Green Shoots?

With a trio of House Republican retirement announcements over the past 10 days....Republicans will have to defend 18 open seats and Democrats 13. And while the political environment has Charlie Cook and others calling for about 20 Dem seats lost in the House (which I think the Democratic leadership would be happy with as of now), Republicans would rather not have to deal with open seats. Modern political history suggests that open seats are far more likely to switch parties than those in which the incumbent is running for reelection -- meaning that any vacant seat has at least the potential to become competitive...
- posted by john @ 9:09 PM