The Cook Political Report's latest ratings are out, and there's good news and bad news for Democrats. The good news
*11 Republican-held House seats are listed as "lean Republican" or "tossup." Those are all competitive.
*"Only" 39 Democratic-held House seats are listed as "lean" or "tossup;" I actually thought this number might be worse.
*In Virginia, only one Democratic incumbent is at at "tossup" right now, with the rest either totally safe (Bobby Scott and Jim Moran), "likely" to be reelected (Gerry Connolly and Rick Boucher), or "leaning" towards reelection (Glenn Nye).
The bad news
*45 Democratic-held House seats are listed as "likely Democratic," while only 15 Republican-held House seats are listed as "likely Republican." If there's a "wave" next year and/or if the large "enthusiasm gap" favoring Republicans right now holds through next November, the "likely Democratic" seats could quickly get competitive.
*In Virginia, that could put both Gerry Connolly and Rick Boucher into jeopardy.
*Tom Perriello is listed as "Toss Up," which is obviously not ideal. Having said that, Tom's a fighter, a hard worker, and an excellent congressman, so we'll see what happens. Also, there's definite potential in this district for a third-party conservative ("Tea Party") candidate to emerge. That would only be good news for Tom Perriello.
Obviously, there's a long way to go until November 2010 and a lot could change, but this is a snapshot with 11 months to go. Keep in mind that Democrats hold a 258-177 (81-seat) edge right now in the House of Representatives, so even if they lost all 39 seats listed as "lean" or "tossup" and picked up no Republican-held seats, Democrats would still (barely) control the House. Hopefully, though, things will look a lot better come next fall...
