How the GOP can hold the House

Ed Morrissey:

ABC: Generic Ballot In Battleground Districts Is … R+1?

The key to voter enthusiasm in this midterm cycle may be the same as it is in real estate: Location, location, location. ABC News’ Rick Klein takes a look at the current generic-ballot polling from the latest Washington Post/ABC partnership and notes that the double-digit Democratic lead would normally spell curtains for the GOP. However, Klein points out that almost all of it comes in districts well in hand for Democrats — and that the battleground looks far different:

If this was a national referendum on President Donald Trump, he’d be set for a thumping, or a shellacking, or whatever word a president not named Trump might select in conceding defeat.

But it isn’t. Therein lies the core of Democrats’ concerns with 22 days to go, as they worry that a whole lot of their midterm enthusiasm will wind up wasted in places they don’t need the extra votes. …

Nationwide, Trump has a 41 percent approval rating, and Democrats have a 53-42 percent edge in the generic ballot for the House. But inside the 66 districts that are tossups, or only leaning toward one party or the other — the majority makers, or breakers — that lead evaporates into a 46-47 Democrats v. Republicans race.

It’s a similar dynamic — driven by Democratic strength in cities, and weaknesses in rural areas — that is driving House and Senate forecasts in opposite directions, amid a campaign close set to be dominated by the president.

It could be even worse than that from the Democratic perspective. The WaPo/ABC generic ballot result is on the outer edge of the aggregation at RCP, where Democrats have a 7.3-point lead. It’s probably too much to call it an outlier, as Reuters and CNN both give Democrats similar leads, but most other recent polls put the difference in single digits. Rasmussen calls it a solid tie and IBD/TIPP has it at D+2, but most of the polls are in the D+6 -to- D+8 range.

Even going by the WaPo/ABC poll’s numbers, the results from the 66 battleground districts would tend to make it difficult for Democrats to win control of the House. They need a 23-seat flip, which means they’d have to win 45 of those seats in an aggregate R+1 environment. The redrawing of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts makes that easier, perhaps lowering the number of other seats to flip to 18 or so. But that still means they’d need to win 42 out of 66 seats in an environment that slightly favors Republicans. It’s not impossible, but it’s not the way I’d bet.

That assumes that the poll accurately reflects the mood in these districts, of course. Salena Zito, reporting from the ground in these areas, sees a red wave coming rather than a blue one. If that happens, Zito concludes, Democrats will have done it to themselves....
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I have thought for some time that the generic ballot polls could be skewed by voter intensity in some of the blue areas.  For example, voters in New York tend to vote Democrat even when they are not agitated as they have become since Trump won.  So if 90 percent of voters in that area say they are going to back Democrat it makes the generic ballot look more difficult for Republicans than it really is in more competitive areas.