It’s been thrown around so easily as to be nearly meaningless: the “blue wave.”
This is the rising sense – borne out through special election results both across the country and within the state – that a relatively unpopular president and an energized progressive base will lead to change in November.
Republicans aren’t buying it – publicly, at least.
“The only blue wave I know of is the one on the Pacific coast,” quipped House Majority Leader Dick Hinch at a recent press conference.
But privately, some party insiders say it’s an open possibility. And there is some history behind the idea; in this purple state, New Hampshire’s 400-member House of Representatives has seen 100-seat swings in recent elections, and flipped between the parties three times in the last decade.
With victories in 11 of the latest 13 special elections, Democrats are increasingly expressing confidence they can take back the chamber, a first since 2014.
So could they? And if they did, how might they do it? We analyzed the election results district-by-district – sorting each single and multi-member seat by total party vote share to see which ones the Democrats will need to pick off.
Democrats closed out the two-year session with 169 out of the 385 remaining members of the House. If the party manages to hold all the seats it previously won, it will need 32 more.
Here’s what recent election results say: Of the 159 sitting Republican representatives running for re-election, 35 of them are doing so in districts in which their party won 55 percent or less of the vote in 2016.
Whether the blue wave materializes is an open question. But if it does, here are some of the Republican representatives most vulnerable:
(Visit concordmonitor.com to see the full list.)
Yes, that Gene Chandler. It may seem surprising that the outgoing Speaker of the House – a two-time Speaker and 18-term representative no less – should find his seat threatened, but Carroll’s District 1 has seen a notable swing to the left in recent years. Compare 2012, when Chandler commanded an imposing 62 percent of the vote – and 2014, when he took 58 percent – to 2016. In the year of President Donald Trump, Chandler lost considerable ground, holding the seat with just 52 percent.
His Democratic challenger the last two election seasons: Erik Corbett, a former restaurant owner and ski area manager who recently sat on Bernie Sanders’s steering committee. Corbett is running a third time this year, hoping to finally close that gap. But with a higher profile following a year with the Speaker’s gavel, Chandler may yet manage to hold him off another two years.
McConnell is a newcomer to the House, but he’s quickly made his mark. An outspoken conservative, the Swanzey Republican helped found the Freedom Caucus, which enginereed the defeat of the House budget last year. And he’s already taken two unsuccessful swings at the Speaker’s office, promising transparency and a curtailment of the powers of the Finance Committee.
But none of that may matter in the heart of Cheshire County, the bluest corner of the state. McConnell, who shares his district with a Democrat, is the only realistic pick-up opportunity in the county for Democrats for a clear reason: He’s one of the only Republican representatives there at all. After earning a 47 percent overall share of the vote last time, Democrats will be gunning for the other half.
Seaworth sits in one of the most evenly-divided districts in the state – Merrimack’s 20th, which saw an even 50 percent split among voters in 2016. He occupies his district’s seat alongside two Democrats, both of whom are running for re-election. And he’s faced upheaval before; in 2012 he was voted out as his seat turned fully blue.
Still, with only one other Democrat filing alongside the incumbents, Seaworth effectively has only one challenger: first-timer Clint Hanson of Pembroke. Hanson has plenty of credentials though, with extensive experience as a financial aid director at several New Hampshire colleges and the president of the New Hampshire School Boards Association Board of Directors. Expect a tough fight.
When Brandon Phinney won his election last year, he won as a Republican, and by a narrow 2.6 percent margin. As of last July, he’s jumped to the Libertarian party. How that affects his next race will be something to watch, especially with a new Republican challenger this time, Mona Perreault, a fiscal hawk with ideological ties to activist Jerry DeLemus.
But Phinney has a lot in his favor. The district has stayed in Republican control for the last three elections, and it voted for Trump by 10 points – though only after rejecting Mitt Romney by seven. And Phinney’s Democratic opponent, Jeremiah Minihan, has so far had a relatively low profile.
Phil Bean is in another district that stretches the imagination: Rockingham 21. On the left, there’s Renny Cushing, progressive stalwart, long-time representative and potential future Speaker candidate – as well as Mike Edgar. On the right: Phil Bean and Tracy Emerick, cut-and-dried Republicans. In Hampton, apparently, there’s room for everyone.
Bean, a first-time candidate, took the highest share of votes in 2016 in the four-seat district, despite facing three incumbents. But the seat was closely fought; each of the winners came within a percentage of each other, and the four runners-up were just a point or two behind. This year, Cushing and Edgar are making another go, joined by two first-timers hoping for a party surge.
Add to that another problem for Bean: He’s being targeted on the right. Bean is one of dozens of Republicans being targeted by Americans for Prosperity for voting against a “right-to-work” bill championed by the governor last year. One mailer released recently reads: “Governor Sununu supports worker rights in the Granite State, but what has Rep. Philip Bean done for us?” Bean and Emerick are part of a Republican field of five for four seats, setting the makings of an interesting primary.
Beyond the incumbents running again, Democrats have an additional handful of pickup opportunities in districts won by Republicans last year by fewer than 10 points. These are the open seats: the ones in which the incumbents who narrowly won them last year have declined to run again. To name a few: one seat in Merrimack 1, vacated by Anne Copp, R-Danbury; two seats in Strafford 4, left open by Leonard Turcotte, R-Barrington and Jackey Cilley, D-Barrington; three seats in Belknap District 2, after the departure of Marc Abear, R-Meredith, Norman Silber, R-Gilford, and Herb Vadney, R-Meredith; and a seat in Merrimack 23, left open by J.R. Hoell, R-Dunbarton.
That latter seat will prove its own litmus test. Hoell has defined himself over his four terms as a fiscal hawk to be reckoned with, wielding vast influence among a team of conservatives bordering on Libertarians in the back rows of the House floor. Such is his presence, it’s easy to forget that he won his seat just under 200 votes ahead of the nearest Democrat last election day – and behind Mary Beth Walz, the incumbent Democratic candidate. Bow and Dunbarton, like so many other towns, are ideologically complex, leaving many possibilities come Nov. 6.
Depending on how you view them, the 35 Republicans running for re-election with the weakest historical hold over their seats are either the Democrats’ best hope for flipping the House or Republican’s last bulwark in favor of keeping it.
Whether the blue wave swells as much Democrats hope it will – if it shows up at all – is unknowable. But the numbers make one thing clear: It will have to be more than a ripple for the gavel to change hands.
(Ethan DeWitt can be reached at edewitt@cmonitor.com, or on Twitter at @edewittNH.)