Democrats Have a Path to Retake the House

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Democrats have a path to winning a House majority next year, but that possibility is highly dependent on variables over which they have effectively no control. That’s the takeaway from our initial ratings of 2018’s House races, a list that is heavy on Republicans who start this cycle only mildly endangered.”

“Historically, the president’s party loses ground in a midterm: That’s what happened in 36 of the 39 midterms since the Civil War. American political history is dotted with elections where the president’s party suffered big losses because of a bad economy (1930, 1938, 1958, and 2010 are all examples), unpopular wars (1950, 1966, and 2006), scandal (1974), or other factors.”

“If a wave is developing, we may be able to track it through President Trump’s approval rating (particularly if it falls into the 30s) and/or the House generic ballot. Watch to see if the latter metric, which measures national opinions on how voters intend to vote in their local House race, starts to show a significant Democratic lead approaching double digits in polling averages. Those are the kinds of numbers it’s probably going to take for Democrats to crack the GOP’s House majority, which is protected both by the power of incumbency and by favorable district lines in many key states.”