Dems increasingly upbeat about House chances

Encouraged by the rise of Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, House Democrats have become more hopeful they can beat the odds and make huge gains in November.

{mosads}”No matter who the Republican nominee at the end of the day is, whether it’s Ted Cruz or Donald Trump, I think it presents tremendous opportunities for the Democratic Party, not only as it pertains to the presidency or the Senate, but quite frankly, for the House itself,” Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said Tuesday morning following a closed-door meeting of the group in the Capitol.

“More and more pundits are saying that if Donald Trump, for instance, is the nominee, that we could take back the House of Representatives. And I think that is certainly incredible news in many quarters of the country and has a lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle very concerned about their futures here.”

Democrats, in the minority, would need an enormous wave to win back control of the lower chamber, and most election handicappers have them falling far short of the 30 seats they’d need.

But both Trump and Cruz are combative figures whose policy positions and fiery rhetoric have alienated entire groups of voters — including some members of their own parties — and the Democrats smell opportunity amid the Republicans’ presidential turmoil.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is among those who see an opening this year. The minority whip said he’s frustrated Democrats have remained in the minority since 2011 despite Republicans’ struggles in passing even fundamental legislation for keeping the government running over most of that span.

The difference this year, he says, is that Democrats will have the advantage of riding the long coattails of likely nominee Hillary Clinton — especially if her opponent is Trump or Cruz. Hoyer said he expects House Democrats “to pick up a lot of seats” and even floated the notion they could win back House control.

“We don’t think that Congress has worked well. We think that Congress has been obstructionist. … Nonetheless, we have been unable to take back the majority. That’s frustrating,” Hoyer said. “[But] I think there’s a possibility that we can do it this year.”

The math is not in the Democrats’ favor, however. Republicans have picked up dozens of seats over the last three election cycles, granting them the largest House majorities since the Great Depression. And redistricting in recent years has made it even tougher to topple incumbents of either party.

To win the House, Democrats would need to flip 30 seats. And the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, currently ranks only 19 GOP seats as threatened.

Still, other pundits have proposed scenarios under which Democrats could realize their wave.

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a blog run by the prominent University of Virginia political scientist, predicted last week that if Clinton were to surpass President Obama’s 2012 edge by 2 percentage points, House Democrats could net enough seats to take back the Speaker’s gavel.

That scenario is unlikely, the Crystal Ball bloggers wrote, but not impossible given the down-ballot effect they’re predicting if Trump or Cruz is the GOP nominee.

“The coattail effect and the higher propensity for straight-ticket voting could prove to be very damaging to the GOP with Trump or Cruz leading the party in 2016,” Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley wrote on Sabato’s blog.

Hoyer, for one, didn’t overlook that analysis, predicting the Trump-Cruz factor could tip those 2 crucial points in Clinton’s favor.

“I personally think that’s possible,” he said.