Election News

Recent polling has Lamb slightly ahead in what has been a solid Republican district in recent years. President Trump won the district by about 20 points in 2016 and Murphy's re-election that year was uncontested. Democrats have consistently outperformed the presidential results in the congressional special elections held during the Trump presidency. However, Republicans have held all five* seats in the House. Democrats did pick up a Senate seat in Alabama.

Seen as another referendum on the Trump presidency, both parties are throwing a lot of money at the special election. While that's good for Pittsburgh-area media companies, this district will not exist in its current form next year. As part of a court-ordered redistricting, a large portion of the current 18th will be in the redrawn, safely Republican, PA-14 this November. As a result, if the Democrat Lamb wins today, he's most likely to run in the new PA-17 against 'incumbent' Republican Keith Rothfus. Even if the Republican Saccone loses, he could keep the campaign together to try again in the hospitable PA-14 this fall.

The Pennsylvania 18th District is one of four current vacancies in the U.S. House. The other three:

• AZ-08 This seat was held by Republican Trent Franks | (Special election is) April 24th
• OH-12 This seat was held by Republican Pat Tiberi | August 7th
• MI-13 This seat was held by Democrat John Conyers, Jr. | November 6th

* California uses a top two primary to determine the general election match-up. The 34th District special election was contested between two Democrats.

While the 2018 environment favors Democrats, running the table in 26 party-held seats means winning in ten states where Donald Trump won in 2016, including five where he won by 18% or more. These include West Virginia (Trump by 42%), North Dakota (36%), Montana (20%), Indiana (19%), and Missouri (19%). An Axios/Survey Monkey series of polls this week showed Trump's approval remains above 50% in all those states with the incumbent Democrat trailing. The Senate heats were mostly against a 'generic' Republican at this point, so we wouldn't get too caught up on any single result. The larger point is that Democrats cannot afford even a single misstep in some very difficult states for them.

Here's how each race is currently rated by Sabato's Crystal Ball, Inside Elections, and The Cook Political Report. The table on the left lists any race where one or more of the pundits thinks it is or could be competitive. Conversely, the bottom right lists the 17 races that are safe for the incumbent party. The table at top right summarizes everything. There are currently 14 races with one or more leaning/toss-up rating. This number should decline as the individual match-ups become known.

At this point, control of the House is clearly in play, and the number of competitive seats is expanding. However, we're still eight months out from the election, so much can change. If the trend stabilizes, and Republicans can hold the seats where they're currently favored, they don't need to win all that many of the toss-up districts to keep the House. Conversely, if the environment for the GOP continues to worsen, Democrats could easily surpass the 218 they need to take the gavel from Paul Ryan.

Click or tap the map above to explore the interactive House map and create your own forecast. The map has recently been updated to make it easier to use.

* Sabato has also moved their rating for next Tuesday's Pennsylvania PA-18 special election to toss-up. As part of the court-ordered redistricting, a large portion of the current 18th will be in the redrawn, safely Republican PA-14 this November. If the Democrat Conor Lamb wins Tuesday, he's most likely to run in the new PA-17 against 'incumbent' Republican Keith Rothfus. In any case, our map is looking beyond the special election to the ratings for November, which gets us to the 214 Republican total, with 24 toss-ups. 

The Republican Gov. Phil Bryant will appoint a temporary replacement. A special election will be held on November 6th, coincident with the 2018 midterms. The winner of that race will serve the remainder of Cochran's term, which will next be contested in 2020.

Mississippi joins Minnesota with both Senate seats up for election in 2018. Republican Roger Wicker is running for a 3rd term in the regularly scheduled election. That seat is safely Republican. Sabato's Crystal Ball is starting the special election race as 'Likely Republican', although it is worth noting that no state in this 'double-barrel' situation has elected Senators of different parties since 1966. 

That the rating is 'likely' instead of 'safe' could partially be due to one quirk of Mississippi special election law. There will be no party primaries and the November 6th election will be nonpartisan. All candidates will run on a single ballot, with party affiliations not listed. If no candidate exceeds 50%, the top two will meet in a runoff. If that involved a Democrat vs. a controversial Republican, there's at least a small chance of a repeat of an upset like we saw in neighboring Alabama late last year.

