Five Blue States Could Determine Who Controls The House In 2018
Interesting article and chart (I could not transfer the chart but link will let you see it better).
Feb. 1, 2018 at 5:58 AM
Five Blue States Could Determine Who Controls The House In 2018
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/five-blue-states-could-determine-who-controls-the-house-in-2018/
By Harry Enten
Filed under 2018 Election
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, Republican of New Jersey, during a House Appropriations Committee hearing.
Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen’s retirement announcement this week wasn’t a game changer in the battle for control of the House of Representatives. Even before his announcement, Frelinghuysen, a Republican, was in danger of losing a re-election bid in the 11th Congressional District, which President Trump won by a mere 1 percentage point in 2016. With Frelinghuysen out of the race, Democrats and Republicans are expected to fight it out over the now-open seat.
But even if the Frelinghuysen news isn’t earthshaking, it’s a reminder that whether Democrats manage to win the House in 2018 could come down to how many seats they pick up in the five most populous states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016: California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.
The vast majority of Republican House members don’t hail from these states, of course. In fact, of the 241 seats Republicans controlled after the 2016 elections, just 42 (17 percent) were from these five states. That’s not surprising — this isn’t GOP territory; Clinton carried all these states by at least 5 percentage points, and House and presidential voting are increasingly connected.
But while California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Virginia account for only a small percentage of Republican-held seats overall, they are home to a disproportionate share of vulnerable Republicans. According to the Cook Political Report, these five states are home to 38 percent of all the Republican-held seats that are truly in play in 2018.1
Well-populated Clinton states may be the GOP’s demise
Number of vulnerable* GOP House seats, according to the Cook Political Report, that are in the most populous states won by Hillary Clinton in 2016
House REPUBLICAN Seats
States No. Vulnerable TOTAL percent vulnerable
New Jersey 4 5 80%
California 8 14 57
Illinois 4 7 57
Virginia 4 7 57
New York 5 9 56
Total 25 42 60
*Vulnerable seats are those rated as “lean Democratic,” “toss-up,” “lean Republican” and “likely Republican.”
Source: Cook Political report
California has the largest number of vulnerable Republican House seats with eight (out of 14 GOP-held seats in the state). But New Jersey — Frelinghuysen’s state — has a higher proportion of flippable GOP seats (four of five). Even if we take “likely Republican” seats off the table and look at just those seats in the lean and toss-up categories, a majority of New Jersey Republicans still make the list. This includes Frelinghuysen’s seat, which is rated as a toss-up.
= new reply since forum marked as read
