The DCCC has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to competitive races to help fund this year and the playing field seems to keep growing every day. Conventional wisdom is now that Democrats will net 20+ seats in the House on November 4th, an unheard of post-wave wave.

Two years ago, in order to help flip as many seats as possible in the final weeks leading up to election day, The DCCC took out an $11.5 million loan; this year they've upped that to $15 million, a total that gives the DCCC an even greater financial advantage over their Republican counterpart.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, seeing an irresistible opportunity to make big gains on Election Day, has secured a $15 million loan from Bank of America that it will use to splurge on tight races during the last three weeks of the campaign season.

The $15 million loan is nearly twice the $8 million that the National Republican Congressional Committee was able to borrow recently and adds to the huge financial advantage that Democrats already hold over the GOP.

When combined with the cash-on-hand advantage that the DCCC has over the National Republican Congressional Committee -- $54 million to $14.4 million as of Aug. 31 -- the loan leaves House Democratic leaders with $47 million more than their GOP counterparts to pour into contested districts.

We seem to have hit upon a perfect storm of recruitment, organization and money this year. Take a look at what the committee and Dem campaigns have accomplished so far.

The DCCC "independent expenditure" campaign, technically a separate unit within the committee, has spent more than $33 million so far and is currently advertising in more than 50 districts, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission through Wednesday.

Democrats also said that their campaigns have made calls or knocked on the doors of more than 10 million voters nationwide, an unprecedented ground effort that resembles the one being waged by the Obama-Biden campaign. And Democratic allies in the labor movement and other outside groups have targeted millions more voters as they try to get Barack Obama into the White House.

You know it's a watershed year when even California has 3 or 4 possible Dem takeovers (our last redistricting was notorious for the extent to which its primary goal was incumbent protection.) Are you seeing a similar phenomenon where you are? What are the sleeper races in your area and what's your wishlist of races you'd like the DCCC to spend that $15m on?

There's more...

Larry Sabato lays out the how the House is looking in his column at Rasmussen Reports:

Last December, when we first sketched out the upcoming House elections, we suggested that Democrats were likely to have a good year, adding at least half a dozen seats to their total of 236 (with 218 being needed for control of the chamber). When we updated our projections in June 2008, we suggested that up to a dozen new Democratic seats were in the forecast. With the international financial meltdown proceeding apace, and voters increasingly angry and fearful about their families' economic future, Republicans are suffering disproportionately. [...]

Therefore, we believe that Democrats have a solid chance to add 15 to 20 more House seats to their total, putting the party's seat share at 251 to 256 of 435 members (up to 59% of the total House)--the party's highest share since the first two years of the Clinton Administration (1993-1995).

Charlie Cook concurs and has upgraded 25 Democratic races. His new projections for November:

Once again, this is a political environment in which top-tier GOP candidates can lose, and second and even third-tier Democrats can break into contention late in the game. We are releasing ratings changes in 25 districts across the country, and revising our outlook to a Democratic gain of 20 to 25 seats in the House.

Several factors are contributing to what is looking like a Democratic wave up and down the ballot this year, including, of course, the economic crisis. But there also seems to be a sense among voters this year that we need to finish what we started in 2006, both literally, with Democratic challengers who are on their second attempts to oust Republican incumbents, and figuratively with new challengers who have a shot to take down incumbents who hung on by the skin of their teeth last cycle.

Here are some encouraging poll numbers from some of the races I'm watching this year:

• CT-04: Democrat Jim Himes is looking to oust faux moderate Bush enabler Chris "last Republican in New England" Shays this year after Shays won by a slim 3 points against Diane Farrell last cycle. Shays was always going to have a rough time with the coming Obama surge in this D+4 district, but the economic crisis appears to really be hurting him as the 4th is also a wealthy district just outside New York City that's been hit inordinately hard by the stock market crash. The latest Survey USA poll (602 LVs, Oct. 13-14, MOE +/- 4.1%) confirms that Himes is looking extremely strong against Shays 3 weeks out.

  Himes 48
  Shays 45

  More from SSP on the internals:

  Shays's favorables: 43-32; Himes: 39-22. Shays has a small lead among independents, 46-42, but it's not going to be enough. That's because Obama leads McCain 59-37 in this district - in other words, Democrats are energized. (Remember, Kerry carried this district by just six points.)

