It has become increasingly clear that Democrats need to win the House in 2014. This is a tall task when put in a historical context. Only twice has the party in power of the presidency gained seats in the house. This was in 1998 and 2002. Both years had special circumstances, 1998 - After the Clinton impeachment fiasco, and 2002 - September 11th and the fear mongering about everything.
I found an article laying the base of a strategy to retake the house. Others may have already read this article since it is about 2 months old, but I think it is a very important article. See below for quotes from the article.
To take back the House, Democrats need to win 17 house seats.
"Although 17 seats is not an extraordinary number, both historical precedent in midterm election years and a deeper examination of this year's results would argue strongly against Democrats being able to gain that many seats.
There is also reason to suspect that Democrats are unlikely to sustain the sort of losses in the House that they did in 2010. But odds are that the electoral climate in 2014 will be somewhere between neutral and Republican-leaning, rather than favoring Democrats.
In midterm election years since World War II, the president's party has lost an average of 26 seats in the House, as shown in the chart below. The president's party gained seats only twice, in 1998 and 2002."
There is also this fact
"...This year, there were only 11 House seats that Democrats lost by five or fewer percentage points. Thus, even if they had performed five points better across the board, they would still have come up six seats short of controlling the chamber."
Republicans also have far more safe districts than democrats do, due to redistricting.
Republicans have 195, Democrats 166. So the number of swing districts are 74.
There is hope though. Call it demographics and GOTV
"Many pundits were surprised by the pivotal influence of demographic transformation on November 6th and the microtargeting prowess and intensity of Democratic GOTV. Republicans will eventually catch up on microtargeting, but there will be a learning curve of some duration for them, during which Dems can gain ground in swing districts."
Here is the most important part of the article, the house races that the eventual winner won with less than 53% of the vote.
"According to CNN Politics data, Republicans won 41 of the 435 House Seats being contested with 55 percent or less of votes cast in each district. Here are 27 U.S. congressional districts that Republicans won with 53 percent or less of votes cast: CA31; CO3; FL2; FL10; IL 13; IN2; IN8; IA3; IA4; KY6; MI1; MI3; MI7; MI11; MN6; MT1; NB2; NV3; NY11; NY19; NY23; NY27; NC9; OH6; OH16; PA12; and TX14."
Hopefully the DCCC can target these districts as prime pick up opportunities. Republicans are really tearing themselves apart with the debt ceiling, sequester, abortion/ birth control politics, gay marriage, and a plethora of other issues. Demographics are changing towards Democrats and if Immigration reform is in the works or completed by 2014, there will be a huge turnout for Democrats.
History is very important to take into account for future success, but we should not look at the history of midterm elections as an excuse to slink away. We saw what happened in 2010 and the affects it has wrought. That must not happen again.
Hopefully, we can come together, win back the house, keep the Senate, and get things done! Keep the faith people, it can be done!
Below is the link to the article for people to read who may not have read it yet.
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/...