New Hampshire Presidential Race
We'll get to the House updates in a bit, but first, I wanted to mention that New Hampshire has moved back into President Obama's column today by the slimmest of margins (0.1%).  Given the closeness of the Granite State projection - Romney held a similar 0.1% lead in yesterday's update - it's entirely possible that the state might flip back and forth a couple more times in the final 10 days.

Updated Competitive House Race List
I have spent many hours yesterday and today collecting recent House race polls and pundit rating changes, and there are several shake-ups to report as a result.  The four pundits I use to project House races offered several dozen changes to their House race outlooks.  Overall, the benefit of these changes is distributed very evenly between the parties with 41 updates favoring Democrats and 39 favoring Republicans.  The almost perfectly even split reflects the status-quo nature of this year's House elections.

• Charlie Cook (14 changes) - 9 favor DEMs, 5 favor GOP
• CQ/RollCall (17 changes) - 10 DEMs, 7 GOP
• Larry Sabato (25 changes) - 12 DEMs, 13 GOP
• Stuart Rothenberg (24 changes) - 10 DEMs, 14 GOP

• Florida CD-2:  Steve Southerland-inc vs. Al Lawson
• Florida CD-10:  Dan Webster-inc vs. Val Demings
• Minnesota CD-6:  Michele Bachmann-inc vs. Jim Graves
• Texas CD-14:  Randy Weber vs. Nick Lampson

Reapportionment and Redistricting:  When it comes to new seats, reapportionment after the 2010 census made Texas the big winner.  The state's House delegation will swell by four come 2013.  You might think with Republicans running the show here, redistricting would be a boon for the red team.  That was certainly the objective when the state legislature set about redrawing Texas' congressional districts.  However, unlike their counterparts in Pennsylvania they stumbled in that mission by overreaching.

The biggest flaw in their strategy was to ignore the fact that much of Texas' gain in population was found among Latinos.  The result was a map without any new minority-majority districts and without much hope of surviving the inevitable court challenge.  And so it was the courts rejected the GOP map.  Now, the case drags on with several possible outcomes.  Most of which would benefit Democrats.  Until the matter is settled, my preliminary House projections will reflect a Democrat-favored judgment.  Of the four new districts, I'm expecting three will be painted blue and the fourth painted red.

President:  The last Democrat to win Texas' electoral votes was Jimmy Carter in 1976.  Former Texas Governor George W. Bush carried the state by over 20 points both times he ran for the White House.  Last time around, John McCain earned a comfortable 12-point win against President Obama.  All this adds up to a strongly Republican state and a Strong GOP Hold in 2012.

Senate:  The Lone Star state's conservative lean will also be very apparent in the Senate race this year.  Three-term GOP Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is not going to run again in 2012.  Initially Democrats were hopeful that retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez would be able to give the GOP nominee a solid challenge.  Unfortunately for them, Sanchez turned out to be less than satisfactory as a candidate and finally dropped out of the race after his family's house burned down.  His departure from the race makes a Solid GOP Hold by far the most likely result.

Holding the other Senate seat here is Republican John Cornyn.  He'll be up for a third term himself in 2014.

Governor:  Republican Governor Rick Perry is running for president in his spare time.  Perry was first elected to the Texas statehouse in 2002 after replacing President Bush as governor in December, 2000.  His next re-election bid, should he choose to run again, will come in 2014.

House:  The Texas house delegation will probably be bluer in 2013 than it is now considering the above evaluation.  Once the redistricting battle is done, I'll identify which existing House members may face tough re-elections campaigns or which open seats will be up for grabs and add them to EP's hotly-contested house race list.

There is a ton of information to be had on the Texas state page.

Next stop:  Utah



Filed under:  Texas 2012  TX President 2012  TX Senate 2012  TX House 2012