  You can donate to Jim over at ActBlue.

• WA-08: Progressive Democrat and netroots allstar Darcy Burner is on her second attempt to send faux moderate Dave Reichert packing and her steadiness and persistence seems to be paying off. After months of what looked like a stubborn 5 or 6 point lead for Reichert, we're now beginning to see some signs of movement toward Darcy. First there was a poll commissioned by The DCCC with Darcy ahead by 5 and now we have an internal poll from Lake Research Partners showing Darcy even further ahead (Sept. numbers in parentheses):

  Burner 47 (45)
  Reichert 40 (48)

  You can donate to Darcy over at ActBlue.

• CA-03:Democrat Bill Durston ran against incumbent Republican Dan Lungren two years ago and lost by more than 20%. Well, we're not in 2006 anymore and while Durston is back, the district is changing. David Dayen at Calitics elaborates:

  I have been watching the race in CA-03 for well over a year now. I've told my contacts in DC about Bill Durston and tried to get local progressives interested. The math was undeniable - if there was any seat primed to break through, it was this one. The demographic shifts mirrored CA-11, and Dan Lungren was arguably a less powerful incumbent than Richard Pombo, with less resources to draw from. Durston's first race against Lungren, in 2006, yielded the exact same result as McNerney's effort in 2004 (around 60-40), and since then the registration gap has tightened significantly (it's under 3 points and by election day it'll be closer to even).

  And indeed, the latest poll conducted by the Durston campaign bears this out (although the huge level of undecideds is a concern):

  Lungren 33
  Durston 30
  Undecided 30

  I really want to see more polling on this race but consider this a sleeper of the cycle and definitely one to watch. Durston is now on the DCCC Emerging Races ActBlue page where you can contribute to his campaign.

• AZ-03: Democrat Bob Lord is running to replace Bush rubber stamp John Shaddeg as the Representative of John McCain's home district in Congress. I first met Bob a couple months ago at an event here in Southern California and was immediately impressed with his blog savvy and his passion to be in Congress. I knew this guy would be one to watch, especially running against a guy who is so clearly out of touch with his district and who even announced his retirement only to renege shortly thereafter. It was clear that this race was a real opportunity and I'm glad to see a new poll commissioned by the DCCC shows Lord up by 1 over Shaddeg.

  Lord 45
  Shaddeg 44

  You can donate to Bob over at ActBlue.

There are, of course, plenty more where these come from. What other races should we have our eye on?

Update [2008-10-16 17:8:27 by Todd Beeton]:

• CA-46: Holy crap, just received this via e-mail from the Debbie Cook campaign:

  The Capitol Weekly in Sacramento is reporting that GOP internal polling shows my race against Dana Rohrabacher to be in a statistical dead heat.

  The article says: "According to GOP sources, internal polling shows the difference between Rohrabacher and Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, to be within the margin of error, although Rohrabacher has heavily outspent Cook."

  Debbie Cook is the Mayor of Huntington Beach and is a smart, passionate pragmatic progressive whose expertise on energy would be a real asset in Congress. Her challenge to lazy crazy Dana Rohrabacher this cycle is the toughest he's ever had and it looks like she's closing in. Again, one to watch. Give to Debbie at ActBlue.

There's more...

A couple weeks ago, the DCCC revealed the 31 races they're targeting with $35 million worth of ad buys this fall (so far the time is just reserved, not bought.) The list consisted of 11 Democratic incumbents and one Dem open seat where the committee would be going on defense; the rest are seats currently held by the GOP.

We really have an embarrassment of riches this year, especially considering how many seats we took last cycle, but thanks to a plethora of GOP retirements and a favorable political environment for Democrats, whereas the DCCC's 2007 goal was to put 35-40 GOP seats in play, the 2008 reality is that there are actually 62 seats the DCCC considers competitive. So, it is not surprising to see the list of races where the DCCC is reserving ad time expand by 20 seats for a total of $53 million in 51 districts.

