The first analysis of the upcoming 2020 congressional election shows that already nearly 8 in 10 members are in “safe” districts, making the chances of a GOP return to majority difficult.
And the University of Virginia Center for Politics report also put the president race in the “toss-up” category and said that if President Trump does not win re-election, there is virtually no chance the Democrats will lose control of the House.
But being so far out from Election Day in 2020, there is a chance at a House flip, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the Center’s “Sabato’s Crystal Ball.”
“Democrats start the cycle favored to hold the House majority, but a GOP presidential victory would open the door to Republicans restoring total control of Washington,” said Kondik in the latest “Crystal Ball.”
History, however, is not on the side of either Trump or the GOP.
“Even if President Donald Trump is renominated and reelected to a second term in the White House, it is not at all clear from history that his reelection would provide sufficient coattails to net the minimum needed gain of 18 Republican House seats,” he wrote.
“Indeed, the last five reelected presidents saw their parties fall short of that net total in their election years, and the House hasn’t switched from one party to the other and then back again in consecutive elections since 1952-1954. If Trump (or another Republican) does not win the presidency, it’s almost impossible to imagine the Republicans simultaneously losing the White House but gaining the House majority,” he added.
As for the House GOP winning the chamber back on their own, that also looks difficult in part because the analysis found that 79 percent of the seats are “safe,” thus unlikely to flip.
But then again, there is a bit of light for the GOP. Kondik found that a mostly even number of Democratic and Republican seats are in the “toss-up” category, driven by how those districts voted in the 2016 presidential election.
He wrote: “We are starting with more Democratic seats (27) than Republican ones (20) in the very competitive Toss-up and Leans categories, meaning that Democrats start the cycle with clearly but not decisively more vulnerable seats than the Republicans. That’s in large part because Democrats now control 31 Trump-won seats while Republicans only control three Clinton-won seats. From a Republican perspective, one can easily see how to win the House back: pick up 18 seats from those 27 most vulnerable Democratic-held seats, 21 of which voted for Trump in 2016 and very well could again. From a Democratic perspective, one can see avenues for supplementing their new majority, particularly if they are also winning the White House. Of the 15 GOP-held seats in the Leans Republican category, every single one was decided by a half-dozen points or less in 2018.”
“Still, just because a race was very close in 2018 does not mean it will be very close in 2020,” he continued. “For instance, we don’t list any of the Democrats’ newly-won California seats among the Toss-ups, even though several were decided only by a few points. The reason is that Clinton carried all of the new Democratic seats in 2016, and it’s reasonable to expect the Democratic presidential nominee to once again carry them in 2020, which probably would deprive GOP challengers of the oxygen they need to beat Democratic incumbents. Remember, Republicans had battle-tested incumbents in many of these seats in 2018, like former Reps. Jeff Denham (R, CA-10), Steve Knight (R, CA-25), and David Valadao (R, CA-21). Now Democrats will have the power of incumbency in those districts and, in all likelihood, the presidential wind at their backs. The opposite is true in two Minnesota seats Republicans won from Democrats in 2018, MN-1 and MN-8. Both voted for Trump by double digits, and if that repeats itself, it’s hard to see how Democrats can win those districts back, especially now that those districts have GOP incumbents (both were open seats in 2018).”
