The House Of Representatives Battlegrounds: Can The Democrats Keep Control?

The NY Times has published a detailed look at the battleground states in play for the House of Representatives, which most polls now predict will go Republican in November.

As the Times portrays it, each party has 168 safe seats, with the remaining 99 in play!

However, the projection is that the Democrats lead in 47 and the Republicans in 19, with 33 seats a tossup. So if you count those that lean to one party or the other, the Democrats would have 215 seats, and the Republicans would have 187, meaning the Democrats would only need 3 more seats to keep control of the chamber!

Of course, leaning to one party or the other does not mean it is a guarantee that the elections will work out that way, and voter turnout and enthusiasm will be, as always, a key factor in the results! At this point, the enthusiasm and turnout has favored the Republicans, a bad sign for the Democrats in November if it continues! 🙁

When one looks at the key House races which are tossups, it is noticeable that Pennsylvania has four contested seats; while Florida and Illinois have three competitive seats; and Indiana, Michigan and New Hampshire each have two battleground seats! So 16 of the 33 tossup seats are in states which Barack Obama won. That plus 10 other seats in states which Obama won (Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin) would mean a total of 26 seats, and if these all went to the Democrats, it would give them a total of 241 seats, meaning a loss of 16 seats, a mild loss!

But this is all speculative, and we will simply have to see if the Democrats can change the public mood in the next eight weeks and retain control of the House of Representatives and keep Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House!

One comment on “The House Of Representatives Battlegrounds: Can The Democrats Keep Control?

  1. Margaret Mitchell, MSRN,, CNS September 6, 2010 4:07 pm

    I hope every got to or gets to hear the speech President Obama gave in Milwaukee today. I for one want to see more of that President! He was on fire and He hammered the GOP ….just as they deserve. I would like to see even more like this from him. He made several personal attacks….justly deserved, on the likes of John Boehnner, Mitch McConnel.. He stated’ “They talk about me like I’m a DOG!” It’s about time he speaks up! Now the talk back on TV shows is showing the right is going nuts because the President did this. They are telling people they never did anything like that..they have never attacked our President. I swear the GOP simply believes their lies…if repeated often enough will be believed by all of us dim-witted, middle class American citizens. It’s time they and their big buisness cronies and special interests realize they have underestimated the right.

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