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Missourinet has the story:
The top Democrat in the Missouri House has made a bold prediction: Democrats will take back the majority in the House this year.
Rep. Paul LeVota (D-Independence) foresees a great election year for Democrats and says he has the numbers to back him up. LeVota believes Democrats can pick up 13 seats, which would give them the majority in the 163-seat chamber. He says the numbers favor Democrats. Only seven incumbent Democrats have Republican opponents so far; only one in what Democrats consider a vulnerable seat. In contrast, Democrats have fielded opponents against 34 Republican incumbents.
………………..There are currently 91 Republicans and 70 Democrats in the House with two vacancies. Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 48 years in 2002, picking up 15 seats, turning an 88-to-75 Democratic majority into a 90-to-73 Republican majority. Democrats made their first gains since then the last election cycle. In 2002 (sic: should read 2006), Democrats picked up five seats in the House.
In fact, those five seats we picked up in 2006? Those represented the first time since 1976 that Democrats had posted a net gain in House seats. But this year may make that important five seat gain look like small potatoes, with LeVota predicting a gain of 13 seats. Hey, I’d settle for a mere 11: that’s the minimum number for retaking the House.
Nice to see that at least two Jackson County residents have noticed the “lack of fight” (if you will) shown in the filings. 😉
As of today, with 5 days left to file, 42 of 92 Republicans are uncontested while 59 of 71 Democrats are uncontested.
Three districts moved off of the “Uncontested” board in the last 2 days: HD4 (Rick Oswald v. Thomson), HD19 (Bill Whitmore v. Davis), and HD93 (Phil Bognar v. Scharnhorst).
When you consider the length of time left, and the usual last day filing trends.. It’s reasonable to guess that there’ll be 15 unopposed Republicans (at the most)* and around 40 to 45 unopposed Democrats. [The 2006 numbers were 18 unopposed Republicans and 41 unopposed Democrats. I forget how I compiled the numbers I gave on Sunday.]
(* – I’m hoping for the under on that prediction about uncontested Republicans)
Currently, 10 of the uncontested Dems are in STL city, 15 are in STL county, 13 are in Jackson county. That’s a total of 38 of the 59 total. 33 of them were uncontested in 2006 (only eight non JaCo/STL districts were unopposed then).
[Those eight, for the sake of trivia: HD25 (Baker), HD26 (Aull), HD31 (Skaggs), HD103 (Casey), HD107 (Robinson), HD108 (Harris), HD152 (Kuessner), and HD162 (Swinger)]
And this isn’t even covering the whole prospect of competitive open STL county seats with people like Jay Nixon and Sam Page on the ballot.
Go Democrats and go Royals!
(ok, and Go Cardinals too, if you insist for the sake of maximum unity and togetherness)