An excellent analysis by Jay Cost.

He is most likely correct that the disunity of the Democratic Party will not be a major factor in the overwhelming majority of House races. It could be a factor in otherwise close contests, but is probably counterbalanced in that respect by the Republican divisions over immigration and budgeting.

Typically, party unity is a far more important factor in national and statewide campaigns, because those efforts require and attract far greater participation by the party organizations. In the House, as Speaker O'Neill famously remarked, "All politics is local."

House races have progressively tended less competitive over the last half-century. Redistricting has transformed from using the gerrymander to acquire the maximum number of seats in the next cycle to maximizing, instead, the number of "safe" seats for the party for several future cycles.

Most incumbents in their third term or with longer service simply can't be beaten if they don't screw up magnificently.

Typically there are only between 30 and 40 "competitive" seats - defined as one in which either the incumbent won with less than 55% of the vote in the last election, or an open one which went for the opposing party in the last national or statewide election - and in each House election these days. Because of the incumbent advantage, open seats are prime targets for takeover just because incumbents are so tough to blast out.

There are, last I heard, 17 retiring Democrats and 11 GOP members standing down, thanks largely to an agressive anti-retirement campaign by Bush and Hastert. One of our open seats was Cal-50, where the favored Democrat Busby was stricken by the kiss o' death of a Kos endorsement.

Bush Bounce or none, there never figured to be a Democratic takeover of the House this year.

They make it too obvious that their main campaign theme is to hope the Republicans screw things up badly enough that no one looks too closely at the Democrats' "alternatives."

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