“Republicans Should Worry About Losing the House” https://t.co/P2p3kq4cuS
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) June 17, 2016
And that’s “senior editor for National Review and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute” Ramesh Ponnuru worrying in public:
… Republicans accept the conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton is favored to win the presidency, and they know that her election would probably end their majority in the Senate. But in a year that has upended political expectations, they have clung to one comforting assumption: Their hold on the House is secure.
Their majority is protected by gerrymandering, the geographic distribution of Republican voters, the power of incumbency and its own sheer size. Republicans have 247 seats in the House, the most since 1931. Democrats would have to win 30 to take back the chamber. And that includes many seats in districts that usually go Republican in presidential contests. That sets the House apart from the Senate, where to keep their majority Republicans will have to hold seats in states that usually vote for Democratic presidential candidates.
But Clinton’s lead in the polls is widening to the point that Republicans need to set aside their complacency. Split-ticket voting has declined over the last generation. If Clinton wins big – because Republican voters stay home, or swing voters choose her party, or both – House Republicans will struggle to win re-election. Henry Olsen, the co-author of a recent book about the Republican party, tells me that an eight-point win would put Republicans in the danger zone…
One more reason to #BeWithHillary!
Apart from yet more sweet schadenfreude, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Hey Republicans, how's that dopey-angry thing workin' out for ya? https://t.co/I8yPIKqvuS
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) June 17, 2016
Saturday Morning Open Thread: Happy ThoughtPost + Comments (159)