It's Election Day in the USA on Tuesday. Already many people will have voted - in what is sometimes described as "early voting". Certain places in a State may be open for a period before election to allow people who might not be able to vote on Election Day to cast their vote. Postal voting is available in some places.
All seats are up for re-election, but most will be won by the current incumbent or their party. Rothenberg suggests that there are 170 Democrat "safe seats", whilst the Republicans have 223 "safe seats". The battle is over the fate of approximately 50 seats. The key number is 218, which would give a majority in the 435 seat House. The Democrats need a net gain of 17 to win such a majority - and Rothenberg rates only 14 Republican seats to be in play; whereas the more cautious Cook reckons that one Republic held seat "leans Democratic"; 6 Republican seats are a "toss up"; 5 seats "lean Republican"; 13 "marginal seats are "likely Republican" (but to make matters worse 3 "likely Republican" seats were Democrat held in the 113th Congress. 16 Democrat seats are regarded by Cook as "toss up").
Rothenberg reckons that 11 seats (9 Democrat and 2 Republican seats are "pure toss up" - these are AZ01; AZ02; CA07; CA52; FL02; IA01; IA03; IL10; MN08; NY01; WV03)
*Note - the shorthand used here gives the two letter code for each state - used by the US Postal Service (see here for the full list) with the number of the Congressional District - so CA52 means the 52nd Congressional District in California - the map at the top of this post shows the district)
