The Cook Political Report, the nonpartisan election prognosticator, moved 18 more House seats toward favoring Democrats on Friday.
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Two Iowa seats — held by Republican Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn — and two Pennsylvania seats, held by Republican Reps. Ryan Mackenzie and Scott Perry, moved from being rated as toss-ups to “lean Democratic.” Additionally, Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s race in Washington state went from toss-up to lean Democratic.
Cook also reclassified four “lean Republican” races to toss-ups, including an open seat in Iowa’s 2nd District and Rep. Don Davis’s (D) seat in North Carolina. While Republicans redrew North Carolina’s maps to make Davis’s seat more GOP-friendly, the plan so far appears to have not resulted in a safe GOP seat.
Moreover, Cook re-rated two “solid Republican” seats to “likely Republican,” as well as three “likely Republican” seats to “lean Republican.”
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Polling and the work of prognosticators like the Cook Political Report suggest Democrats are likely to take back the House in November. That’s led to the question: If Democrats do have the majority, how large will it be?
Gerrymandering limits the size of any party’s majority, but Cook’s Erin Covey is now projecting that Democrats could flip a net of nine to 19 seats. If that proves to be the case, the party would hold between 224 and 234 seats next Congress.
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