Which Are The Most Vulnerable Seats in the General Assembly this November?
Over at Politics4Tomorrow, Austin Wagner takes a look at which State House and State Senate districts might be most vulnerable to flip from Republican to Democrat and vice-versa. To determine the districts most likely to flip, he starts with a vulnerability index developed by the DailyKos to determine winnable U.S. house and senate races, and modifies it a bit to reflect state instead of federal races.
The index uses two factors: the margin between the candidates in the 2012 presidential race, which gives an ideal of the overall partisanship of the district, and the average margin between incumbent and challenger in the specific legislative district. These two factors are combined and ranked to come up with a final index, with the district with the lowest value being most vulnerable to a challenge by a Democrat, and the highest value being vulnerable to a challenge by a Republican.
Which are the most vulnerable Republican Senate districts for 2016? First would be Senate District 43 in Rockdale County, which Republican JaNice Van Ness won in a special election last year in a normally Democratic district. The rest of the top five include District 6, the Smyrna district represented by Hunter Hill; District 23, represented by Jesse Stone of Waynesboro; Valdosta’s District 8, represented by Ellis Black; and District 40 in Dunwoody, represented by Fran Millar.
Vulnerable Democratic seats, framed in this analysis as seats that need to be protected for future elections, are District 26, represented by David Lucas of Macon; District 42, the Atlanta district represented by Elena Parent; District 15, represented by Ed Harbison of Columbus; District 33 in Marietta, represented by “Doc” Rhett; and District 35, represented by Donzella James of Atlanta.
The Democrats’ target list in the House has seven districts. Most vulnerable for a takeover is House District 105 in Grayson, represented by Joyce Chandler. The other districts include District 138, the Americus district represented by Mike Cheokas; District 145, the currently open seat represented by Rusty Kidd of Milledgeville; District 111, the McDonough district represented by Brian Strickland; District 95 in Peachtree Corners, which is held by the retiring Tom Rice; District 151; the Cuthbert seat held by Gerald Greene; and District 101, the Lawrenceville seat represented by Valerie Clark.
The list of vulnerable Democratic House seats is headed by District 80, the Brookhaven district represented by Taylor Bennett; District 66, represented by Kimberly Alexander of Hiram; District 81 in Doraville, represented by Scott Holcomb; District 132, represented by Robert Trammell of Luthersville; and District 96, represented by Pedro Marin of Duluth.
Wagner’s analysis does not make any effort to analyze the strengths or weaknesses of individual candidates–it is strictly a mechanical exercise based on election results. Yet, it seems to do a decent job of determining the closest races, especially on the Republican side, which, because it is in the majority, will naturally have more opportunities for targeting. If you see any other races that are important, or any that are actually non-competitive, let us know in the comments.
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Jon Richards
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You have to figure House District 80 (Taylor Bennett) is the top GOP target, given his is the only Democratic-held State House district that went for Romney last time (56%); all the other D-held House districts went for Obama. But it isn’t likely Trump will match Romney’s 2012 showing in that district—indeed, given that Trump ran far behind Rubio (in the March presidential primary) in a lot of GOP-held State House districts in Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton, the question might be whether Trump even wins some of the GOP-held districts? If Libertarian Gary Johnson breaks 5 percent in some districts, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Clinton could win, say, House District 80.
House District 145 (Rusty Kidd’s district in Baldwin County and a slice of Putnam County) should be competitive—the district split almost evenly between Romney and Obama last time.
In the Senate, it would be a miracle if Janice Van Ness held onto a 70% Obama district (Senate District 43), a seat that Democrats never should have lost. But I don’t see any Democratic senator who should have any worries this fall, as every Democratic-held State House district went for Obama four years ago.
You have to figure both parties are or will be polling in House District 80, but doubtless in other ones too like 81 (Scott Holcomb), 105 (Joyce Chandler) and 151 (Gerald Greene), but whether they will publicize the results of any of those polls remains to be seen (sometimes a candidate may release poll numbers to improve his fundraising, basically demonstrating that poll A shows he can win District B.
Finally, should be general agreement that Georgia’s US House delegation will stay 10-4 in favor of GOP, but interesting to see in terms of presidential voting whether Trump does better than Romney in southwest Georgia’s 2nd District (which gave Trump a higher percentage than any other Georgia congressional district in the March 1 GOP primary) and whether Clinton outperforms Obama in CD 6 (Tom Price) and CD 7 (Rob Woodall), two districts with many wealthy, college-educated voters—the type of voters who are not seen as warming up to Trump.
It sure would be nice if the state party would step in and help these folks, but the way they run things it would probably be a kiss of death. There are four republicans that truly in danger of losing. Joyce Chandler, Valerie Clarke, Brian Strickland and Van Ness. Hunter Hill will be close but he will win. Meghan Hanson would probably win in a off presidential year, but with Trump on the top of the ticket that district will be hard to pick up without help.
To add to Eiger’s points, Hunter’s district only gave Romney a 53-46% margin over Obama last time, and Trump did not do well in that district in the presidential primary (like many northside Atlanta districts, it was “Rubio Country” in that contest). Not inconceivable that Clinton could carry the district, especially if the Libertarian showing climbs into the 5 percent range, or that you could see a lot of ticket-splitting there—like Clinton, Isakson and Hill.
To have any seats change party hands would be a feat, given that legislative incumbents seldom lose in a general election—they are more likely to lose in their party primary than in November. The Bennett win in HD 80 last year of course was a pickup for the Democrats, but it was an open seat because of the resignation of Republican Mike Jacobs.