The shocking shift in the 2024 House race landscape
For awhile now I’ve been pointing out that the Democrats have a very clear path to take the House majority in 2024. As we clearly saw in 2020 and again in 2022, the House majority is always decided by the handful of hyper-competitive races rated as toss ups, and to a much lesser extent the handful of races rated Lean Democrat and Lean Republican. And when it comes to those same categories of races in 2024, the Democrats’ path to the majority has never looked all that difficult. It’s just one of those things that takes work, effort, a smart focus on the winnable races, and not getting distracted by shiny objects in non-competitive districts.
The way the map looked when the month began, the Democrats were going to need to win about 70% of the House toss-up races in order to take the majority (assuming no impact one way or the other from the Lean D and Lean R races). That may sound like a tall task, but keep in mind that the Democrats won roughly that same percentage of the toss-up House races in 2022.
Then last week the Supreme Court got involved – and made it easier for the Democrats to win the House majority. For all the predictions I get right, I have to admit, this one was not on my bingo card. Then again, I have been fond of saying that this Supreme Court is as random as it is corrupt. Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh seem intent on giving us beneficial rulings about one-third of the time, in the hope it’ll pacify us into dropping the whole “expand the court” thing. We’re not going to let them off the hook that easily of course. But since this Supreme Court has decided to keep randomly handing us some wins in amongst all its other corrupt rulings, we have to take the wins and seize upon them – no matter the court’s motivation for giving us that win.
Of course the Supreme Court struck down race-based gerrymandering of House districts nationwide just a few hours before the DOJ indicted Donald Trump, so it understandably got lost in the news cycle. But we need to keep talking about this, because it’s probably going to have a bigger impact on the outcome in 2024 than Trump’s indictment will. Trump is getting indicted left and right and won’t make it to 2024, but we’ll still be fighting against Trumpian Republicans for majority control of the House. And that job just got easier.
Keep in mind that “easier” doesn’t mean less effort. The least amount of effort you have to expend is when you know you have no chance of winning anyway, because then you don’t even have to try (which is part of why the defeatists on our side always insist we’re going to lose; they’re lazy). But when you have a realistic chance of winning, that’s when you really have to roll up your sleeves and put in the kind of work required to put your side over the top.
To that end, the House map just got shaken up in our favor, in a few ways. The maps still have to be redrawn to make them more racially fair. And even once that happens, the courts will have to rule on whether those new maps are fair enough. These court battles will play out all the way until some point several months from now, when the courts decide to finalize the maps so that the candidates understand what districts they’re even running in.
But in the meantime, Cook Political Report thinks that the new maps will cause at least a few House races to shift from “Solid Republican” to “Solid Democrat,” which means those seats will automatically be won by Democrats. Cook has also shifted a total of four Republican-controlled seats in Alabama and Louisiana into the toss up category, while also shifting a North Carolina seat from toss up to “Lean Democrat.”
Based on these shifts, my own preliminary math says that the Democrats now only have to win about 50% of the House toss-up races. That’s a lot better than the Democrats having to win 70% of them, which is where we were a week ago. Given that we’re getting smarter and savvier about focusing in on these toss-up races, while right wing enthusiasts seem to have no interest in a winning strategy at all, we can definitely win the House in 2024. We just have to be smart about steering our donations to the correct races, and each doing just a bit of volunteer work from home. Or if you don’t have time or money to spare, you can just retweet the Democratic candidates in the toss-up races, so your followers with time and money will see it and get involved.
I know it’s early to be talking about 2024 House races, but as far as I’m concerned it’s never too early. Take a look at this list of toss-up House races taken from Cook Political Report:
Because it’s early, and because the maps are still being redrawn, a few names will be added or removed from the above list as we go (I also already consider the Adam Frisch vs Lauren Boebert race to be a toss-up, even if Cook still sees it as Lean-R). But for the most part, the above races are the ones that will decide the 2024 House majority.
Take a look at the red names above. These are the incumbent House Republicans who are most vulnerable in 2024. Get to know these names, because they’re the Republicans we’re going to focus on beating.
Take a look at the blue names above. These are the incumbent House Democrats you can start getting behind right now. For now even just following them on Twitter or Facebook, and sharing their posts, is a good way to help them get exposure so they’ll be in a stronger position to win. Yes we’re heading into Trump’s arrest and arraignment tomorrow, and yes it’ll be entertaining and important. But let’s remember that the 2024 election cycle will be about a lot of people not named Trump. Take a look again at the list of red and blue names above. Those races will decide which party gets to pick the Speaker of the House, and what the House committees get to investigate. Let’s keep our eye on the prize going forward.
