Photograph by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
A man lays on the grass in front of the Capitol building during the presidential inauguration in Washington.
That’s the net gain of House seats that Democrats need in the 2014 election to win a majority.
The House presently has 232 Republicans and 200 Democrats, with vacancies in two Republican districts and one Democratic district.
Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who leads the House Democrats’ campaign organization, briefed reporters yesterday about his party’s emphasis on early candidate recruitment and using new technology programs to identify voters and turn them out to vote. Bloomberg’s Jonathan Salant has more here.
Yet Democrats face a difficult path to the majority in 2014.
Voter turnout will be lower next year than in 2012. There are fewer than 20 Republicans representing districts that also voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, and many of them previously won in good Democratic years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The White House’s party usually loses House seats in midterm elections, and only once in the past century, in 1998, has it gained seats in the sixth year of a two-term presidency.