From Swing State Project:

AL-02 (Open): $598K
AL-05 (Open): $678K
AZ-08 (Giffords - D): $705K
CA-04 (Open) & CA-11 (McNerney - D): $2.03M
FL-18 (Ros-Lehtinen - R), FL-21 (L. Diaz-Balart - R) and FL-25 (M. Diaz Balart - R): $1.4M
ID-01 (Sali - R): $349K
IL-10 (Kirk - R): $1.4M
IL-11 (Weller - R): $1.6M
IL-14 (Foster - D): $1.02M
LA-04 (Open): $714K
MO-06 (Graves - R): $798K
MS-01 (Childers - D): $1.06M
NJ-03 (Open): $1.7M
NY-25 (Open), NY-26 (Open), NY-29 (Kuhl - R): $2.7M
WA-08 (Reichert - R): $949,000

Chris Cilizza breaks it down:

When examining all 51 districts in which the DCCC has so far reserved ad time, 34 of the districts (66 percent) are Republican held while the remaining 17 are controlled by Democrats.

Unlike elections past, however, House Democrats are focusing as much on incumbents as open seats. Of the 34 Republican seats, 17 are open while 17 are held by members. That speaks to the treacherous national environment in which the GOP currently finds itself with a far larger number of incumbents in jeopardy than previous elections.

Great to see they intend to compete hard for Darcy, Charlie Brown and Eric Massa among others. And it's good to see the DCCC is as bullish on those 3 southern Florida seats as I am after meeting Annette Taddeo and Joe Garcia at Netroots Nation.

There's more...

Swing State Project has the full list of seats being targeted by the DCCC in $35 million worth of ads this fall.

AK-AL (Young): $586K
AZ-01 (OPEN): $1.7M
AZ-05 (Mitchell - D): $1.7M
CO-04 (Musgrave - R): $667K
CT-04 (Shays - R): $697K
FL-16 (Mahoney - D): $1.5M
FL-24 (Feeney - R): $1M
IN-09 (Hill - D): $1.6M
KS-02 (Boyda - D): $1.2M
KY-03 (Yarmuth - D): $659K
LA-06 (Cazayoux - D): $723K
MI-07 (Walberg - R): $1.5M
MI-09 (Knollenberg - R): $1.1M
MN-03 (OPEN): $1.4M
MO-09 (OPEN): $941K
NC-08 (Hayes - R): $1.6M
NH-01 (Shea-Porter - D) $564K
NJ-07 (OPEN): $1.8M
NM-01 (OPEN): $1.3M
NM-02 (OPEN): $1.2M
NV-03 (Porter - R): $916K
NY-13 (OPEN): $1.3M
OH-01 (Chabot): $928K
OH-15 (OPEN): $1.2M
OH-16 (OPEN): $1.3M
OR-05 (OPEN): $1.2M
PA-04 (Altmire - D): $554K
TX-22 (Lampson - D): $1.1M
TX-23 (Rodriguez - D): $707K
VA-11 (OPEN): $1.3M
WI-08 (Kagen - D): $475K

Real Clear Politics breaks it down:

In total, the DCCC has reserved $12 million to protect their own incumbents and Hooley's open seat. The nine Republican incumbents will be targeted with up to $9 million in total spending, while the DCCC has reserved another $13.5 million for Republican-held open seats.

As SSP points out, this list reflects ad time that's been reserved, not bought, so the list may evolve over time. And I hope it does. While only 12 of the 31 targeted seats are currently held by Democrats, as a percentage, that's pretty high considering the environment in which Democrats are running this year. There are plenty more GOP seats that should be on this list, CA-04 and WA-08 come immediately to mind. I look forward to seeing more seats added to this list as we get closer to November. What should be remembered is that this list is simply what the DCCC was comfortable making public and putting the GOP on notice. As of the end of May, the DCCC had a $40m cash advantage over the NRCC and it's good to see them flaunting it.

There's more...

On Sunday I had the pleasure of attending an event hosted by my congressman Adam Schiff (CA-29) at which he introduced local grassroots activists and leaders to four of the Democratic challengers being supported by his USA PAC. These races may not be on your radar but they should be.

AZ-03
Democratic challenger: Bob Lord
Republican incumbent: John Shadegg

You may recall Shadegg's name, he's the guy who retired in February only to return to the race 10 days later after pressure from leadership. But considering Shadegg has been tainted by accusations illegal campaign finance dealings, his remaining on the ballot may end up being the best thing that ever happened to Bob Lord.

