RK ARCHIVE - UPDATE: There are now 53 House races the Democrats can take in 2006

The 53 seats is a downgrade from the 60 in the last update, however, the number of highly vulnerable races has gone up from 14 to 16. Yes, that means that the Democrats now have 16 races where they are on track to win. That is a big statistic. Not to mention the other 16 vulnerable races. All of the downgrade has to do with some of the 3rd tier races straggling. As usual, I have added 10 races on the fringe. In total, these 53 vulnerable seats for Republicans encompass 26 states. Each race has a Democratic candidate either vying for an open seat or challenging the incumbent.

Below the flip is a list of key races in 2006.
VULNERABLE REPUBLICAN SEATS
"x" means "open seat", all others have the name of the Republican incumbent

Highly vulnerable races (16)
Arizona 08x +óGé¼GÇ£ Democrats are polling well here, but we+óGé¼Gäóll know more after the primary, especially once the Republican nominee emerges.
Colorado 07x
Connecticut 02 (Simmons)
Illinois 06x
Indiana 08 (Hostettler)
Indiana 09 (Sodrel)
Iowa 01x +óGé¼GÇ£ This may be the Democrats safest pick-up.
Kentucky 04 (Davis)
New Mexico 01 (Wilson) +óGé¼GÇ£ Madrid has the financing to take down Wilson, but expect this to be a close race until the end.
New York 24x +óGé¼GÇ£ This race will be close, but Arcuri has a really good shot based on the polls.
North Carolina 11 (Taylor) +óGé¼GÇ£ Shuler still seems to have the edge in this one.
Pennsylvania 06 (Gerlach)
Pennsylvania 10 (Sherwood) +óGé¼GÇ£ Sherwood is dogged by two words, mistress and choking.
Texas 22x +óGé¼GÇ£ Republicans have a write-in, and will likely go after Lampson in 2008.
Virginia 02 (Drake) +óGé¼GÇ£ Kellam has the name recognition down here to win, even in a conservative-leaning district.
Washington 08 (Reichert)

Vulnerable races (16)
Arizona 05 (Hayworth)
California 11 (Pombo)
Connecticut 04 (Shays) +óGé¼GÇ£ Shays was my Congressman for years. He has been a good fit for the district, but if he wins this time, he+óGé¼Gäóll really be squeaking it out. There are a lot of swing voters in this district.
Connecticut 05 (N. Johnson)
Florida 22 (Shaw)
Idaho 01x +óGé¼GÇ£ Apparently you can run too far to the right even in Idaho! Many Republicans are supporting the Democrat.
Indiana 02 (Chocola)
Kentucky 03 (Northup)
Minnesota 06x +óGé¼GÇ£ It is hard to imagine that Wetterling will continue to be so far behind. For now, this race stays in the 2nd tier.
New Hampshire 02 (Bass)
New York 20 (Sweeney) +óGé¼GÇ£ This race is teetering on 3rd tier. However, things are likely to get better as the Democrat has the cash to run a strong campaign and expose Sweeney+óGé¼Gäós baggage. For now, I stick by my sources who say that Sweeney is in deep trouble.
Ohio 01 (Chabot)
Ohio 15 (Pryce)
Pennsylvania 07 (Weldon)
Pennsylvania 08 (Fitzpatrick) +óGé¼GÇ£ the latest poll shows Murphy trailing, but this race should change quickly as the campaign heats up.
Wisconsin 08x A lot of this depends on Tuesday+óGé¼Gäós primary. However, either of the top Democratic challengers have the money to run a solid campaign.

Potential seats (21)
California 04 (Doolittle)
Colorado 04 (Musgrave) +óGé¼GÇ£ I know this race is considered close, but I am still not convinced that Musgrave is really going down.
Florida 16 (Foley)
Illinois 10 (Kirk) +óGé¼GÇ£ Kerry got 53% in 2004.
Kentucky 02 (Lewis)
Michigan 08 (Rogers)
Minnesota 01 (Gutknecht)
Nebraska 01 (Fortenberry)
Nevada 02x +óGé¼GÇ£ This is a conservative district, but Derby is a solid candidate. I was out there only a month ago, and I see this race getting better for the Dems, not worse.
Nevada 03 (Porter)
New Hampshire 01 (Bradley)
New Jersey 07 (Ferguson)
New York 03 (King) +óGé¼GÇ£ still on the National Journal rankings. Could King be a victim of the Northeast Republicans staying home?
New York 25 (Walsh)
New York 29 (Kuhl) +óGé¼GÇ£ Although this is 3rd tier with another 2 New York races, this is the most likely to move up to 2nd tier.
North Carolina 08 (Hayes)
Ohio 02 (Schmidt) +óGé¼GÇ£ Schmidt has another race on her hands this year. Wulsin has some money to raise, however, if the Republicans stay home, Schmidt could be sent home.
Ohio 18x +óGé¼GÇ£ Ney pulled out and Space is still ahead for now. The Republicans may have to spend a lot more than they need to win this race.
Texas 23 (Bonilla) +óGé¼GÇ£ Ciro has a real opportunity if he can pull his campaign together in time.
Washington 05 (McMorris)
Wyoming at-large (Cubin) +óGé¼GÇ£ Similar to the race in Idaho, just because you are a Republican in a conservative state, it doesn+óGé¼Gäót mean you can+óGé¼Gäót be disliked by most people simply on your poor personal lackings.

