Down Ticket #10: How Democrats could win back the House (and pick up a couple of governors’ mansions, too)

Down Ticket is Yahoo News’ complete guide to the most fascinating House, Senate and governors’ races of 2016. Coming to you every Tuesday and Thursday until Nov. 8. What you need to know today.

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Labor Day is done. The summer is over. The fall campaigns have (finally!) begun.

To kick off Down Ticket’s general-election coverage — the 60-day sprint from now until Nov. 8 — we’ve decided to spend this week taking stock of where things currently stand and preview what to expect in the days ahead.

For today’s overview — and for the rest of the cycle — we’ll be getting an assist from our expert partners over at the Cook Political Report, who know more about down-ballot races than anyone else in the business.

Short version: Democrats have a better chance than ever of taking back the Senate. The House will be more challenging — but a shift in control is no longer unthinkable. And while Democrats definitely won’t win a majority of governors’ mansions this year, they are hoping to pick up a few.

Here’s the current state of play in the races for the House and the governorships. We posted a Senate cheat sheet on Tuesday; you can check it out here.

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HOUSE

Current breakdown: 186 Democrats; 247 Republicans; two (Democratic) vacancies

In play: U.S. representatives serve two-year terms; all 435 House seats are up for election in November. At the moment, however, only 56 positions are considered competitive, according to Cook: 45 Republican seats and 11 Democratic seats. The rest are completely safe for one party or the other.

To change control: Democrats need a net gain of 30 seats.

Tossups: Three Democrat-held seats (AZ-01, FL-18, NY-03); 16 Republican-held seats (CA-25, CO-06, FL-26, IL-10, IA-03, ME-02, NV-03, NH-01, NY-01, NY-19, NY-22, NY-24, PA-08, TX-23, UT-04, WI-08)

The big picture: In many ways, 2016 was always destined to be a favorable year for House Democrats. Republicans typically perform better during midterms, when young voters and nonwhite voters are less likely to show up at the polls, and worse during presidential election cycles, when these voters tend to reappear. Also key: “There are a dozen more House Republicans retiring or running for other office this year than Democrats, 30 to 18,” writes Cook’s David Wasserman — and “historically, open seats have been among the most sensitive to national vicissitudes.” Take into account the fact that Republicans netted an additional 68 House seats between 2010 and 2014, giving them their largest (and therefore most vulnerable) majority since 1928, and you have a pretty clear recipe for Democratic gains.

The question, however, is whether 2016 will favor Democrats enough to reward them with control of the House.

The conventional wisdom says no. Aside from one brief interregnum — early 2007 to late 2010 — Republicans have ruled the House for the past two decades, as we previously noted. Republican-dominated redistricting — redrawing the congressional boundaries to give the incumbent party a leg up — has only strengthened their hold. Democratic voters are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer districts, a huge disadvantage. Wave elections — the sort that can flip Congress — rarely take place in presidential years. And it’s challenging enough for any party to win three consecutive terms in the Oval Office. The only time it has happened in the modern era — 1988 — the composition of Congress barely changed at all.

Meanwhile, according to the crack analysts at Cook, there aren’t even enough 50-50 (or better) Democratic pickup opportunities in play to get them to 218, the number needed for a majority. To do so, Nancy Pelosi & Co. would need a net gain of at least 30 seats. At the moment, 16 GOP-held seats are tossups; another six either “lean” Democratic or appear “likely” to flip in November. Let’s assume that the Democrats run the table, winning all 22 of these vulnerable GOP seats — a big assumption. Let’s also assume that every tossup Democratic seat stays Democratic. That’s 210 seats, total. The Dems would still be eight seats shy of a majority.

You can see why most observers are skeptical — including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, who described a Democratic takeover as “a stretch” earlier this week.

Still, a stretch isn’t the same thing as an impossibility. Gains of 30 or more seats aren’t unprecedented — even in this era of rampant polarization and partisan gerrymandering.

