60 GOP House Seats Are In Districts That Went for Clinton or Obama

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Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:47 pm

Daily Kos Elections (DKE) has come out with some new statistics that should have Republicans shaking in their boots. In fact, it is this kind of information that probably led Paul Ryan to announce his retirement from Congress and as Speaker of the House. At the very least this will buoy Democratic Party optimism that they have a very good chance of retaking control of the House of Representatives this year.

According to DKE there are 60 congressional districts currently in Republican hands that voted at least once for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for president. This is a huge statistic because it shows that voters in these districts are persuadable. They are not locked in as “red” districts that will be hard to turn blue.

Given the unpopularity of President Donald Trump many of these districts may be very happy to have the chance to vote for a Democrat who may be able to impose some degree of oversight over the president’s actions.

This is what DKE found when doing an analysis of past presidential election results in these 60 GOP districts:

25 out of the 60 congressional districts voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Of these, 17 also voted for Barack Obama at least once.
35 of the 60 districts did not go for Clinton in 2016, but DID vote for Barack Obama at least once. Of these, 11 went for Obama twice.

As DKE say:

“If some of these districts revert to earlier patterns in the November midterms, Democrats should be able to capitalize.”

“Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results: A number of these seats are not part of the Democratic roadmap to a House majority. The flipside is also true, since there are some districts with a consistent pattern of voting Republican at the top of the ticket that nevertheless may be in play this year.”

“By contrast, only 13 Democrats sit in districts that have voted Republican for president one or more time—one small silver lining of being in the minority. And thanks to the favorable political environment this year, few of those seats look vulnerable, though Democrats still have to remain on guard.”

Democrats need a pickup of just 23 House seats to take back control and make Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House again. They’ve already proven they can win in deep-red districts such as Pennsylvania’s 18th district that went for moderate Democrat Conor Lamb in a special election earlier this year.

New polls have also shown that Democrats are leading in generic ballots in House races this year, lending new support to the prospects of a Blue Wave election in November that will sweep Democrats into power in Washington.

Earlier today we reported the following surprising poll result, adding credence to the argument in favor of a Blue Wave in 2018:

“A new Fox News survey released Thursday shows Democrats increasing their generic ballot lead over Republicans with less than five months until the midterm elections.”

“According to the poll conducted by Trump’s favorite “news” organization, Democrats are preferred over Republicans by nine points. That’s almost twice the margin reported by the same poll in March, which had Dems leading the GOP by just five points.”

The Blue Wave is not a mirage — it is a very real possibility. Given that 60 GOP House seats are in districts that voted for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and given the amount of buyer’s remorse on the part of Trump voters, many of those 60 seats are likely to turn Democratic this year. The Blue Wave is coming and Trump supporters will be swept out to sea.

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.