Down Ticket #23: Can Democrats really win back the House? Watch these three races to find out

The Senate side of the Capitol on Oct. 11. Republicans are in a close race with Democrats to keep control of both the House and the Senate. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The Senate side of the Capitol on Oct. 11. Republicans are in a close race with Democrats to keep control of both the House and the Senate. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Down Ticket is Yahoo News’ complete guide to the most fascinating House, Senate and governors’ races of 2016. Coming to you every Tuesday and Thursday until Nov. 8. What you need to know today.

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The three House races that could predict whether a Democratic wave is heading for Capitol Hill

With Election Day fast approaching, a lot of this year’s marquee battles are looking less and less suspenseful.

But at least one of them is still a big mystery.

The presidency is the likeliest lock of all. On Sept. 26, Hillary Clinton had a 54.8 percent chance of becoming America’s next commander in chief, according to the data whizzes at FiveThirtyEight, who feed the latest polls into a proprietary statistical model that forecasts the results; Donald Trump’s chances stood at 45.2 percent. Today, however, Clinton is way ahead at 85.4 percent — and Trump is lagging at 14.6 percent.

Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally on Oct. 22 at Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally on Oct. 22 at Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The other statistical forecasters are even more bullish. The New York Times’ Upshot model gives Clinton a 93 percent chance of winning the White House. The Huffington Post gives her a 96 percent chance. PredictWise gives her a 90 percent chance. The Princeton Election Consortium gives her a 99 percent chance. And Daily Kos gives her a 96 percent chance.

The Senate is a similar (if less lopsided) story. According to the FiveThirtyEight model, the Democrats now have a 73 percent chance of recapturing control of the upper chamber of Congress, while the Republicans’ odds of retaining control have slipped to 27 percent — a 40-plus point gap. As recently as Oct. 9, those two numbers were within 3 percentage points of each other.

But then we get to the fun part: the House of Representatives, where no one really has any idea what will happen on Nov. 8.

There are a few reasons the House is such a big question mark. District-level polling is relatively scarce. Much of the polling that does exist comes from partisan sources. And the races themselves are more volatile: The smaller the total turnout, the smaller the number of votes it takes to swing the result one way or the other.

People have their predictions, of course. Most prognosticators agree that the Democrats are on track to pick up between 10 and 20 House seats — but not the 30 they need to win back control.

The key indicator here is the generic congressional-ballot question, in which pollsters ask voters whether they want Democrats or Republicans in charge of the House. According to expert forecaster Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium, the tipping-point margin for Democrats — the smallest lead that could potentially propel them to a 30-seat pickup — is 8 percentage points. Right now, they’re ahead by 5.2 percentage points, on average — so they still have a way to go.

Donald Trump tours Gettysburg National Military Park on Oct. 22 in Gettysburg, Pa. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
Donald Trump tours Gettysburg National Military Park on Oct. 22 in Gettysburg, Pa. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

In short: To win back the House, Democrats will need a wave election, which is what happens when some overarching, nationwide dynamic tips down-ballot races in a particular direction.

There’s still time. The more Trump collapses — and the more momentum Clinton gains — the more it could alter the congressional landscape. The superior Democratic field operation will kick into gear, and Republicans who are convinced that the White House is a lost cause could stay home.

“I’d give the House Democrats a 1 in 5 chance of making it over this bar,” Wang writes. “A long shot… but not a crazy long shot.”

“[This] isn’t the only scenario in play,” adds Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, “but it’s an increasing possibility.”

So how will you be able to tell whether a Democratic wave is, in fact, heading for Capitol Hill? Pay close attention to what’s actually happening on the ground.

According to our partners at the Cook Political Report, 17 Republican-held House seats are currently considered toss-ups; another five are rated Lean or Likely Democratic. That’s 22 total. To have a shot at 30, Democrats would have to hold all of their Toss-up, Lean and Likely seats and win an additional eight of the 12 seats that currently Lean Republican.

Is it possible? Here are the three Lean Republican House races Down Ticket will be monitoring for wavelike symptoms in the weeks ahead. They could be the canaries in the electoral coal mine.

