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POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Rating Changes: Pushing House Toss-ups, Nebraska Senate to Leans Republican

A Commentary By Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— We are pushing a few House Toss-ups out of that category this week, leaving revised ratings that show 212 House seats at least leaning Republican, 209 at least leaning Democratic, and 14 Toss-ups.

— Just like in the presidential race, there’s still no favorite in the House.

— We also are moving Sen. Deb Fischer’s (R-NE) race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican, as the Republican cavalry has had to ride in to help her in her contest against independent Dan Osborn.

Table 1: Crystal Ball House rating changes

Table 2: Crystal Ball Senate rating change

The House picture

Recently, the two authors of this piece did a check-in on the House. Before today’s rating changes, the Crystal Ball had 211 U.S. House seats rated as Safe, Likely, or Leans Republican, 206 Safe, Likely, or Leans Democratic, and 18 Toss-ups. Independently, each of us made our own separate best guesses of the 18 Toss-ups, and then we compared notes. We both picked the Democrats to win a majority of the Toss-ups, with one of us coming out at 218-217 Republican, and the other coming out at 218-217 Democratic.

We have since relayed this to other observers and people on both sides of the House races, just as a funny way of illustrating how close the House might be. But the idea of the House being so close was not outlandish to anyone.

The House has already produced a couple of very close majorities in consecutive elections, neither of which were years that forecasters (ourselves included) generally covered themselves in glory. Democrats won a narrow 222-213 majority in 2020, and then Republicans followed that up with another 222-213 majority in 2022.

If the House is indeed roughly that close again, there would not be much precedent for 3 straight elections producing such tight majorities, although in 4 consecutive elections (1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002), the Republicans won a series of majorities that did not exceed 230 seats: 227, 223, 222, and 229 (for the sake of simplicity, we’ve included a couple of Republican-caucusing independents as Republicans for the purposes of this analysis). But that competitive era would not be as competitive as this one could be, assuming another small majority akin to the ones from 2020 and 2022 emerges this year.

The big headline in the House over the last week and a half or so has been the extraordinary fundraising by House Democratic candidates, something that did not come as a surprise. The outside spending picture, as documented by the California Target Book’s Rob Pyers, shows Democrats ahead of Republicans on party expenditures so far, and that does not even include the Democratic edge in individual candidate fundraising (and candidates get better rates on buying television ads than outside groups do). We don’t obsess about money in congressional races, and we can produce many examples of candidates who were outspent nonetheless winning anyway, but obviously any candidate would rather have more money, not less.

As is our custom at the Crystal Ball, we are planning to eliminate all the Toss-ups in our ratings between now and the day before the election, going on record with at least a “lean” in every race. We thought we’d get that process started today, upgrading 3 Democratic House incumbents and 1 Republican House incumbent from Toss-up to Leaning in their direction.

It is our understanding that a trio of swing district Democrats, Reps. Don Davis (D, NC-1) in northeastern North Carolina, Emilia Sykes (D, OH-13) in the Akron-Canton area, and Susan Wild (D, PA-7) in the Lehigh Valley are all leading by some amount in their races—although not necessarily by much—and they are the kinds of marginal swing-district members that need to perform well in order for Democrats to flip the House. These are all Joe Biden-won districts, although they are all competitive: Biden won NC-1 by 2, OH-13 by 3, and PA-7 by just about half a point. They also help illustrate the Democrats’ candidate fundraising advantages, as each held at least a 2-to-1 cash-on-hand edge as of the end of September. These are also important defensive assignments for Democrats in states where polls close relatively early on Election Night—Democrats don’t necessarily have to hold all of them, but Republicans flipping any of them would be a hopeful sign as the GOP tries to hang onto the majority. We see all of the incumbents with a little bit of an edge down the stretch against, respectively, their Republican rivals Laurie Buckhout (NC-1), Kevin Coughlin (OH-13), and Ryan Mackenzie (PA-7). Republicans remain hopeful that a stronger performance by Donald Trump in 2024 could allow their presidential nominee to win districts like these, which could have a coattail effect for the GOP House challengers.

