Fox News Moves Multiple House Races Towards Democrats in New Power Rankings — Including One from ‘Solid R’ to ‘Solid D’
Screenshot via FoxNews.com
The latest Fox News Power Rankings shifted four House seats towards the Democrats, including an Ohio district that’s made national headlines and a Missouri district that went from a safe seat for the GOP to a safe one for the Democrats.
The updated election forecast from Fox News joins a growing list predicting good news for Democrats in November. A previous Power Rankings update moved the Senate election in normally-deep-red Texas from Likely R to Toss Up; Nate Silver also rated the race as Lean D. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a project of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, just shifted three key gubernatorial races to the left; they previously moved a number of House and Senate races towards the Democrats as well.
“Democrats are still the favorites to take the House this November, with 212 seats in their columns to the GOP’s 206,” Fox News lead political affairs specialist Rémy Numa wrote in an analysis published Monday. “There are 17 seats that are so close they could go either way.”
One of the four House seats Fox News moved left was in Missouri, the fifth congressional district that is based in Kansas City.
The incumbent Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) was looking at a much tougher re-election battle after the GOP majority Missouri legislature redrew his district. Cleaver had won his last election by 24 points, but the new district lines included more rural areas and the original Fox News Power Ranking evaluated the race as Solid R.
That changed last week — drastically — after the Missouri Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion blocking the new districts for not being approved by the voters. That court ruling granted Cleaver his old district back and Fox responded by restoring the rating back to Solid D.
Missouri has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and if the nation’s highest court decides to take up the case and rules in the state’s favor, it would flip the district back away from the Democrats again.
Numa’s write up added that restoring the old lines also made MO-o2 “more competitive,” but the rating did not change and stayed at Likely R.
The Fox News analysis also shifted three Ohio races left. Most notable is Ohio’s seventh congressional district, currently occupied by scandal-plagued Rep. Max Miller (R-OH).
Miller is in the middle of a bitterly fought custody battle with his ex-wife Emily Moreno that has included troubling accusations that the congressman physically abused both her and their two-year-old daughter.
Numa wrote that Miller’s race was already on the borderline to be categorized as “Likely R.” After the ongoing headlines about Miller’s controversies and public calls from several other Republicans — including Miller’s former father-in-law Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) — to drop out, the election is now “highly competitive,” moving from Likely R to Toss Up.
Elsewhere in the Buckeye State, the “strong race” being run by Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) is helping boost down-ballot Democrats, wrote Numa, including the challengers to Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) and Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH), Kristina Knickerbocker and Don Leonard respectively.
Ohio’s tenth and fifteenth congressional districts normally “shouldn’t be part of the Democratic playbook in a regular election year,” wrote Numa, but Brown’s sustained lead in polling “could create a closer race than Republicans would like.”
Turner and Carey still “have the clear advantage, but victory isn’t a sure thing,” Numa continued, and accordingly Fox News moved both districts from Solid R to Likely R.
The post Fox News Moves Multiple House Races Towards Democrats in New Power Rankings — Including One from ‘Solid R’ to ‘Solid D’ first appeared on Mediaite.