Tracking the House

Last week I noted what would constitute good news and bad news for the Democrats in the Senate on election night. Now we should take a quick look at the House.

Currently, the House has 255 Democratic members, 178 Republican members and 2 vacancys. To retain the majority, the Democrats must keep 218 seats or no worse than a loss of 37 seats. I found this map on Realclearpolitics:

The color code breakdown is as follows. Red and Blue denote Republican and Democrat seats that either have not been polled or are considered to stay with their current representation. Salmon are Democratic seats that are considered to likely to switch. Light blue are Republican seats likely to switch and purple are toss ups.

If this map held, the Republicans would have 206 seats and the Democrats would have 191 seats with 38 seats in toss-up. Given this, a good night for the Democrats would mean simply keeping control of the House: 218+ seats (loss of 37 or less). A bad night would mean loss of control and loss of most of the toss-up seats: 200-217 (loss of 38-55 seats). A really bad night would be the loss of all the toss-up seats and not gaining the vunerable Republican seats: 185-199 (loss of 56-70 seats). A "let's get drunk night" would be losing even some of the leaner seats: 184 or less (loss of more than 70 seats).