“A change of this size has happened in two out of the past five congressional elections: a 31-seat gain for Democrats in 2006 and a 63-seat gain by Republicans in 2010,” notes neuroscientist Sam Wang, who runs the respected Princeton Election Consortium. “In the modern era of polarization, 1994–2014, a change of that size has happened in three out of 11 elections. Since 1946, it has happened in 10 out of 35 elections.”

So what would it take for Democrats to pull off a similar swing this time around?

The answer is pretty simple: They’d have to start poaching seats from the “Lean Republican” column — seats such as New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District, an educated, suburban area that trends a slender four percentage points more Republican than the rest of the nation and where Democratic challenger Josh Gottheimer has so far doubled GOP incumbent Scott Garrett’s fundraising haul. To take advantage of that opportunity and actually win on Nov. 8, however, Gottheimer — and other Democrats like him — will probably need a wave election, which is what happens when some overarching, nationwide dynamic tips down-ballot races in a particular direction.

Size matters here. Pollsters like to ask voters what’s known as the generic congressional ballot question: Which party’s House candidate do you plan to vote for? The final results tend to come within three percentage points of November’s actual nationwide congressional vote, so analysts have some sense of what this year’s tipping point — the coast-to-coast margin that propels 30 or more of the party’s House pickup candidates to victory — should be.

The consensus? They’d need a lead of at least seven percentage points — and possibly as high as 13, thanks to redistricting.

The bottom line: Right now, Democrats are winning the generic congressional ballot question by an average of 3.2 percentage points. So they’re not there yet.

But that could change. Why? Because of Donald Trump.

Trump is the X-factor — the overarching, nationwide dynamic — that could trigger a wave election. As of last month, according to a model devised by Republican political consultant Adrian Gray, Clinton was ahead in 54 Republican-held House districts, while Trump led in only three Democratic districts. It is possible, of course, that voters in those 54 districts will conclude that Trump is a party of one and decide, in droves, to split their tickets between Clinton and down-ballot Republicans — which is what those Republicans are increasingly asking them to do.

But so far, the data don’t support this hypothesis. Instead, the gap between Democrats and Republican on the generic congressional ballot question has aligned almost exactly with the gap between Trump and Clinton in the presidential polls. Right now, the former is, again, 3.2 percentage points; the latter is 3.1. They have widened and narrowed together.

This suggests that when Trump does badly, Democratic House candidates do well. In August, during Trump’s disastrous postconvention period, the Dems were routinely racking up seven-, eight-, even nine-point margins on the generic congressional ballot question. They might have won back the House were Election Day in late August.

Trump has since gained ground on Clinton; as a result, those margins have shrunk. The mere fact of their prior existence, however, suggests that the potential for a Democratic wave is there. It’s just up to Trump to create one.

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GOVERNORS

Current breakdown: 18 Democrats; 31 Republicans; one independent

In play: Eight Democrat-held governorships; four Republican-held governorships

To change control: Democrats need a net gain of seven governorships

Tossups: Four Democrat-held governorships (MO, NH, VT, WV); two Republican-held governorships (IN, NC)

The big picture: Democrats are on track to win back the Senate. They have a chance — however slim — of taking over the House. But there’s no way they’re going to catch up to the GOP in the battle to control the most governors’ mansions.

At least not this year.

After two consecutive midterm blowouts v— elections that helped them net eight new governorships — Republicans now boast their biggest roster of governors since 1998. To squander the party’s massive lead over the Democrats, seven GOP governors would have to lose to Democrats in November. Only four will be on the ballot.

This doesn’t mean that the Dems can’t gain some ground on Election Day. Perhaps their best opportunity is North Carolina. Incumbent GOP Gov. Pat McCrory led in pretty much every early poll, but state Attorney General Roy Cooper, his Democratic challenger, has come out ahead in all five surveys released since the start of July; the latest ones show Cooper leading by anywhere from six to nine percentage points.

