While House Democrats will no doubt be on the defensive in 2008, working hard to protect the 35 members of their caucus who received 55 percent or less of the vote in 2006, so too will they look to go on the offensive, particularly in the 41 districts in which the Republican nominee only marginally won his or her race last fall and also in the 55 districts in which the Republican lean, as measured by the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index (PVI), is less than five points. There is some overlap between these two groups of districts, but 71 districts meet at least one of these criteria giving the Democrats a plethora of targets for this cycle.
Amazingly, four of these potential Democratic targets come from Pennsylvania, where the Democrats picked up four seats already this past year. Last month, I tried to draw attention to one, CD-18, which has a slight Republican lean and where the incumbent GOP Rep. Tim Murphy is apparently under federal investigation for improper use of his congressional staff for campaign purposes. Other Keystone State districts that the Democrats will at least take a look include CD-6, a slightly Democratic-leaning Philadelphia area district in which the incumbent, Jim Gerlach, has won all three of his campaigns with 51 percent of the vote, and CD-3, where seven-term Republican Phil English won reelection with under 54 percent of the vote in 2006 despite the slight GOP lean of the district. The fourth target for Democrats in the state, which perhaps be the most closely watched this year among the four, is CD-15. Lauren W. Whittington has some details about the district in Roll Call (subscription required).
Near the top of the list will be the 15th district represented since 2004 by Rep. Charlie Dent (R), who last week was elected co-chairman of the moderate Tuesday Group.Dent's moderate politics are a good fit for the district - which voted narrowly for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 presidential election - and he did a good job of keeping his head down and not drawing a credible challenger in 2006.
Still, the fact that Dent received only 53 percent of the vote in November against a relatively unknown Democrat is telling about how vulnerable he would be to a top-tier challenge. Northampton County Councilman Charles Dertinger (D) got 44 percent.
Indeed, Dertinger had to struggle just to get on the ballot, mounting a write-in campaign to secure the Democratic nomination. What's more, he was outspent by a $1,259,064 to $88,049 margin over the course of the campaign. So if the Democrats can put up a candidate, be it Dertinger or someone else -- Whittington mentions state Rep. Jennifer Mann, state Sen. Lisa Boscola, Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham and state Democratic Party Chairman T.J. Rooney as possibilities (I don't know much about any of them, to be truthful) -- who can raise real dollars and put together a strong organization, it's very conceivable that Dent will go the way of Melissa Hart, Curt Weldon, Mike Fitzpatrick, Don Sherwood, Rick Santorum and the other Pennsylvania Republicans who went down in flames in 2006.
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