Here’s putting the odds at even or better that Oregon House Democrats reach their much-sought goal of 36 seats – enough to enact almost whatever they choose, given their party’s control also of the Senate and governor’s office. A simple majority, which they barely have now, is enough for many items, but a lot of fiscal decisions require 36 votes, which has meant at least five crossovers from the Republican caucus – hard to get.
Two months ago, thinking here was that Democratic gains of two or three sets seemed strongly probable, four a little bit of a reach, and five conceivable but less than likely. But as with so much else this year, that seems to have changed.
Take a look at the Oregonian‘s Jeff Mapes blog post today on the legislative seats most likely to change parties – his top 10 list. Apart from two odd cases* all the seats mentioned are Republican.
Eight of those most-likely-to-switch seats are House Republicans, and some of those are members – like Scott Bruun, Linda Flores and Chuck Burley – we’d earlier on figured too tough to view as very seriously endangered. But not any more, owing largely to the larger political atmosphere and the changing party registration figures that reflects.
Number 10 on Mapes’ list was the seat we focused on yesterday, the District 24 House seat held by Republican Donna Nelson, a seat until recently considered nearly safe Republican but now teetering on the edge. And we’d have added District 18 to Mapes’ list – making for nine readily identifiable endangered Republicans. (Mapes does list another five apparently competitive races, three of them involving currently Republican seats.)
Not all will lose, but: Five? Very possibly. Maybe probably.
He quotes one Republican: “I think the Democrats have a chance to reach their wildest dreams,” and remarked generally, “I’ve never heard Republicans sound so grim when you can get them talking frankly and off the record.” And he remarks later, “Journalistic fairness would like me to put an R here. But no one I talked to made a credible case for a Republican pickup in the House.”
*The two that really belong in a whole different sort of category . . . The Bend-area Senate seat held by Ben Westlund (now running for state treasurer) is technically Democratic, since Westlund changed parties; but when he was last elected to it, in 2004, he was elected as a Republican, so the change is real for the actual senator (Westlund’s successor likely will be Republican) but not for the district as such. And Portland Senator Avel Gordly, also retiring from the Senate, was last elected as a Democrat, served as an independent during much of the last term but more recently returned to the Democratic fold. She will be replaced, almost certainly, by another Democrat (Jackie Dingfelder); so we’d argue that constitutes no partisan change at all.
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