A growing number of GOP incumbents in seats once considered "safe" — including Melissa A. Hart in Pennsylvania, Ron Lewis in Kentucky, Richard W. Pombo in Tracy, Calif., and Gutknecht here — are struggling this month against a powerful current of discontent with the nation's direction, the performance of Congress and President Bush, and the war in Iraq.
Republican seats at risk have nearly tripled since January, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Then, 18 GOP seats were endangered; now, 48 are considered in play.
"The battleground is way broader than anyone thought was possible," said Eli Pariser, executive director of the political action committee associated with the liberal group MoveOn.org.
To take back the House, which they lost in 1994, Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats — something they could do, perhaps, without capturing any of these newly competitive seats. But Democratic strategists believe that if the party can break into this second tier of Republican-leaning districts, they could greatly increase their odds of building a majority large enough to survive for longer than two years.
In a measure of the party's growing optimism, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to announce Tuesday that it will begin airing advertisements in 11 new districts, including eight the party had not considered competitive until recently, party sources say.
Now I do find this story interesting, when comparing it to my previous post showing Bush as the Optimist-in-Chief. There is a huge contradiction here. First there is the LA Times story showing that 48 GOP seats are considered in play for the elections. We've seen the political polls showing that 16 percent of Americans approve the job Congress is doing. And we've seen the New York Times story showing Bush as optimistic in the Republicans maintaining control of Congress. President Bush's optimism regarding the Republican's ability to maintain control of Congress doesn't support either the poll results or the current political situation that the Republicans are finding themselves in. Are we looking at a Bush White House existing in a fantasy world, or does Karl Rove still have an "October Surprise" up his political sleeve?
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