Bloodless Coup

Chris Bowers Examines the House Races

Chris Bowers of MyDD has completed his 2006 House race forecast. What's special about this one as opposed to others? Well, there's a bit more data. Particularly interesting is the issue of money - he's got updated numbers on the relative cash on hand. Looking at those I'm throwing out my own suggestions for potentially winnable races that desperately need more Democratic dollars thrown at the Democractic candidates. These are races that likely won't be won without more money going to:

Ken Lucas and John Yarmuth's challenges in Kentucky. Lucas in particular is one of the party's best recruits this cycle - but he's at a big cash disadvantage.

Whoever is running against son-of-Bilirakis in Florida 9. From what I hear son-of-Bilirakis isn't awe-inspiring, and that's not a hugely Republican district.

Mary Jo Kilroy, in Ohio, has the best shot at taking out a member of the Republican leadership this November.

Tessa Hafen needs more money in Nevada. Porter's district isn't that red.

The Democratic challengers in Arizona 1 and Arizona 5. The first is a purple district, the latter features the strongest Democratic candidate imagineable and having Gov. Napolitano at the top of the ticket should mean a better than usual year for the party's candidates there.

Finally, the Seals and Pavich challenges in Illinois 10 and 11 (which feature a purple district and a very beatable incumbent, respectively), the Walz challenge in Minnesota 1, the challenge to Rep. Walsh in New York 25 (he inherited what's beomce a blue district years ago and hasn't had a tough race in ages), and Ciro Rodriguez in Texas 23 (the recent redistricting there means the Democrats are starting from nothing in a very winnable district).

Now that typing's basically for nothing since I don't control the DCCC, but if I did ...

For what it's worth, like other observers I think that if the election was held today the Democrats would likely win control of the House. At the moment I'd predict gains of 13-22 seats - and they need 15 seats to take control. Of course keep in mind though that if such a thing were to happen their control would be tenuous, and it would be interesting to see to what degree they could maintain party discipline.