX- 22: Shelley Sekula-Gibbs v. Nick Lampson: This is Tom Delay's old seat.
VA-2: Thelma Drake v. Phil Kellam

Many people were saying the Republicans had no shot at holding Delay's and Foley's seats. I, however, disagreed, and the latest polling has backed me up. I'm not saying they're a shoo-in to win either, just that they're quite competitive. In Delay's district, he won the primary, but then withdrew from the race too late to put another Republican on the ballot, so Sekula-Gibbs is a write-in candidate. This would normally be bad (and isn't exactly good), but since Delay also resigned Congress, there's also an election to finish out his term in which Sekula-Gibbs is a candidate, so the problem of remembering her name doesn't really come into play. As for Foley's seat, he resigned too late to even take his name off the ballot, but, by Florida election law, the Republicans were able to appoint Negron to receive all votes for Foley. There's been a blitz of advertising saying that a vote for Foley is a vote for Negron, and Republicans won a court battle letting them say as much in a polling place, via flyer, poster, or whatever (as part of meeting the court's ruling, it must list all the candidates for the seat, though, so that it does not appear as a campaig advertisement to Negron).

A second tier of vulnerable seats, also courtesy of Mr. Lowry:

*CA-11: Richard Pombo v. Jerry McNerney
FL-13 : Vern Buchanan v. Christine Jennings
*FL-22: Clay Shaw v. Ron Klein
IA-1: Mike Whalen v. Bruce Braley
*IN-9: Mike Sodrel v. Baron Hill
*KY-4: Geoff Davis v. Ken Lucas
MN-6: Michele Bachmann v. Patty Wetterling
NC-11: Charles Taylor v. Heath Shuler
NM-1: Heather Wilson v. Patricia Madrid
NY-24: Ray Meier v. Mike Arcuri
*OH-1: Steve Chabot v. John Cranley
OH-15: Deborah Pryce v. Mary Jo Kilroy
*PA-6: Jim Gerlach v. Lois Murphy
PA-8: Mike Fitzpatrick v. Patrick Murphy
*WA-8: Dave Reichert v. Darcy Burner
*WI-8: Gard v. Kagen

Without going into too much detail on each of the races right now, I'll point instead to what you should watch for on election night to see if the House changes hands, and, if so, by how much. It's important both how many of these seats the Democrats pick up, and how early the projections come (losing a close race bodes better for Republicans elsewhere than losing by a substantial margin that can be called soon after polls close). Please note that I'm not listing all poll closing times here (just those with competitive races). Also, a friendly reminder, CST is one hour behind EST, MST ("Arizona time") is two hours behind EST and one behind CST.

Polls close in Indiana and Kentucky at 6pm EST/CST (depending on the part of the state they're in). As you can see above, Indiana has three competitive seats, and Kentucky has a second competitive seat in addition to the one listed above (KY-3, Northup).

At 7pm EST (when the last bits of Indiana and Kentucky are closing), Virginia and the portion of Florida on EST are closing. Those states contain another four seats (though one or two of the Florida seats might be partially or wholly on CST, I'm not sure off the top of my head). Georgia also closes at this time, and the Republicans are optimistic about picking up a seat or two there.

Ohio and North Carolina (another four seats) close at 7:30 EST.

At 8pm EST / 7pm CST polls close in Connecticut (which doesn't have any races listed above, but has several just shy of beign listed), Pennsylvania, Texas (except the small part on MST), the rest of Florida, and a bunch of states that didn't make the list.

At 9pm EST / 8pm CST / 7pm MST Arizona closes, so make sure to vote, you Arizonans! States also closing include New York (which has a few more seats that missed the cut above), Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado.

At this point, if control of the House is still up in the air, it won't be more than a few-seat majority for either party. A couple of democrats may not vote for Pelosi for Speaker, which could make things interesting.

In addition to AZ-8, there's some competitiveness in AZ-5 and AZ-1. JD Hayworth is the incumbent in the first, facing Harry Mitchell. I'd say Hayworth is going to win. The only poll showing Mitchell in the lead was done by a Democrat polling firm, and showed him up by 3 immediately before an independent poll showed Hayworth up by 12 (and a Republican firm showed him up 14). One last note on Mitchell: in a previous campaign (2002, maybe) as he sought re-election to the state senate (from the district including ASU), he was caught stealing his opponents yard signs; that's pretty low even for a democrat. Rick Renzi is the incumbent in the second, and I think he'll win, but polling data there is more sparce.

More updates to come; I intend to do a post on governors, go more in-depth with the House, give my final Senate and House projections, and create a complete list of closing times with competitive elections to make easy election night following.