The most vulnerable House members of 2018, in two charts
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It’s not too presumptuous to start talking about a “wave election” for this November’s midterm. For one thing, wave elections aren’t even that unusual in midterm elections; going back to the Civil War, the average loss for the party that controls thThe most vulnerable House members of 2018, in two charts
It’s not too presumptuous to start talking about a “wave election” for this November’s midterm. For one thing, wave elections aren’t even that unusual in midterm elections; going back to the Civil War, the average loss for the party that controls the White House in a midterm is 32 seats. The presidential party invariably thinks “but this time it’s going to be different!” And then, invariably, partisans for the party in power get complacent or get their feelings hurt, members of the party out of power get enraged and feel their very existence is threatened, and swing voters freak out that the party that they just voted for is either failing to fulfill its promises, or is fulfilling its promises too aggressively. It’s a phenomenon political scientists call thermostatic public opinion. But we’re also seeing all sorts of flashing red lights on the instrument panel. Retirements in the House—especially among Republican members, who can probably sense things are going to go not so well this November—are starting to pile up. In fact, they’re coming at an unusually high rate; with the retirements of Darrell Issa and Ed Royce this week, we’re already up to 30 GOP retirements, and most states haven’t hit their filing deadlines yet. Generic ballot House polling shows Democrats opening up a wide advantage; different aggregators will give you different results, but most see a low-double-digit lead. FiveThirtyEight, for instance, currently sees a 10 point advantage for the Democrats, though some recent polls have seen spikes as high as 17 percent. And the recent track record for Democrats in special elections last year, both for House seats and state legislative seats, is also consistent with a generic ballot lead in the low teens, based on how much vote shares have swung since previous elections. So, you might be wondering, which Republicans are most likely to lose? There isn’t a lot of information, unfortunately, that tells us much about individual races. There are a handful of recent Public Policy Polling polls of key races, though many of those polls only test our good friend “Generic Democrat.” (Unlike some previous recent years, there’s no shortage of Democrats willing to challenge GOP incumbents. There’s a lot of uncertainty because of that surplus, in fact; in many races, we simply don’t know yet which of the various talented Democratic candidates will emerge from the primary.) What we can do, though, is turn to the Daily Kos Elections House Vulnerability Index, which combines data from previous elections to assess which seats are in the greatest danger in the next election. Read more