It’s too early to say for sure that the race has broken for the Dems, but backlash against North Carolina’s ultraconservative legislature — and in particular H.B. 2, a divisive transgender bathroom law, signed by McCrory, that has driven businesses away from the state — seems to be boosting Cooper’s chances. Not helping matters is the fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is investing heavily in North Carolina, while Trump’s is not.

The other Republican governorship in play on Nov. 8 also looks promising for Democrats. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was supposed to be running for reelection this fall; then Donald Trump asked him to be VP. Pence wasn’t overwhelmingly popular — he also signed a controversial transgender bathroom law — but at least he was familiar. His party-appointed, eleventh-hour replacement, Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb, is still introducing himself to voters, having never competed in a primary. As a result, second-time Democratic nominee John Gregg — the former state House speaker — is neck and neck with Holcomb in the polls, despite Indiana’s rightward tilt. One Democratic survey even has Gregg up by seven.

If Democrats defeat Holcomb and McCrory — and hold all eight of their own contested governorships — they’ll claw their way to 20 governors’ mansions (and pull the GOP’s tally down into the 20s as well). A landslide? Hardly. But progress, sure.

The problem is that holding all eight of those Democratic governorships isn’t a done deal. Delaware and Washington, at least, are safe. Washington held its all-party primary in August, and Democratic incumbent Jay Inslee bested Republican nominee Bill Bryant by 11 points; in dark-blue Delaware, sole U.S. Rep. John Carney’s “path to power could not be clearer.” The contests in Oregon and Montana may wind up being closer, but Democratic Governors Kate Brown and Steve Bullock seem likely to prevail — although Democrats are paying close attention to Bullock’s GOP challenger, self-funding tech entrepreneur Greg Gianforte.

The GOP’s top targets are Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont and West Virginia. Despite favoring Trump in the presidential contest, however, the Show Me State’s gubernatorial race now appears to be leaning Democratic; Gov. Jay Nixon is retiring, but Attorney General Chris Koster, a Republican turned Democrat with $11 million in the bank, has trounced rookie Republican Eric Greitens, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in all four polls released since the start of August. His average lead: seven percentage points.

West Virginia — where Republican state Senate President Bill Cole faces billionaire Jim Justice, a Democrat — may also be slipping from the GOP’s grasp. As The Hill recently reported, “Cole’s chances have faded since an ugly fight over the state budget and the floods that insiders on both sides say effectively froze the race with Justice on top.” The latest polling shows Justice winning by anywhere from six to 18 percentage points.

That leaves New England. Home to Bernie Sanders, Vermont is typically considered one of the most liberal corners of the country. But this year’s gubernatorial contest appears to be a tossup. Incumbent Democrat Peter Shumlin is retiring, and the pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Republican nominee — former state senator, construction contractor and stock car driver Phil Scott — is popular with voters, who twice re-elected him lieutenant governor, most recently in 2014 with 62 percent of the vote. If the candidate running on Sanders’ old Liberty Union ballot line — winemaker and retired Boston Red Sox Pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee — swipes some votes from the left, Scott could squeak past the Democratic nominee, former state Transportation Secretary Sue Minter, in November. The Green Mountain State has certainly defied partisan expectations before: In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama breezed to victory in Vermont with 68 percent of the vote on the same day Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, won reelection with 53 percent. There’s a reason the Republican Governors Association has already spent $425,000 on Scott’s behalf.

As for New Hampshire, no one really knows yet: Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan is vacating her seat to challenge GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and neither party has even nominated someone to replace her yet. The top GOP contenders are Ted Gatsas, the mayor of Manchester; and Chris Sununu, a state executive councilor, son of former Gov. John H. Sununu and brother of former Sen. John E. Sununu. Democrats will likely select either state executive councilor Colin Van Ostern, former Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand or former state Rep. Mark Connolly. The primaries are Sept. 13.

The bottom line: The Democrats currently have a slight edge, but neither party is likely to make significant gains or sustain big losses. Any drama will derive from the particulars of each race — not from their potential to affect the broader balance of power.

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