When I spoke with Bob on Sunday, one of the things that impressed me was his command of polling and statistics within the district, which, by the way, happens to be John McCain's home district. While there was no word on head-to-head numbers,  , it's clear that Shadegg's vulnerable. A few polling tidbits Lord shared with us:

• John Shadegg has a 31% re-elect
• John McCain is polling only 5% ahead of Barack Obama here...and may I repeat, it's McCain's home district
• 28% of registered voters in the district are independents and 90% of them say the country is on the wrong track

Bush received 58% of the AZ-03 vote in 2004, which, notably, is a lower share of the vote than he received in either MS-01 or LA-06 where Democrats won in special elections this year.

CA-26
Democratic challenger: Russ Warner
Republican incumbent: David Dreier

Sunday's meeting was actually held in CA-26 so Russ was the hometown hero of the group. A successful small business owner, Russ has lived in the district for 30 years, as he likes to remind people, ever since Dreier was first elected 28 years ago. Russ came to run for congress after a conversation with his son, Greg, who had just returned from Iraq. At the end of the conversation, Russ's son said "Dad, if you feel that way then you should run for congress and change it" and so Russ promised he would and this campaign is the fulfillment of that promise.

Warner actually first ran in 2006 but suffered a surprise loss in the primary, so this year was determined to do things differently and so far it's paid off. Russ has raised an impressive amount of money, has received endorsements from the state party as well as local members of congress and on June 3, dispatched Dreier's 2006 opponent in the primary by a 2 to 1 margin.

Russ will be David Dreier's first really serious challenger since the district was redrawn after the 2000 census. The district has a PVI of R+4 having gone for Bush over Kerry 55%-44% in 2004 but there are some signs of life for Democrats in the district: Barbara Boxer actually won the district by a hair in 2004 and more people voted in the Democratic presidential primary in February than voted in the Republican primary.

This race may not be on The Cook Political Report's radar but it has been targeted by the DCCC and David Dayen of calitics sees the race as one of just two among the top tier of potential California Dem pick-up opportunities.

As Adam Schiff said on Sunday:

"This is going to be a Democratic district, the only question is when."

CA-50
Democratic challenger: Nick Leibham
Republican incumbent: Brian Bilbray

This seat, you may recall, was formerly held by jailbird Republican Duke Cunningham but Cunningham was convicted before the 2006 election, so Democrat Francine Busby lost in this R+4 district to untainted carpetbagger Brian Bilbray by 9 points.

Nick Leibham, a former prosecutor, recently won the primary to run against Bilbray and shared with us some poll numbers of his own: Bilbray's re-elect is at 42% and a generic Democrat beats a generic Republican by 4 points. Essentially, this means the district is ready to elect a Democrat, they just need to get to know Leibham. He made a point of saying that he would not have a shot without the massive grassroots outreach and infrastructure that Francine Busby built in 2006.

This is a real opportunity for Democrats this year. The race has been targeted by the DCCC and Cook Political Report considers it competitive, albeit still "likely Republican."

NV-02
Democratic challenger: Jill Derby
Republican incumbent: Dean Heller

I'd have to say Jill Derby was a big hit on Sunday. She has a very appealing no-nonsense style in person and seems to be running her campaign in a similar manner. Derby is unapologetically running against the war, having endorsed the Responsible Plan and vowing:

"Nevadans are tired of Dean Heller walking in lockstep with the Bush Administration on what has proven to be a failed strategy for Iraq," Derby said in a statement.

This is Derby's second shot at Heller, having lost to him by just 5% in 2006 in a district that Kerry lost by 16% in 2004. NV-02 is the third largest (geographically) congressional district in the country encompassing virtually the entire state of Nevada outside of Las Vegas. Derby expects the organization and excitement that January's presidential caucus inspired this year to make the difference for her this year (in fact, since 2006 the Republican registration advantage in the district has shrunk by 35%.) You'll recall that it was this district where Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton and ended up winning more delegates out of the day even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. John McCain on the other hand didn't even compete in Nevada.

Update [2008-6-12 18:20:23 by Todd Beeton]:By the way, Schiff's USA-PAC has actually endorsed 8 Democrats in '08; the other four are Charlie Brown in CA-04, Gary Trauner in WY-AL, Harry Mitchell in AZ-05 and Ann Kirkpatrick in AZ-01.

There's more...