There will now be 35 Senate seats contested in 2018; 26 are held by Democrats and 9 by Republicans. We'll be updating the Interactive Senate Map in the days ahead to reflect this new race.

Note that the March 13th special election in the vacant 18th district will take place within the old boundaries. That race, in a district Donald Trump won by 20 points in 2016, was moved to toss-up this week by The Cook Political Report. The old 18th is now largely the new 14th district, which is even more Republican-leaning. The Sabato article discusses the implications for this race on November. The main takeaway is that if the Democrat Conor Lamb wins, his best bet to stay in Congress is to run in the 17th district against Republican Keith Rothfus.

The new Pennsylvania borders could also prove to be critical in who controls the House after the midterms. Looking at the entire country, Republicans currently control 238 seats, 20 more than the 218 required when there are no vacancies. (There are currently four opens seats, including the aforementioned one in Pennsylvania). The latest projection for November has Republicans at least slightly favored in exactly 218 seats, the lowest it has been this entire cycle.  

The suits do not challenge the use of the Electoral College system - which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution - but instead that winner-take-all disenfranchises many voters. The ultimate goal of the plaintiffs is to establish an allocation of electoral votes proportional to the popular vote across the 48 states that today use winner-take-all. Nebraska and Maine use a different method that partially allocates electoral votes by congressional district.

The plaintiffs vary by state, but include the League of United Latin American Citizens and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. The legal team is led by David Boies, who represented then Vice-President Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore case that resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election. In that election, as in 2016, the Democratic nominee lost the election - by falling short of 270 electoral votes - despite winning the popular vote.

This isn't the first effort to modify winner-take-all. Several state legislatures have introduced their own proposals over the years. These are almost always partisan efforts, occuring when the party controlling the legislature is not the one winning in presidential races. In our Gaming the Electoral College feature, we look at the impact of various methodologies that have been proposed.

Here's the current map (with incumbent party)

The 'instant punditry' on Twitter is that the new map is quite favorable for the Democrats, although we haven't seen any specific district-by-district analysis as of yet. Republicans will almost certainly challenge the ruling.

The full ruling, along with dissenting opinions can be found here.

Including individual maps drawn by the Legislature and Governor, seven proposals were submitted for consideration. The Court could choose one of those or create one of its own. It has retained a redistricting expert to assist in the process.

A few notes:

• The March 13 special election for the vacant 18th district will take place using the current borders
• The new districts will be effective for voting beginning with the primaries, scheduled for May 15
  • However, the borders will not change for representation purposes until the next Congress (January, 2019)
• While Pennsylvania is roughly a 50/50 state, Democrats are heavily concentrated in Philadelphia and, to a lesser extent, Pittsburgh. Given other geographic and political factors involved (e.g., contiguous area, keeping counties/towns together wherever possible), it is likely that the new map will still favor Republicans in more districts than Democrats.
• Assuming no further litigation, the new map will be effective for the 2018 and 2020 elections. After the 2020 Census, most states will engage in a redistricting process that will be effective with the 2022 elections.

A Facebook page 'Kevin Cramer for US Senate' posted that the announcement would come late Friday afternoon in Bismarck.

Cramer will become the 51st current House member to pass on re-election to that body in 2018. He'll be the 10th of those running for the U.S. Senate.  We'll add him to the list of retirements when the announcement is official.

Kramer won his third term in 2016 by 45%, while Donald Trump won the state by 36%. This is Heitkamp's first term; she won election in 2012 by just under 1%. 

While the revised map meet some of the Court's specifications regarding geographic compactness and political (e.g., county and/or city) boundaries, numerous analyses have found the submitted map to be roughly as partisan as the current map. 

Current Map, seats held by party (from our Interactive House Map, choose Pennsylvania in the drop down):

Proposed Map (from the Washington Post, based on presidential margin of victory in 2016):

The Court order specified that the new borders will be effective for the 2018 midterms, beginning with the state's primaries, scheduled for May 15th. However, the special election for the vacant 18th district, scheduled for March 13th, will take place under the existing boundaries.