GOP Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina passed away Sunday on his 76th birthday. He had entered hospice care in late January. Jones ran unopposed for a 13th term this past November.
The 3rd district of North Carolina encompasses much of the state's Atlantic coast north of Wilmington. A special election will be held to fill the remainder of his term.
The U.S. House currently has 235 Democrats and 197 Republicans. There are three vacancies.
There are 17 Democratic women in the U.S. Senate. With her announcement Sunday, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar becomes the 4th of those to join the 2020 presidential race. She follows Kamala Harris (CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) and Elizabeth Warren (MA). Warren officially joined the race on Saturday. There are now nine* Democrats seeking the party's nomination.
Interestingly, of all the Democrats that may run in 2020, none are from a state that was as closely-contested as Minnesota in 2016. Hillary Clinton prevailed here by just 1.5% over Donald Trump, as it nearly joined the blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that powered Trump's win. On the other hand, Minnesota has not voted for a GOP nominee since Richard Nixon in 1972, the longest such state single-party streak^ in the nation. The Cook Political Report has started the state as Leans Democratic in 2020.
* Including two that have formed exploratory committees; one step short of a formal announcement.
^ Washington, D.C. has had 3 electoral votes since 1964. It has never voted Republican. Curious about your state's streak? See our Same Since Electoral Maps.
Rep. Rob Woodall will not seek a 6th term in 2020. The Georgian Republican narrowly won re-election in November; his margin of victory over Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux was less than 500 votes.
After Woodall's announcement; Bourdeaux indicated she would run again in in 2020. The race is again likely to be closely-contested. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes, "the race to represent the 7th District, which includes portions of Gwinnett and Forsyth County, was the closest congressional race in the country last year. Once lily white and deeply conservative, it’s now at the center of the demographic shifts that have transformed Atlanta’s wealthy suburbs into political battlegrounds."
We've updated the Interactive Electoral College Tie Finder for the 2020 race. It shows all possible 269-269 ties for a given group of undecided locations (states and/or Maine/Nebraska districts).
11 states, as well as Nebraska's 2nd district were decided by less than a 5% popular vote margin in 2016. There are 64 possible ties based on that group of locations. An additional seven locations were decided by approximately 5-10% that year.
Use the tool to look at what ties are possible based on any combination* of these 19 locations. Over time, we'll update the locations in the tie finder as needed based on how the 2020 race evolves.
In this random example, there are five possible tie combinations:
If no nominee reaches 270 electoral votes, the presidency is decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, with each state receiving a single vote, regardless of the size of its delegation. The GOP currently holds a 26-22 lead across the 50 states, with two ties. This would favor that party in a 269 tie scenario. However, that is not set in stone, as any tie in the 2020 presidential election would be broken in January, 2021, by the House members elected that November.
* Up to 12 locations can be included in the calculation
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker will run for president in 2020. Booker made the announcement on Friday morning, timed to the first day of Black History Month.
I’m running for president. Join me on this journey. https://t.co/fEDqOVIfwh pic.twitter.com/h1FTPUYRzo
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) February 1, 2019
Booker, who will be 50 in April, has been in the U.S. Senate for about six years. He won a special election in October, 2013 to complete the term of Frank Lautenberg, who had died earlier that year. In 2014, he was elected to a full six-year term. Prior to serving in the Senate, Booker was a two-term mayor of Newark.
Booker is the 6th Democrat to formally join the 2020 field, with another three having formed exploratory committees, a step just short of an official announcement.
The Washington Examiner reports "top Republicans in Texas are sounding the alarm about 2020, warning President Trump could lose the usually reliably red state unless he devotes resources and attention to it typically reserved for electoral battlegrounds."
Texas hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter won here by about 3% in 1976. Trump won the state by nine points in 2016. While not particularly close, it was the smallest GOP margin since Bob Dole's five point win here in 1996.
Could Trump win reelection if he were to lose Texas and its 38 electoral votes? Probably not, unless this was strictly a regional issue and he was able to offset it by building upon his 2016 realignment of the electoral map. That year, he flipped Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states that hadn't voted Democratic in a generation. In addition, he narrowly lost Minnesota, New Hampshire and Maine's at-large electoral votes.
In the scenario below, we assume a loss in Texas correlates with a similar outcome in Arizona, making the entire Southwestern part of the country Democratic in 2020. However, Trump is able to offset this by carrying all his other 2016 states and winning Minnesota. This would leave the election to be decided - or perhaps end in a 269-269 tie - by the six electoral votes available in Maine and New Hampshire.
Click or tap the map to create your own 2020 forecast.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2020, it was reported Tuesday. Garcetti, who easily won a 2nd term as the city's mayor in 2017 was one of several mayors considering a 2020 bid. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg launched an exploratory committee last week. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has yet to decide if he will enter the race. No mayor has ever moved directly from that office to the presidency.
The updated Democratic list:
Former West Virginia State. Sen. Richard Ojeda has ended his bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Ojeda had concluded that the campaign wasn't winnable. The move comes less than two weeks after Ojeda resigned his seat in the West Virginia Senate so that he could pursue the presidential run.
Ojeda made his announcement via a Facebook post. He is the first announced Democrat to withdraw.
The 2020 House Interactive Map is now live. Use it to create and share your forecast for the 2020 House elections.
In the table below the interactive map, view the incumbent for each seat, along with their margin of victory in 2018. Compare that to the margins in the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The table defaults to all races seen as competitive in 2020, based on initial ratings by Sabato's Crystal Ball. As you pan/zoom on the map, the table will update to show all seats visible in the map area. To view all districts in a specific state, choose it in the drop-down menu below the seat counter.
Democrats gained 40 seats in the 2018 midterms, and now hold 235 seats to 198 for the Republicans. There are two vacancies in previously GOP-held seats: PA-12 and NC-9. There will be a special election in PA-12 on May 21, coinciding with the state's primary election. It is unclear when the North Carolina vacancy will be filled.
The House map arrives with three Starting Views. In addition to a blank map, there is the initial 2020 forecast from Sabato's Crystal Ball and a map that shows the most competitive races in 2018, based on margin of victory. Click or tap the images below for an interactive version of these.
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." Read their full analysis >>
This map separates the 87* races decided by 10% or less in 2018. Those decided by less than 5% are shown as a tilt rating, while the elections with 5-10% margins are shown as a leans rating. The remainder are displayed as safe.
* North Carolina's 9th district is excluded. The Election Day vote gave the GOP nominee a victory margin of less than 1% (tilt Republican using this map's methodology). However, the election was not certified and the seat remains vacant.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has set May 21 as the date for a special election to fill a vacancy in the state's congressional delegation. The date coincides with the state's primary election. Former Rep. Tom Marino's last day in office was yesterday (Jan. 23rd). The GOP congressman had announced his plan to resign last week.
Donald Trump won this rural Pennsylvania district by over 35% in 2016, with Marino winning a fifth term by over 30% this past November. The seat is very likely to remain in GOP hands.
