Finally, Good News From the NRCC - And the Future of Ohio's Congressional Seats

• Author: Ben Keeler
• Filed under: Congress
• Date: Jan 22,2008

The Hill: The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is touting a new batch of challengers who will face freshman Democrats in the House, striking back at Democratic criticism of their recruitment efforts.

That is some good news for the NRCC which is lagging far behind in fundraising while already facing an uphill battle due to numerous upcoming Republican House retirements. That leads me into this…….

No one is really paying attention to this right now with the election this fall, but the 2010 governors races (and a few in 2008) are going to be huge in terms of how the House races set up starting in 2012.

Take Ohio for example. As it stands right now, Ohio Democrats hold a 3-2 advantage on the state Apportionment Board with Governor Strickland, Secretary of State Brunner and one legislative representative to the Republicans' Auditor Mary Taylor plus one legislative rep. Whichever side has the majority will redraw the maps for the congressional districts for elections beginning in 2012. You don't want to be the party on the short end here, because it is almost guaranteed that a couple of your House seats are going to be drawn right off the map - especially when you consider Ohio is going to lose at least one House seat (and two by most projections) in conjunction with the new Census results. That is just how it works - the side that controls the drawing of the map will aide their party. Something similar happens like this in every state, so the landscape will be different come 2012, taking out the states that just have one or two districts that can't really be changed (Wyoming and North Dakota come to mind). But in competitive states like ours with a lot of House members, it is a huge deal. Republicans need to protect the Auditor slot and then defeat either Strickland or Brunner to have the control they want.

Currently, Republicans hold 11 of the House seats here (Chabot 1, Schmidt 2, Turner 3, Jordan 4, Latta 5, Hobson 7, Boehner 8, Tiberi 12, LaTourette 14, Pryce 15, Regula 16); Democrats have 7 (Wilson 6, Kaptur 9, Kucinich 10, Tubbs-Jones 11, Sutton 13, Ryan 17, Space 18). Democrats have at least an even chance to pick up the 15th with Price's retirement and they have about a 35-40% chance to pick up Regula's seat with him stepping down. Republicans will contest the Space seat in the 18th. After 2008, incumbents will have one more election - 2010 - to build up their name recognition before their fate is in the hands of the apportionment board.