In House elections, every seat counts

Follow Us Get the newsletter Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Democrats will most likely hold on to the U.S. House this fall, regardless of what happens in other elections. But it's important to remember that every seat matters. The Democrats' margin isn't that large: They currently hold 233 seats, with 218 needed for a majority. Yet even with a win in a California special election last week, Republicans aren't likely to gain that much. Looking at the Cook Political Report's analysis, if the parties split the toss-ups and both successfully defend seats leaning toward them, then Republicans would net two seats this cycle (in addition to winning back Justin Amash's seat for a regular Republican; Amash is currently caucusing as a libertarian). To get to 218, they'd need to sweep all 22 toss ups and add four seats that currently lean toward Democrats. That's not looking likely right now. Polls currently show Democrats with about an eight percentage-point lead in the "generic" ballot question, and that margin has been pretty stable for the past year. Unless President Donald Trump suddenly becomes a lot more (or less) popular than he's been for most of his term, I wouldn't expect it to move too much. There's still plenty of time, but we're now in the period where the polling begins to become meaningful as a predictor. Even so, if Republicans could pick up only a dozen seats, Democrats would be severely limited in what they could do. It's not that they'd start losing votes on the House floor if they had only 220 or 225 seats. But the size of the majority is nonetheless important, because the bigger it is, the better the chances of retaining it going forward. This hasn't always worked out for the Democrats — they got clobbered so badly in both 1994 and 2010 that substantial majorities were overcome. But even in an era where the advantages of incumbency are small, both parties would rather defend a 40-seat margin than a 10-seat margin.  As far as where the battles will be fought? Six Texas seats are hotly contested — two toss-ups, and two each leaning toward Democrats and Republicans. Democrats hold three toss-ups in Iowa. Plus there are four contested seats (toss-ups or leaners) in New York, California and Pennsylvania. There's still a long way to go, with plenty of primary elections coming up this summer. So some of the ratings may shift quite a bit even if the overall partisan picture remains the same. One other thing to watch: Expect even bigger shifts if the presidential race starts to change. 1. Seth Masket at Mischiefs of Faction on parties and the veepstakes. 2. Brigitte Hugh and Anna O. Pechenkina at the Monkey Cage on foreign interference in the 2016 — and 2020 — elections. 3 . Chad P. Bown on the early evidence of how the U.S.-China trade deal is panning out. 4. Geoffrey Skelley on older voters in 2020. 5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Noah Smith on government borrowing and government bungling. 6. And the crew at NBC on one big limitation that former Vice President Joe Biden faces in choosing a running mate. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.   Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can't find anywhere else. Learn more.   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Early Returns newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022