Yahoo News photo illustration. Photos: (clockwise from top) Jared Wickerham/AP (2), Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images (2), M. Spencer Green/AP, Nam Y. Huh/AP
Yahoo News photo illustration. Photos: (clockwise from top) Jared Wickerham/AP (2), Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images (2), M. Spencer Green/AP, Nam Y. Huh/AP

PA-16: Lloyd Smucker (R) vs. Christina Hartman (D)

Nonprofit consultant Christina Hartman — a political neophyte — wasn’t supposed to have a shot in this right-leaning Lancaster-area district. The retiring congressman she’s running to replace, GOP Rep. Joe Pitts, was a strong conservative who won the 16th by 21 percentage points in 1996. No Democrat ever came within 15 points of unseating him.

Meanwhile, Hartman’s Republican rival, state Sen. Lloyd Smucker, defeated his April primary opponent (who also happened to be his second cousin) by nearly 10 percentage points. Back then, the fall election was widely seen as a foregone conclusion.

But what was once a safely Republican district is no more. In July, the Cook Political Report changed its race rating to Likely Republican — and earlier this month, the outlet went one step further, putting PA-16 into the Lean Republican category.

This shift is partly the result of structural forces; the 16th’s borders were redrawn after 2010, making it less conservative than before. But Hartman deserves some credit too. According to Cook analyst David Wasserman, she has “run a surprisingly energetic campaign,” outraising Smucker $352,000 to $324,000 in the third quarter of 2016.

The real reason Down Ticket will be watching PA-16 closely, however, is Donald Trump. At this point, Trump fallout is the only thing that could power a Democratic wave — and the 16th should be particularly sensitive to those shockwaves. The city of Reading is nearly 60 percent Latino; Chester County is full of college-educated whites; and Lancaster (home of the Amish) is deeply religious. If Latinos turn out in droves to vote against Trump — and if white suburbanites and Christian conservatives either stay home or defect in unusually high numbers — we’ll see the effects here first.

Democrats definitely smell blood. Earlier this month, Hartman released an ad targeted directly at college-educated women in the Philadelphia suburbs; it paired the most salacious parts of Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape with footage of Smucker introducing the divisive GOP nominee at a recent rally:

“It’s time for a change, and that change is Donald J. Trump,” Smucker says.

“Really, Lloyd Smucker?” a woman’s voice asks skeptically. “Trump & Smucker: wrong for women, wrong for us.”

Last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced that it would be providing Hartman with financial and organizational support, and on Monday, President Obama endorsed her. He’s likely to tape ads and robocalls for Hartman in the weeks ahead.

A new poll from GBA Strategies — a Democratic firm — shows a 3 percentage-point race, with Smucker at 45 percent and Hartman at 42 percent; meanwhile, Clinton leads Trump in the 16th by 4 percentage points. If the Donald proves to be enough of a down-ballot drag, it’s candidates like Hartman in districts like PA-16 who will put House Democrats over the top.

IN-9: Trey Hollingsworth (R) vs. Shelli Yoder (D)

From the lily-white Indianapolis exurbs through rural Jackson and Washington counties south to the Kentucky border, Indiana’s Ninth Congressional District — which was redrawn by the GOP in 2010 — should be safe Republican territory. John McCain beat Barack Obama here by 6 percentage points; Mitt Romney routed him by more than 16. And in fact, Democratic polling does show Clinton trailing Trump by 7 percentage points locally.

The problem for Republicans is that the district’s House race is still close.

The big story seems to be candidate quality — or lack thereof. When Rep. Todd Young ran for reelection in 2010, he defeated Democrat Shelli Yoder — a former Miss Indiana turned eating-disorder advocate — by 10 percentage points.

This year’s Republican nominee, businessman Trey Hollingsworth, is also facing Yoder. (Young is running against Evan Bayh for Indiana’s open Senate seat.) But Hollingsworth is having a much harder time dispatching her.

Hollingsworth isn’t actually from Indiana; he’s from Tennessee. He moved to Jeffersonville in September 2015, then declared his candidacy the following month. His father, Joe Hollingsworth Jr., is a wealthy Tennessee property developer who sent Trey to prestigious schools, including the University of Pennsylvania, and bankrolled his initial forays into business.

The younger Hollingsworth, 32, is now worth $58 million; he squeaked by with 34 percent of the vote in the district’s crowded May primary by avoiding local media and dropping millions of his own money on nonstop television advertising. A separate political action committee (PAC) called Indiana Jobs Now has also spent $400,000 on Hollingsworth’s behalf, and slightly more attacking his various opponents. Its sole donor? Joe Hollingsworth Jr.