10 races on the fringe
CA 50 (Bilbray), CO-05x, CO 06 (Tancredo), FL 08 (Keller), FL 09x, MN-02 (Kline), New York 19 (Kelly), VA-10 (Wolf), VA-11 (Davis), WV 02 (Capito)

**This article will change over time. As I have updated lists, I find that some candidates haven+óGé¼Gäót gotten the fundraising or the press going to really be competitive as of yet. While some races are up and coming, clearly, these are the races that so far have stood out as ones that are currently on track to make a serious run this November. As the campaign season moves ahead, some races will become closer and some will become more distant. I will make further updates in late-September.

Comments

KY O3 (Nick Stump - 9/10/2006 5:50:28 PM)

Kentucky 03 is a tricky one. Dem candidate John Yarmuth is the local alternative newspaper columnist and former owner. His internal polling shows him close or up a point or two, but he faces a couple of big hurdles.

John has 14 years of mostly liberal, but sometimes not very well thought out columns he has to stand behind--frankly a stand that won't be easy for him. Though he won the primary easily, he had family money and was running against a political neophyte with no money. The third is a strong Democratic district, a big blue spot on the Kentucky map, but for years Democrats have polled well early, but when it came down to election day, we lose.

Anne Northup, Yarmuth's opponent is a mighty powerful woman. She's on the Appropriations committee and if I'm not wrong, she's brought more bacon home than any Congressperson in the country. She is the queen of earmarks and tight with Mitch McConnell. She has a huge war chest and this is one seat National Republicans want to keep. To that point, Northup just delivered the first new state of art VA hospital to be built in the country in years. Even Dems here grudgingly admit Anne brought the bacon home. Louisville was one of the cities that recieved the big Homeland Security money--more per capita than Washington or New York. She has even infitrated the African-American community. pouring money into the West End Bapist churches for faith-based projects. She's also been very effective with in demonizing the gay community and that issue has worked for her in both the West End and the religious right community.

Anne has been a big advocate of adoption and has adopted several children, African-American and white. Her son, Joshua, a young black man who lived in Lexington, tragically died from an undiagnosed heart ailment a couple of months also. Anne will get some sympathy votes from this, I'm sure. Though she hasn't used this tragedy in her campaign--she has been in mourning her period of silence forced the Yarmuth campaign to stop until Northup was ready to resume. She will be able to come out throwing the first punch and Dems here worry Yarmuth will be on the defense until November 4th.

Anne has a copy of every column Yarmuth has written. Yarmuth also had an unfortunate run on a on Louisville's local version of Crossfire. Yarmuth was not TV friendly, and though he's knowledgable about many issues, he's come up short on his knowledge about the War in Iraq. In the primary debates, he was stumped on questions like the meth lab epidemic in the area. He commented that restricting the sale of Sudafed would only lead meth addicts to seek out harder drugs. He also said the solution for Medicare was doubling the payroll tax. Some say, having never paid a payroll tax, John didn't realize the implications of what he was saying and how it would affect those who work for wages, and would cut the throats of the self-employed, who are already paying a double payroll tax. I suspect this is true and though John has tried to explain he meant sometime different from what he said, his answer is a ready made commercial for Ms Nothup.

Worst of all, many local Democrats are weak in their support for Yarmuth and for him to beat Anne's machine, Dems will have to garner more enthusiasm for Yarmuth than I'm seeing right now. Fair or not, Yarmuth has a reputation as the guy who inherited money and is out of touch with issue affecting the working poor. He had little union support in primary, except the Teachers Union.

Local insiders question his work ethic and organization. For example, Yarmuth's Web site sat idle since the May primary. Until last week, the site had May 29th as the current date and nothing had changed on the front since the day after the primary. So far, Yarmuth has not shown much enthusiasm for the race, and Dems here are getting really impatient to see him sink his teeth in this race.

I guess more than anything, I'm disappointed in the quality of Democratic candidates in Ky 03. In fairness, I should admit, I worked for Yarmuth's opponent, Fighting Dem, Andrew Horne, but like Andrew I'm supporting Yarmuth for the November election. I hope John will pull this one out, but I fear when Northup starts up her ads, which I'm hearing are gonna be heavy with Yarmuth foot in his mouth quotes and video from his TV show, locals predict Northup's numbers will rise. I hope they're wrong, but this is not a race I'd bet the rent on.