[Promoted from the diaries with formatting changes by DavidNYC. Tremendous work. No methodology is going to be perfect, but this is very interesting, comprehensive and serves, at the very least, as a great starting point.]
Yesterday, I posted the seventh and final installment in a series of profiles of potentially vulnerable GOP seats. That diary included New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Washington.
Prior installments:
1) New England, NJ
2) NY, PA
3) WV, OH, MI
4) IN, IL, WI, MN
5) The South
6) IA, KS, CO, WY, NV
These diaries gave an in depth look at 74 potential pickups, some more likely than others. I was asked at one point to provide a summary and rank them in terms of likelihood of winning. To do so, I came up with the following rubric: add the district partisan score to the average of the '02 and '04 Dem challengers' vote percentage, add 10 points for open seat, add 5 points for freshman incumbents, add 5 points for Ohio and Kentucky seats (b/c of scandal), add 10 for scandal, add one for Iraq veteran challenger, and add points at my discretion for strong challengers; and I reserved my right to tweak based on my own hunches. That empiric produced the following ranking, which seems pretty plausible to me.
(See the extended entry for the complete list.)
- Iowa 01 (open seat) 119.6
- Colorado 07 (open seat) 114
- Indiana 09 (Mike Sodrel) 104
- Washington 08 (Dave Reichert) 104
- Connecticut 04 (Chris Shays) 103.8
- Illinois 06 (open seat) 103.6
- Connecticut 02 (Rob Simmons) 103.3
- Pennsylvania 08 (Mike Fitzpatrick) 102
- Pennsylvania 06 (Jim Gerlach) 101.8
- Wisconsin 08 (open seat) 101.6
- Kentucky 03 (Anne Northup) 100.3
- Florida 09 (open seat) 100
- Iowa 02 (Jim Leach) 100
- California 50 (open seat) 99.6
- Minnesota 06 (open seat) 99.6
- New Mexico 01 (Heather Wilson) 97.3
- Pennsylvania 15 (Charlie Dent) 96.5
- California 48 (open seat--special election) 95
- Connecticut 05 (Nancy Johnson) 95
- North Carolina 11 (Charles Taylor) 94.8
- Louisiana 07 (Charles Boustany) 94.3
- New Hampshire 02 (Charles Bass) 93.8
- Ohio 18 (Bob Ney) 93.3
- Nevada 02 (open seat) 93
- North Carolina 08 (Robin Hayes) 93
- Nevada 03 (Jon Porter) 92.3
- Colorado 04 (Marilyn Musgrave) 91.8
- New York 29 (Randy Kuhl) 91.8
- Indiana 02 (Chris Chocola) 91.8
- Ohio 01 (Steve Chabot) 91.3
- New Jersey 07 (Mike Ferguson) 90.8
- Ohio 12 (Pat Tiberi) 90.8
- Arizona 01 (Rick Renzi) 90.8
- Michigan 09 (Joe Knollenberg) 90.5
- Florida 22 (Clay Shaw) 90.3
- Ohio 15 (Deborah Pryce) 90.3
- New York 26 (Tom Reynolds) 90.3
- Michigan 11 (Thaddeus McCotter) 90
- Iowa 04 (Tom Latham) 90
- Florida 13 (open seat) 90
- Alabama 03 (Mike Rogers) 89.8
- Indiana 08 (John Hostettler) 89.5
- Minnesota 02 (John Kline) 89.5
- Virginia 02 (Thelma Drake) 88.8
- Pennsylvania 07 (Curt Weldon) 88.5
- New Hampshire 01 (Jeb Bradley) 87.8
- Pennsylvania 03 (Phil English) 87.8
- Virginia 11 (Tom Davis) 87.5
- Illinois 10 (Mark Kirk) 87
- Illinois 11 (Jerry Weller) 87
- Pennsylvania 18 (Tim Murphy) 86
- Ohio 03 (Mike Turner) 86
- California 11 (Richard Pombo) 86
- New Jersey 03 (Jim Saxton) 86
- West Virginia 02 (Shelley Capito) 85.5
- New York 13 (Vito Fossella) 85.5
- New Jersey 05 (Scott Garrett) 85.5
- New Mexico 02 (Steve Pearce) 85.5
- Texas 22 (Tom DeLay) 85.5
- New York 03 (Peter King) 85.5
- Pennsylvania 10 (Don Sherwood) 84.8
- Minnesota 01 (Gil Gutknecht) 84.8
- California 26 (David Dreier) 84.5
- Arizona 08 (Jim Kolbe) 84.3
- Michigan 07 (Joe Schwarz) 84.3
- Arizona 05 (J.D. Hayworth) 83.5
- Florida 08 (Ric Keller) 83.5
- Kansas 02 (Jim Ryun) 83.5
- Pennsylvania 04 (Melissa Hart) 82.3
- Michigan 08 (Mike Rogers) 82
- Ohio 14 (Steve LaTourette) 81
- New York 24 (Sherwood Boehlert) 80.8
- Ohio 04 (Mike Oxley) 78.3
- Wyoming at Large (Barbara Cubin) 70.5