House Race Ratings – July 17th

With the 2nd quarter fundraising reports now submitted, we publish our second State House ratings.

In the interest of full disclosure both Dave Trotter and myself are involved as consultants in the House District 42 race, and thus we will not be rating the race. The district was carried by John McCain by a few hundred votes in 2008 and is a great Democratic pickup opportunity. Donna Hart lost a similar district to Frank Attkisson by a few hundred votes the last time the Democrats made a concerted effort to win the area in 2000. Democrats also have a double-digit registration advantage in the district. However, to properly maintain our objectivity that race will not be included in our ratings. Additionally, there are several Democratic primaries I am involved with in the southeast part of the state and those races are being rated simply for general election potential. We will not make endorsements in those particular races on this website.

While each district either lists an incumbent or is open, that does not necessarily mean we are predicting the incumbent will win his/her respective party nomination for the fall election. We are just listing incumbents, but in some cases, incumbent Republicans are in very tough re-nomination fights.

Changes from the last set of ratings which can be found here are in bold and the color of the direction the seat moved (ie. Red if the seat is more Republican than last report, Blue if more Democratic).

Our next ratings will be in two weeks after the next filing period for candidates with August 14th primary elections.