For Republicans, the incumbent moving favorably out of Toss-up is Rep. David Valadao (R, CA-22), a veteran GOP House member who is going for a fourth straight presidential-year victory in a district likely to vote Democratic for president, a potentially impressive feat in an era defined by a lack of split results between presidential and House races. Valadao’s time in Congress, which began in 2013, was interrupted by a narrow loss in the 2018 Democratic wave, but he won his seat back in 2020. One of just two remaining House Republicans who voted in favor of impeaching Trump following the events of Jan. 6, 2021—the other is Rep. Dan Newhouse (R, WA-4), who faces another Republican in his top-two general election—Valadao has been able to squeak out enough crossover support to thread the needle (for the most part) in recent years, and it’s also possible that the Democratic presidential margin will narrow a bit in this very heavily working-class and Latino Central Valley district, which voted for Hilary Clinton by 16 points in 2016 and for Biden by 13 in 2020. There is a general feeling among House watchers that Valadao will be one of the tougher Biden-district California Republicans to dislodge; Valadao’s opponent is Rudy Salas (D), who is challenging Valadao for a second time after losing in 2022.

Both Reps. John Duarte (R, CA-13), whose district runs north of Valadao’s in the Central Valley, and Mike Garcia (R, CA-27), who represents areas north of Los Angeles, appear more endangered than Valadao—and Rep. Michelle Steel (R, CA-45) in Orange County may be as well, as that race has become a magnet for outside spending (it is now first in terms of dollars spent among all House districts, according to Pyers’s aggregate). We continue to rate those 3 races as Toss-ups, although we suspect our final ratings will reflect at least one of them being a modest underdog.

Our other rating changes brings a deep sleeper onto the competitive board. Former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez (D) is challenging Rep. Eli Crane (R, AZ-2) in northeastern Arizona. Crane, a first-termer who beat former Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D) in 2022 after redistricting made this district considerably redder (Trump +8), was a key player in forcing former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R) to endure a marathon of votes before becoming speaker in early 2023 and also in the ultimately successful effort to dislodge McCarthy from the speakership later that year. Nez raised an eye-popping amount of money in the third quarter for an ostensibly Safe Republican race—$2.6 million—although Crane had a good quarter, too, at $1.7 million.

We are putting the AZ-2 race on the board as Likely Republican because of Nez’s interesting candidacy—a Democratic upset here would almost surely need strong Native American turnout, and maybe Nez can help generate such enthusiasm. Another factor in this rating decision was a recent Noble Predictive Insights/Inside Elections poll that had Crane and Nez tied at 42%. Trump was leading Kamala Harris by 9 points in the poll, roughly akin to the 2020 presidential margin, so Crane very likely has significantly more room to grow than Nez, although the poll also showed Rep. Ruben Gallego (D, AZ-3) leading Kari Lake (R) by 5 points in the district. As a side note, though that Senate topline is another example of a Democratic Senate candidate outrunning Harris, we would be surprised if Gallego’s lead there holds, as Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) lost AZ-2 by 5 points in 2022 while winning overall by the same amount.

Still of much greater interest in the overall House race are Reps. David Schweikert (R, AZ-1) in greater Phoenix and Juan Ciscomani (R, AZ-6) in Tucson, who remain locked in Toss-up races as they defend marginal Biden-won districts. The Democratic path to the majority would be clearer if they could dislodge at least one of them.

Overall, our ratings show just 7 Republican-held Toss-ups and 7 Democratic-held Toss-ups, for 14 total. The Republicans now have 212 seats at least leaning to them, and Democrats have 209. Splitting the Toss-ups down the middle would produce a 219-216 Republican House, so the ratings technically have the Republicans very narrowly ahead—but neither side is favored in the race for the House majority, even at this late stage.

Nebraska Senate to Leans Republican

Aside from the changes in the House that we’re making this week, we are also downgrading Sen. Deb Fischer’s (R) prospects as she seeks a third term in Nebraska. Overall, our view on the race is not that much different from what we outlined last week.

