Over in Breaking blue,
Dave Kowalski writes:
Filing deadlines have past for 187 House seats. Filing for the remaining 248 seats stretches out through August. To date, 107 Republican-held House seats have filed and five or six remain unopposed (depending on the status of CA-44). That's about 5%. Of the remaining 248 seats, 125 are held by Republicans. Thirty-eight of these seats are currently unopposed. That's 30.4%. We may not be filing on every seat but at this pace Democrats will file on 422 to 424 seats. Much better than the recent high, per Chris Bowers, of 409
This is really great information, but I want to point out two small changes. First, it is still possible for Democrats to run candidates in PA-09 and PA-15.
As Politics1 noted last week:
PENNSYLVANIA. Major party candidate filing closed on Tuesday with no real surprises.... several congressional incumbents currently have no major party opposition -- although state laws allow the parties to file designated nominees later in the year.
So we are actually only down three or four seats, not five or six, since we can still run candidates in PA-09 and PA-15. If we can manage 183 of 187 seats, we are still on pace for 425 or 426 seats overall. That would still break the record of 419 set by Republicans in 1994. Our recent high is 403, set in 2000. While we seem certain to best that mark, as long as 432 is still possible, that should be our goal.
According to Barry Welsh, the remaining seats we have to fill are as follows:
- Iowa, 3/17. Unsure: IA-04.
- Missouri, 3/28. MO-07, MO-08
- South Carolina, 3/30. SC-02, SC-04
- Arkansas, 4/4. AR-03.
- Tennessee, 4/6. TN-02
- Alabama, 4/7. AL-01, AL-02, AL-03, AL-04, AL-06.
- New Jersey, 4/10. NJ-02, NJ-04
- Virginia, 4/14. VA-04, VA-06, VA-07.
- Georgia 4/28 . GA-09, GA-10, GA-11. Unsure: GA-03
- Florida, 5/12. FL-12, FL-14. Unsure: FL-07
- Michigan, 5/16. MI-03 Unsure: MI-06
- Oklahoma, 6/7. OK-01, OK-03.
- Arizona, 6/14. AZ-06.
- New York, 7/13. Unsure: NY-03, NY-13, NY-26
- Minnesota, 7/18. MN-03
- Washington, 7/28. WA-05.
- Louisiana, 8/11. LA-04, LA-05, LA-06, LA-07.
That makes thirty-one additional seats where we definitely do not have a challenger, and seven additional seats where we are unsure if we have a challenger. Overall, this puts us at 391 seats where we definitely have a challenger, and 399 seats where we might have a challenger (pending CA-44). There are only three seats where we definitely will not have a challenger in this cycle--though I wonder if we can still pull off some run-off magic in the primaries to change that.
We also have some very interesting news coming out of CA-24.
From Politics1:
Congressman Elton Gallegly (R) gets the award for the "worst choreographed" retirement in years. Gallegly waited until just before the close of candidate filing in California on Friday to release a statement announcing he was quitting his race for re-election due to an undisclosed health concern. The statement came without notice even to Gallegly's own district staff, who learned of it from media calls. Apparently, Gallegly mistakenly believed his public statement would serve to "un-file" his candidacy and allow filing to remain open for one additional week because he was an incumbent unexpectedly withdrawing. It didn't, however, because Gallegly had previously filed the paperwork to run. According to the Secretary of State's office, a candidate cannot legally remove his name from the ballot once he qualified and the filing deadline passed. Former California GOP Executive Director Jon Fleischman speculated on his FlashReport blog that Gallegly's bizarre timing was likely intended to thwart the ambitions of rival Republican Tony Strickland. Strickland, a former State Assemblyman, is running for State Controller. The timing apparently locked Strickland into the statewide race without giving him the opportunity to jump into the newly open CD-24 contest. Gallegly was the only Republican to file in CD-24. What does all of this mean? Most likely, Gallegly will need to remain on the primary ballot so that -- once he officially becomes the nominee after the June 6 primary -- the party will be allowed to select a replacement nominee. Two Dems also filed for the seat, but the district is safely Republican.
While this means there is still a method for Republicans to put a name on the ballot, it is yet another unexpected Republican retirement in this cycle.
I would also be interested to know how many seats Republicans have field for so far.
Since 1994, Democrats have never had more House candidate than Republicans. We came close in 2000, as our 403 was only one shy of their 404. However, this time around, I get the strong feeling that we are well ahead on the number of seats we are challenging. I would love to challenge 20-25 more seats than Republicans, since in 1994 they challenged 18 more seats than Democrats. Blowing Republicans out in this front would be both a sign of, and a contributing factor to, the 2006 Indycrat realignment.
