View from the Crystal Ball

Kyle Kondik, writing at Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball makes two points:

1. Republicans are likely to take control of the House of Representatives
2. At present all of the momentum is in the Republicans’ favor

To the first point:

So our main question about the House continues to be not whether Republicans will flip the House — although we would not completely shut the door on Democrats’ retaining control if the political environment improves markedly — but rather how big the Republicans’ eventual majority will be.

and to the second:

Toward that end, we are making 11 House rating changes, all in favor of Republicans. Let’s go through them, and then we’ll take a look at the overall House picture.

concluding:

As of this writing, redistricting remains incomplete in Florida, Missouri, and New Hampshire. However, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the following: 1. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) gets his way, and Republican state legislators approve his recently proposed map, where we’d rate 20 districts at least leaning Republican and 8 at least leaning Democratic; 2. Missouri eventually adopts a map that preserves 6 Republican-leaning seats and 2 Democratic-leaning ones; and 3. New Hampshire passes a map with 1 Democratic-leaning seat and 1 Toss-up.

If that happens, and no other state maps change due to legal action, here would be our topline ratings: 210 seats would be rated Safe, Likely, or Leans Republican, 198 would be rated Safe, Likely, or Leans Democratic, and 27 would be rated as Toss-ups.

Given the political environment, we’d expect Republicans to do quite well among the Toss-up races. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, they win 20 of the 27. That would result in a 230-205 Republican House, or a net gain of 17 from what Republicans won in 2020.

To be honest, that seems a little light in terms of Republican gains. If we had to guess, today, what Republicans would net in the House, we’d probably pick a number in the 20s. So that means our ratings are probably at least a little bit friendlier to Democrats than perhaps they should be. However, we do have several more seats rated Leans Democratic (15) compared to Leans Republican (8), which is one way of indicating how the playing field could grow. On the other hand, our ratings also reflect the possibility of a Democratic comeback in which they limit Republican advances.

Short of a Wayback Machine, I don’t believe there’s much that Democrats can to about the situation at this point. Many of the factors pushing things in the Republicans’ favor are long-term or structural matters; others are materially beyond their control. One thing I have noticed lately is that the surest way for President Biden to bolster his approval rating or, at least, to keep it from descending farther is to maintain a low profile. That doesn’t bode well for a more activist posture between now and November being helpful to Democrats.