Despite the state’s solid red hue, internal polling from either side has shown that independent union leader Dan Osborn remains competitive with Fischer. Fischer has led by single-digit margins in her own publicly-released internal polling, while Osborn has produced a flood of internal polls showing him leading, most recently a 48%-46% lead in a Change Research poll (interestingly, his leads have been bigger in some of his other released polls).

Until this week, much of the anti-Osborn spending in the race, had come from either the Heartland Resurgence PAC—a group which had links to the Mitch McConnell-affiliated Senate Leadership Fund—and ESAFund, a group formerly known as the Ending Spending Action Fund, which has links to Sen. Pete Ricketts’s (R-NE) wealthy family. But earlier this week, SLF itself announced a multi-million dollar buy on behalf of Fischer. In recent weeks, SLF has upped its involvement in Senate races that we viewed as more fundamentally marginal—such as Michigan and Wisconsin—so their buy in Nebraska suggested to us that the race there also may be more competitive than Likely Republican.

While Osborn would have to hit some tough benchmarks to actually beat Fischer, his campaign has emphasized to us that, in their polling, his favorability rating remains broadly positive across the state. Osborn, unlike some other recent independent candidates who’ve run in red states, did not have much of a partisan political record before running for office. That blank slate is something his side tells us has made it harder for Republicans to convey their message to voters that he is a Democrat in disguise.

Unlike Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL), the only other two GOP incumbents in races that we rate as something other than Safe Republican, Fischer has, arguably, never had to run in a legitimately competitive statewide general election. Although she drew a heralded opponent in former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D) in 2012, she never trailed in any public polls that year and eventually won by 16 points. In states that typically lean heavily towards one party, it is sometimes the case that incumbents who’ve coasted in previous elections get caught flat-footed. This seemed to be the case in Kansas’s 2014 Senate race, where then-Sen. Pat Roberts (R) found himself in a seemingly close race with independent Greg Orman. Though Roberts ended up winning by a surprisingly comfortable 53%-43%, his campaign saw a major shakeup in early September, and Republicans were clearly able to right the ship—we have not seen any similar moves from the Fischer camp.

Though we are downgrading the race to Leans Republican, if Fischer ended up holding on, one reason could be that history suggests there won’t be a split Senate verdict in Nebraska. Recall that the aforementioned Ricketts is also up for election this year. According to an analysis from our former colleague Geoffrey Skelley, 1966 was the most recent cycle that saw a split “double barrel” Senate outcome.

However, even if the last several decades of history favor a Republican sweep in Nebraska, there have frequently been notable margin differences between candidates of the same party in double-barreled situations—the Nebraska races appear to fit this pattern. In the polls that have tested his race as well, Ricketts leads by margins that one would basically expect from a generic Republican in Nebraska, which is to say in the 15 to 20 percentage point range (Ricketts is also running against an opponent carrying the Democratic label).

In recent decades, most double-barreled Senate races have taken place in non-presidential years, with the most recent “true” presidential cases being in 2008. Although Democrats famously won both of Georgia’s runoffs in the 2020 cycle, because of the special election’s jungle primary format, now-Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D) race was not going to be decided concurrently with the presidential race in November. In 2008, as John McCain carried Mississippi by 13 points, veteran Sen. Thad Cochran (R) was not seriously challenged; Cochran ran several points ahead of McCain while now-Sen. Roger Wicker (R), who had been appointed to the seat, won it his own right against former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) by just under 10 points. Both of Wyoming’s seats were also up that year, although in one of the reddest states, Republicans held each by about 50 points in contests that generated little attention.

We could see a redux of Mississippi this year, with Ricketts as Cochran and Fisher as Wicker. With this analogy, though, we’d note that while Fischer would be doing well to replicate Wicker’s margin from 2008, Nebraska is also a more elastic state than Mississippi (the latter has voting behavior that is extremely polarized by race), so there could be more room for deviation between the two Senate races.

Kyle Kondik is a Political Analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and the Managing Editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball.

J. Miles Coleman is an elections analyst for Decision Desk HQ and a political cartographer. Follow him on Twitter @jmilescoleman.

See Other Political Commentary by Kyle Kondik.

See Other Political Commentary by J. Miles Coleman.

See Other Political Commentary.

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