House GOP Faces Open Seat Fiasco (posted December 11, 1999)

The House Republican party is facing a looming disaster in open seat elections next year. Already, 19 Republican incumbents have announced they are leaving office rather than run for re-election, compared to only five Democratic incumbents. In past elections, open seat elections with no incumbent on the ballot have proven to be the easiest pick-ups for the opposition party. With 95 percent of incumbents routinely winning re-election, the only real hope for a party to gain enough seats to unseat the majority comes in those districts where the incumbent has chosen to retire.

The large number of GOP retirements compared to those of the Democratic party gives Democrats a great opportunity to recapture control of the House. Needing a net partisan gain of only five seats, look for both parties to target their spending on key open seat races in California, Michigan, Illinois, and New York. With Republican presidential candidate George Bush's coattails likely to be short, the GOP is facing the prospect of loss of the House.

One sign of impending Republican problems in the House is the flow of business dollars to House Democrats. In 1998, 61 percent of business contributions went to the National Republican Congressional Committee over the Democratic Congressional Committee. However, in the first six months of this year, half of the business money went to Democrats. That means the smart money looking for an ear from the party that will control the committees and the overall House agenda is hedging its bets between Democrats and Republicans. Look for a race for party control in the House that will go down to the wire and focus on key open seat elections.