Charlie Cook: Bad News for Democrats

Bad news for Democrats is good news for America these days. Charlie Cook says they’re caught in a viscious circle, and the fact that they’re dropping like flies is just more bad news.

Over the past five weeks, four House Democrats in difficult districts have announced their intention to retire and a fifth switched to the GOP; then, in a single day, news broke that three more Democrats, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, and Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado, have decided not to seek re-election and that Michigan Lt. Gov. John Cherry, who had been expected to be the party’s gubernatorial nominee, has opted out of the race. …

The only good thing for the Democrats has been the announcement that Dodd won’t run for re-election. Cooks prediction:

Come November, Senate Democrats’ 60-vote supermajority is toast. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how Democrats could lose the Senate this year. But they have a 50-50 chance of ending up with fewer than 55 seats in the next Congress.

As for the House, we at The Cook Political Report are still forecasting that Democrats will lose only 20 to 30 seats. Another half-dozen or more retirements in tough districts, however, perhaps combined with another party switch or two, would reduce Democrats’ chances of holding the House to only an even-money bet. We rate 217 seats either “Solid Democratic” or “Likely Democratic,” meaning that the GOP would have to win every single race now thought to be competitive to reach 218, the barest possible majority. But if Democrats suffer much more erosion in their “Solid” and “Likely” columns, control of the House will suddenly be up for grabs.

Since there’s no indication the Democrats are going to stop pi$$ing off the American people, I think there’s a good chance they could lose control of the House. November can’t come soon enough.

Via memeorandum

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.