When you only have 178 seats in the House, you’ve really been trimmed down to your base. But the side effect of that is that you have considerably fewer vulnerable incumbents. This morning the Rothenberg Political Report sees only 11 GOP-held House seats that are even somewhat competitive; of those, 8 are either “Republican favored” or “lean Republican.”
The only seats where Democrats have a good shot at picking up a GOP-held one are Mark Kirk’s in Illinois, Mike Castle’s in Delaware, and Joseph Cao’s in Louisiana.
By comparison, the report says 68 Democratic seats are in play. Rothenberg’s likely goner list for Democrats includes Bart Gordon’s district in Tennessee, Betsy Markey’s district in Colorado, Charlie Melancon’s district in Louisiana, Frank Kratovil’s district in Maryland, Harry Teague’s seat in New Mexico, the open seat in Eric Massa’s former district in New York, and a pair of Ohio Democrats, Steve Driehaus and Mary Jo Kilroy.