The Bush Effect: Pollsters Add More Vulnerable GOP House Seats to List for November

I’m starting to worry about all the high-fivin’ on the left over the likelihood the Dems will take back Congress this year. Still, it’s okay to dream:

Some veterans of the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress see worrisome parallels between then and now, in the way once-safe districts are turning into potential problems. Incumbents’ poll numbers have softened. Margins against their Democratic opponents have narrowed. Republican voters appear disenchanted. The Bush effect now amounts to a drag of five percentage points or more in many districts.

The changes don’t guarantee a Democratic takeover by any means, but they are creating an increasingly asymmetrical battlefield for the fall elections: The number of vulnerable Democratic districts has remained relatively constant while the number of potentially competitive Republican districts continues to climb.

Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of a political newsletter, now has 42 Republican districts, including Drake’s, on his list of competitive races. Last September, he had 26 competitive GOP districts… “That’s a pretty significant increase,” he said. “The national atmospherics are making long shots suddenly less long.”

At the Cook Political Report, Amy Walter has revised an analysis of the battle for control of the House, taking into account the sour mood toward Republicans nationally as a potentially significant factor in races that might otherwise turn on local issues, candidate performance or the size of campaign war chests.

“In a nationalized election, the typical laws of gravity get thrown out the window,” Walter said. “Under-funded candidates beat better-funded candidates, and entrenched incumbents lose to first-time challengers.”

It also becomes harder for Republicans to steal elections when the results are not evenly divided.

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