Key House Races Three-Year Presidential Voting History

A good indicator of how Republican or Democratic a congressional district leans is its Presidential voting history. Voter Party ID percentages are not always conclusive because Republicans and Democrats in certain regions of the country slant more liberal or conservative than those in other regions. Independents are notorious wild cards.

As we compiled and analyzed our Master List of competitive House races, it became apparent that many of the districts favored Republicans in the last three Presidential elections, yet were currently represented by Democrats. In many cases, the Democrat was a freshman swept in with Obama in 2008. But in a fair number of others, the Democrat was a multi-term incumbent.

It's significant that a total of 43 districts on this chart have Democrat Representatives, YET the Average Margin of victory in those districts’ last three Presidential votes was five points or greater for the Republican presidential candidate (Bush in '00 and '04 and McCain in '08). Two districts, LA-2 and HI-1, have formidable Democratic Average Margins, but have Republican Representatives (Cao and Djou) as a result of highly unusual situations. Most of the remaining districts listed which favor either party have narrow Average Margins of less than five points. You may wonder why some of the districts having substantial D Average Margins are even on this chart. The reason is either because the presidential votes in '00 and '04 were very close, yet in '08 Obama posted a sizable margin which skewed the Average Margin; or because Expert Pollsters have determined that the district is not Safe D.

The "magic number" required for Republicans to wrest control of the House is a gain of 39 seats, but that is contingent on ALL incumbent Republicans being re-elected and ALL open R seats being filled by R's. Not impossible, but not likely, either. As noted above, LA-2 and HI-1 are long shots.

This chart illustrates the best options for R inroads. Considering that there are 43 districts with 1) wide Average Margins in presidential voting favoring Republicans, 2) many more districts favoring Republicans but by narrower margins, and 3) even more districts where Democrats are not sitting comfortably, it appears quite feasible that the GOP COULD garner the necessary gains to take back the House. Numbers alone, however, rarely relay the whole electoral narrative. Additional variables such as pro or anti-incumbency voter fervor, strength of Republican challengers, national party attention, voter enthusiasm and local get out the vote efforts will also influence the results.

Key House Races is keeping an eye on the ever changing House electoral landscape.

Refer to the bottom of the chart for the color coding definitions.