Hollingsworth’s Republican primary opponents tried to paint him as a privileged carpetbagger, but they didn’t have the money to get their message out. Yoder has had more success. So far, she’s raised more than a million dollars, including nearly $440,000 in the last quarter, and the Democrats’ House Majority PAC launched a $650,000 ad buy last Wednesday. Its message is the same as Yoder’s.

“Tennessee Trey Hollingsworth,” the narrator says. “We know that dad’s money is trying to buy our congressional seat.”

The investment indicates that Democrats see IN-9 as a real pickup opportunity. In July, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee moved the race onto its top-tier Red to Blue target list; earlier this month, a pair of Democratic polls showed Hollingsworth ahead by 2 percentage points — well within the margin of error. On Oct. 4, the experts at Cook took notice and revised their race rating from the Likely Republican to Lean Republican. And even the National Republican Congressional Committee is feeling the need to fight back with its first local ad of the cycle.

If Yoder can defeat Hollingsworth on Election Day, it will be a sign that Democrats who are running against less-than-stellar Republicans in otherwise safe GOP districts have the wind at their back.

KS-3: Kevin Yoder (R) vs. Jay Sidie (D)

If KS-3 goes Democratic, then you’ll know that Trump has really sunk the GOP.

From 1999 to 2011, Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore reigned over Kansas’ Third Congressional District; Republicans couldn’t seem to find a candidate who was socially moderate enough to appeal to the area’s college-educated, well-to-do suburbanites. Then Moore retired, and a young lawyer with a middle-of-the-road mien named Kevin Yoder — no relation to Shelli, as far as we know — came along and won by nearly 20 percentage points in the 2010 race to replace him.

This year, Yoder is running for reelection against Democratic businessman Jay Sidie, a political novice. Yoder should be winning by the same sort of comfortable margin he enjoyed 2014, when he demolished former Democratic state Sen. Kelly Kultala with 60 percent of the vote.

But the latest polls say otherwise.

In August, a Yoder survey showed the incumbent trouncing Sidie 53 percent to 36 percent; a September Sidie sounding came to a similar conclusion. This month, however, the contest seems to have tightened dramatically, with a pair of Democratic polls pegging Yoder’s current lead at a paltry 4 percentage points.

Trump is probably playing a part. For months, the Democratic Party’s strategy was to link Yoder to GOP Gov. Sam Brownback, whom Yoder supported when he was a state legislator; thanks to Brownback’s draconian education cuts, only 19 percent of the district’s voters see him favorably, compared to 66 percent who see him unfavorably.

Rep. Kevin Yoder, right, with former Sen. Bob Dole at the Johnson County Republican headquarters in Overland Park, Kan. on Oct. 21. Democrats believe Yoder is vulnerable in his suburban Kansas City district because Trump and the state's GOP governor are seen as unpopular there. (Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP)
Rep. Kevin Yoder, right, with former Sen. Bob Dole at the Johnson County Republican headquarters in Overland Park, Kan. on Oct. 21. Democrats believe Yoder is vulnerable in his suburban Kansas City district because Trump and the state’s GOP governor are seen as unpopular there. (Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP)

But Trump may be even more burdensome. By now it’s been well-established that college-educated voters — particularly the white college graduates who usually support Republicans for president — are not keen on Trump, and that this is perhaps his single biggest electoral handicap.

KS-3 is packed with college-educated white voters. And while Yoder initially preferred Marco Rubio, he has backed Trump ever since the Manhattan mogul clinched the GOP nomination, refusing to break with him even after the “Access Hollywood” video upended the campaign.

In 2012, Romney won KS-3 by nearly 10 percentage points. But every poll released this cycle — Democratic and Republican — has shown Clinton ahead of Trump. The most recent survey — the only one in the field after the “Access Hollywood” kerfuffle — gives Clinton a 10 percentage-point lead.

“I think there’s a lot of worry that Republican turnout could crater,” Kyle Kondik, who studies House races for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, recently told the Kansas City Star. “And those are votes that not only Trump loses, but also someone like Yoder loses.”

There is a reason, in other words, why Obama just endorsed Sidie — and why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is planning to spend $1 million on local TV ads in the three weeks before Election Day.

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