A Dem tsunami?

The National Journal's Chuck Todd released a new edition of his House race rankings, which he updates each month (he does the House, Senate, Gov, and WH '08 races in alternating weeks). As with my gubernatorial race rankings from last week, these rankings are based on the likelihood that control of a given House seat will switch parties - in other words, in order of how "vulnerable" a seat is. This week, there were a few things I noticed that were interesting:

• All of the GOP-held seats in CT were moved up 3-5 spots. Shays was moved up from 7 to 4, Simmons from 10 to 7, and Johnson from 34 to 29. The reasoning? That the Dem candidates in all three races will be able to tout endorsements from both Lamont and Lieberman. That certainly does help all three. I do wonder, however, if the moderate voters who determine these races will be more interested in whether a candidate supports Lamont/Lieberman, rather than whether or not Lamont/Lieberman supports that candidate.
  
  Todd also asked an interesting question:
  

  Why isn't Nancy Johnson running for the U.S. Senate? She'd win the three-way

  Don't give her any ideas, Chuck...

• None of the GOP-held seats in NY are in the top 10 (the open NY-24 being vacated by Sherwood Boehlert is 11th, and John Sweeney is 24th), and only two are in the top 30. Personally, I think that these seats are set to fall like dominoes in November. The GOP is going to get its clock cleaned in both the Senate and Governor's races, with Clinton and Spitzer both bringing out Democratic voters. If either candidate chooses to engage the race by running ads in the upstate TV markets, it's probably curtains for Sue Kelly, John Sweeney, James Walsh, and maybe even Tom Reynolds (man, that would be so sweet) in addition to Boehlert's open seat.

• It's really tough to find truly vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Leonard Boswell's (IA-3) seat is ranked as the Dems' most vulnerable, at #13. John Barrow (GA-12) is next at #22, followed by the VT open seat at #27 and freshman Rep. Melissa Bean (IL-8) at #28. I think Todd actually has the VT seat too low, but Boswell and Barrow seem much safer to me than Todd seems to think. Boswell has survived challenges from tougher opponents in years when the nat'l environment was much less favorable for Dems, and Barrow is running in a district that was redistricted to give it a higher African-American population than the one he won two years ago. Methinks Barrow's biggest threat would have been a primary challenge from Denise Majette.

The bottom line of all this is that the GOP is going to be playing defense in nearly every contested race that there is this House cycle. The most vulnerable "Dem" seat is one that's actually being held by someone who has never been a member of the Democratic party (Bernie Sanders). The poor outlook for the GOP looks a whole lot like the environment that the Dems faced in 1994, the last time a political tsunami swept a new party into control of the House.

People are talking about the possibility of Dems winning back the House, but they are generally thinking that any Democratic takeover will be a narrow one, with Dems winning just 15-18 new seats - enough to give them a bare majority. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened, and I can also easily foresee circumstances under which the Dems don't re-take the House at all. But I think it is also very possible that the Dems will net 25, 30, maybe even up to 40 seats in the House. People may scoff at the idea of such a massive Democratic victory, but one can easily look at the lay of the land and see that there are at least 30 very vulnerable GOP seats.

Political tsunamis have a tendency to sweep away everything along the waterfront, and also sometimes take out a few places further inland that don't appear vulnerable at first glance. If that historical tendency holds true to form, the GOP may be in for an even longer night on November 7th than pundits expect.