GOP 2010 Pick-Up List:U.S. House Democrats in McCain 50%+ Districts

As the Republican Party begins to boil down its pick-up prospects for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, the congressional districts where Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) won by a margin of 50% or greater in the 2008 presidential election is a place to start. This list is below.

Another criterion for targeting the best Republican opportunities is where the Democratic congressional candidate got less that 55% to win their 2008 election. That list will follow.

The list below is of the 47 Democratic congressional districts where McCain won by a margin of 50% or greater. Of the 47 Democrats on this list 13 (28%) are freshmen and 11 (23%) have won two elections and are in their third term. The rest are firmly entrenched incumbents (23, or 49%) with three or more consecutive terms in Congress. This last group will be the hardest for Republicans to defeat in 2010. Winning any of these seats, especially the entrenched Democratic incumbents, will depend on candidate recruitment and fundraising – both by the candidates, the Republican National Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee. Needless to say, viable challenger candidates to the entrenched Democratic incumbents are unlikely.

It is a reasonable assumption that of the list of 47 Democratic House Members only 24 present a potential challenge opportunity. Given that the GOP needs 39 seats to take control of the House it is unlikely that Minority Whip Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) expectation to win control will materialize.

However, this past August saw a great deal of grassroots displeasure over healthcare reform. This instructs the GOP that there is a wave to be caught and ridden onto the shores of the 2010 mid-term election. The problem for the GOP is that the protest over healthcare reform cannot be controlled as it is largely organic, even though there have been Republican efforts to encourage the growth of the movement. By being organic it means that those unhappy with healthcare reform cannot necessarily be corralled to help the GOP pick-up congressional seats. That said, if the energy of the healthcare reform protests carries into November 2010 many voters will cast ballots for Republican congressional challenger candidates in dissent of the Democratic majority in Washington, DC.

The list below is color coded to denote Freshman, 1+ Term and 3+ Term incumbents and includes McCain’s performance in 2008 in that congressional district.

MS-04 Taylor         67
TX-17 Edwards      67
OK-02 Boren         66
TN-04 Davis          64
AL-02 Bright          63
ID-01 Minnick        62
MS-01 Childers      62
TN-06 Gordon       62
AL-05 Griffith         61
LA-03 Melancon    61
MO-04 Skelton      61
AR-01 Berry          59
VA-09 Boucher      59
AR-04 Ross           58
MD-01 Kratovil     58
UT-02 Matheson    57
WV-01 Mollohan   57
GA-08 Marshall     56
TN-08 Tanner        56
WV-03 Rahall        56
KY-06 Chandler    55
PA-04 Altmire        55
AR-02 Snyder        54
AZ-01 Kirkpatrick 54
FL-02 Boyd           54
PA-10 Carney        54
ND-AL Pomeroy    53
SC-05 Spratt          53
AZ-05 Mitchell       52
AZ-08 Giffords       52
NC-07 McIntyre    52
NC-11 Shuler         52
OH-18 Space         52
FL-24 Kosmas       51
IN-08 Ellsworth      51
NY-13 McMahon  51
NY-29 Massa        51
PA-17 Holden        51
VA-05 Perriello      51
CO-03 Salazar       50
CO-04 Markey      50
IN-09 Hill               50
MN-07 Peterson    50
NM-02 Teague      50
OH-06 Wilson       50
OH-16 Boccieri     50
PA-12 Murtha       50