There's a lot of talk lately that Democrats could pick up as many as 20 or 30 House seats in 2008. I'm not enough of a horserace obsessive to know which ones, but Chris Cilizza is. "It is hard," he says, "to overestimate the cumulative impact of three straight special elections victories by Democrats in districts previously held by Republicans. The fact that the wins came in districts that President Bush with 55 percent (Illinois' 14th), 59 percent (Louisiana's 6th) and 62 percent (Mississippi's 1st) in 2004 shows that the playing field has definitely tilted." I'm not going to overstate the impact, but the lesson Republicans are taking is that no seat is safe. Meanwhile, Democrats are effortlessly outraising them. Which means Republican money is going to be spread thin, across a wide array of districts, and almost all of it will be defensive, and they're not even sure where they most need to defend. Nor, incidentally, am I! But Cilizza has a rundown of the 20 most competitive races right here.
