Scorecard

Latest News – Filing Deadlines

This past week, candidate filing closed in six states (California, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Montana, and Utah). There were no last minute retirements coming from those states. In all of the states listed above except for California, all candidates received partisan opposition and, in several cases, primary opposition as well. Meanwhile, in California, 16 of the 51 House members (within that group, 11 are Democrats and 5 are Republicans) seeking another term will face no partisan competition in November.

At the time this article is being written, Congressional filing has closed in 20 states representing 207 of 435 House members. Of those 207 House seats, 29 face no partisan opposition in November, while 10 are open seats. Now that filing has closed in 20 states, the next states to see its Congressional filing close are Missouri, South Carolina, and South Dakota (March 30); Tennessee (April 1); and Alabama (April 2).  This means that by Easter Sunday, we will know who’s running for Congress in 25 of the 50 states (or, to put it more clearly, in more than half of the Congressional districts). 

Latest News – Retirements

There were no announced Congressional retirements in the past week.

Latest News – Upcoming Primaries/Special Elections

So far, only Illinois and Texas have held primaries. Beyond that, there will be no other major statewide elections until May 4. As we mentioned in last week’s article , we will be watching the upcoming special elections in the next couple months in Florida, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and in New York (for Eric Massa’s seat). In those special elections alone, the Republicans have a chance to pick up anywhere from 1 to 4 seats. While, as of today, a special election has not been set in the New York seat, Republicans have coalesced behind Corning Mayor Tom Reed (who was already running), while the Democrats are expected to unify behind Hornell mayor Shawn Hogan.

Latest News – Healthcare Debate

Once the House votes on healthcare reform this Sunday, we will re evaluate the re-election chances of Democratic House members based on that vote.

John is a political consultant and blogger with JMC Enterprises with expertise in poll sample development and analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy and demographic consulting, among other things. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.