Robert Novak: “Pitiful” Election Outlook For House GOP...

Human Events Robert Novak August 30, 2006 at 10:44 PM

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From the Evans-Novak Political Report:

Today we begin a new, seat-by-seat look at this year's competitive House races, based solely on how each would turn out if the election were held today. As promised, we take a look this week at Democrat-held seats in the U.S. House and Democrats' chances of a takeover, and compare them to the Republican-held seats they will be targeting.

The first word that comes to mind with this chart is "pitiful." Most striking is the small space it takes up on the page and the emptiness of the category to the right -- "Likely Republican Takeover" -- and the near emptiness of "Leans GOP." There is not one easy takeover target for the Republicans this year. Republicans have failed to expand the playing field on the Democrats' side.

There are several reasons for this, including failure to recruit good candidates.
Only one seat appears to be truly vulnerable for takeover, the Republican-heavy seat taken in 2004 by Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.). We continue to believe that former Rep. Phil Crane (R) lost this 56 percent Bush seat, and not that Bean really won it. Voters will probably make a correction this year, but not without a heroic Republican effort. Despite a financial advantage, Bean suffers from a massive defection of organized labor and the presence of a pro-labor third-party candidate in her race against businessman David McSweeney (R).

Read the rest of the report here at humanevents.com.