Handicapper Says Control of House Rests on ‘Knife’s Edge’ in 2024

A new analysis from the Cook Political Report suggests that control of the House of Representatives after 2024 could come down to the minutiae of specific races and redistricting battles as parties battle for control of the narrowly divided lower chamber.A year out from the 2024 elections, the senior editor and elections analyst for the publication, David Wasserman, said, “On an exceedingly narrow battlefield, both parties are scrounging for every advantage they can get.”“The House is so narrowly divided that developments that used to seem like drops in the bucket — a court striking down a redistricting map here, a retirement or special election there — have taken on outsized importance,” he said.In Mr. Wasserman’s analysis, three factors — redistricting, candidate recruitment, and the influence of presidential nominees — could decide which party wins control of the House.In terms of redistricting, seven states, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina, are expected to have different maps in 2024 than they did in 2022 due to legal battles.In these states, it currently looks like Democrats could make single-seat gains in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana and could net as many as four seats in New York. Republicans, on the other hand, have pushed through a map that’s likely to net them between three and four seats in North Carolina, meaning Democrats could have more to gain from redistricting than Republicans. Democrats, though, still need to secure legal wins to realize those opportunities.On the candidate recruitment front, Republicans struggled to nominate strong general election candidates in 2022, and while there were some signs that Speaker McCarthy was making progress in recruiting candidates during his tenure, his departure from the speakership could hurt GOP efforts.“The irony is that Republicans were in the midst of a strong recruiting streak when McCarthy’s speakership imploded,” Mr. Wassmerman said. Whether Speaker Johnson keeps Mr. McCarthy’s commitments to these candidates is an unknown variable.One of the struggles for Republicans in competitive districts is finding a candidate who is not too closely associated with President Trump and his “MAGA” brand, but who can also appeal sufficiently to the party’s conservative base to win a primary and turn out voters in the general election.Democrats, on the other hand, have recruited 10 candidates so far who have run for the House in the past, such as businessman Adam Frisch, who barely lost to Congresswoman Lauren Boebert in Colorado in 2022. Repeat candidates, like Mr. Frisch, have the benefit of name recognition and fundraising infrastructure, while simultaneously carrying baggage that might have been unearthed in previous campaigns. Democrats will also need to recruit candidates to run to replace at least two candidates who are seeking Senate seats, Congresswomen Katie Porter and Elissa Slotkin. They will need a candidate to replace Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger if she decides to run for governor of Virginia in 2025 as well.The final issue, which remains largely a wild card in terms of how it will affect the 2024 House races, is the likely presence of President Biden and Mr. Trump at the top of the tickets. Both candidates are broadly unpopular among the general public but will likely drive up turnout as voters head to the polls to cast votes against the candidate that they dislike more.What this means in practical terms is unknown. However, the 2024 election will likely look more like the 2020 election, which saw nearly 160 million voters cast votes, than the 2022 elections, which saw turnout fall to 112 million.

Handicapper Says Control of House Rests on ‘Knife’s Edge’ in 2024

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