April House Rating Updates

Folks it is that time again. It has been a while, but we have some updates for you in our House Race Ratings for 2022. We have 9 changes for you guys, along with the official addition of Ohio.

Our Ohio Ratings

We’re going to start off with our Ohio ratings. After many months of fighting and refusal to comply with certain orders, the Ohio GOP gerrymander has become official. At least for 2022. That means that Republicans have a decent shot of taking 13 of the 15 new congressional districts. Of those seats, we consider only three to be competitive in any way. OH-01, OH-09 and OH-13. The rest of the seats are rated either Safe Republican or, in the case of the Cleveland and Columbus seats, Safe Democratic. Of those three competitive seats, we have both OH-09 and OH-13 rated as Leans Republican. We consider both seats to favor Republicans at this moment, as the current environment and trends we feel will take out incumbent Democrat Marcy Kaptur in November. The current environment also has us believe that the open OH-13 will go towards Republicans, especially as questionable candidate Max Miller is now running to replace Bob Gibbs in the new 7th.

The only tossup we have is the new OH-01. This seat as drawn is Biden+8, but longtime incumbent Steve Chabot is running for what could very well be his final time. Chabot routinely has over performed in recent years even as the Cincinnati area has moved away from Ohio Republicans. Chabot will face off against Cincinnati councilman Greg Landsman in the general. Even in this environment, the new partisan lean of the district has us put it as a Tossup, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see this in the Republican-favored categories by the end of the summer.

Our Nine Ratings Changes

All of these changes favor Republicans.

• AZ-01: Tossup to Leans Republican
• CA-03:Likely Republican to Safe Republican
• CA-41: Likely Republican to Safe Republican
• CA-49: Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic
• IL-17: Leans Democratic to Tossup
• NE-02: Leans Republican to Likely Republican
• NJ-02: Likely Republican to Safe Republican
• NJ-03: Safe Democratic to Likely Democratic
• TX-28: Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic

Almost all of these changes are based on the current environment we’re seeing unfold in polling currently. The likelihood of a decent Republican wave is only going up and these are some of the early seats we see being affected by that at this moment. With Florida and Missouri still dealing with their redistricting process, and New Hampshire seemingly angling towards the Sununu map, we are almost finally going to have a full map to discuss.

We also want to give a nod to the TX-34 special election. We are currently rating that as Leans Republican, in a change from our previous Tossup rating when it was first announced back in March.