While Democrats look like initial underdogs to win back the House majority, the battle for control is taking place in favorable territory for them, according to Inside Elections’ Baseline metric.
Gaining a handful of seats out of 435 might not seem like a lot, but a district-by-district look at the races shows Republicans with an initial edge. Adding up all the seats where Inside Elections rates Republicans with the advantage (seats rated as Solid, Likely, Lean, or Tilt Republican) gets the GOP to 217 seats — just one short of a majority. If they win all the seats where they have an advantage, Republicans would need to win just one of the dozen Toss-up races.
On the other side of the ledger, Democrats have the advantage in 206 races, according to Inside Elections. So Democrats would need to win all 12 of the Toss-ups in order to secure a majority. But there’s some good news for Democrats.
