Who will win the US House of Representatives?

There are a number of US HOuse of Representative races that are too close to call at this point. Although the house is currently predicted to go Republican, which would be a shame, there are not a lot of current data to predict this. Given the potential strength of Mitt Romney’s coattails going in one direction, and President Obama’s going in the other, it is possible that a large share of the toss-up states will end up in the Blue column. Here are a few of the currently contested races.

California 6th House District Bera vs Lungren - Latest info - This is a very close race but observers have lately started to suggest that Bera has a better chance of beating the Republican incumbent now than even a few weeks ago.

California 24th House District Capps vs Moldonado - Latest info - This is a very close race mainly owing to redistricting which put long-time incumbent Capps in more conservative district. I think if the election was held today, Capps would win.

Florida 18th District Murphy vs West - Latest info - The candidates appeared to be in a statistical dead heat in polling that is about a month old. The Republican incumbent, West, is a classic tea-party candidate, and if that sort of thing is wearing as thin in Florida as it is elsewhere, that means that a one month old horse race may have turned into a more current slight lead by the challenger, Patrick Murphy.

Illinois 10th House District - Schneider vs Dold - Latest info - There are no recent polls for this race, and the older polls show very mixed results. The challenger, Democratic party’s Schneider, has recently been said to be potentially doing better by various observers, but with no real data to back that up.

We’ll look at more of these later. For now, note that Real Clear Politics is predicting 183 solid or likely victories for the Democrats, and 229 solid or likely victories for Republicans, which adds up to 412 members. RCP indicates 29 tossup districts, and those two numbers unfortunately adds up to 441, which is six more than the number of voting members of the House. RCP has included the Virgin Islands, DC and such in their count, which is not appropriate because it is the majority of voting members that determines majority. Anyway, if we ignore that for a while, then every single one of the RCP “tossup” districts would have to go Democratic, and then some, for the good guys to gain a majority. Having said, more unlikely things have happened in house elections before.