The Swing Districts We're Watching
Early last month, we looked at the congressional districts most likely to switch hands in 2022. With Republicans favored to capture the House, the main story is where the GOP will potentially make gains en route to garnering a majority, although Democrats may flip a few seats, too. Here’s a rundown of the types of districts we’re watching:
Red-leaning districts held by Democrats: Heading into the election, Republicans’ clearest targets are 11 Democratic-held seats that vote at least 5 percentage points more Republican than the country as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric. Our forecast has Republicans clearly or somewhat favored in six of these seats, including ones like Florida’s 7th and 13th districts. Two others — Alaska’s at-large District and Virginia’s 2nd District — are toss-ups, and Democrats are slightly favored in three others: Maine’s 2nd District, Ohio’s 9th District and Pennsylvania’s 8th District.
Purple districts held by Democrats: The party not in the White House tends to flip a number of seats that sit on highly competitive turf, and Republicans look set to capture at least a few of the 24 Democratic-held districts that are between D+5 and R+5 in partisan lean. Republicans are at least slight favorites in three of these seats right now — Iowa’s 3rd District, New Jersey’s 7th District and Oregon’s 5th District — but they could also win three toss-up seats in Nevada’s 1st District, Pennsylvania’s 7th and 17th Districts. Additionally, 10 other seats in this group only lean toward the Democrats and could easily wind up flipping if the GOP is having a good night.
Blue-leaning districts held by Democrats: The out party also sometimes wins a few seats that, on paper, look like “reach” seats for them. In this case, we’re talking about Republicans targeting Democratic-held seats in districts that our partisan lean metric rates as D+5 or bluer. Republicans aren’t outright favorites in any seats like this, but the toss-up race in Rhode Island’s 2nd District could go red despite its D+16 partisan lean. Additionally, Democrats are favored in, but not guaranteed to win, 20 other districts. Republicans could find a few victories there, as well.
Republican-held seats: In midterms, the party in the GOP’s position usually holds onto most or all of the seats it controls, but because of redistricting, that’s not a given in 2022. Two Republican-held seats are toss-up races — Michigan’s 3rd District and California’s 22nd District — while 12 others favor the GOP but are not certain to go red.
New or incumbent-vs.-incumbent seats: There are also 20 districts that don’t have an incumbent party in them because they are newly drawn, because an incumbent who might’ve run there decided to run in a nearby seat instead or because redistricting led to a general-election showdown between a Democratic and Republican incumbent in the same district. Overall, 11 of these districts favor the GOP to some extent, six favor Democrats, and three are toss-ups.