16 'Take Back the 20' seats are in the 'Field of 64'

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In March, Gov. Palin designated her "Take Back the 20" list of 20 targeted U.S. House seats currently held by Democrats in Districts that voted for the McCain-Palin presidential ticket in 2008. Yesterday, she announced the SarahPAC rollout of a new website devoted exclusively to flipping those seats.

NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro maintain their own list of mercurial Congressional seats on the "First Read" political page -- the "Field of 64." It's a list of the 64 House seats the three political mavens consider most likely to switch parties in the fall. The lower the number, the more likely they consider the seat to flip.

We were curious and decided to compare the two lists. It turns out that no less than 16 of Gov. Palin's "Take Back the 20" targeted House seats are on the most recent "Field of 64" list:

1. TN-06 Likely R (Diane Black)
4. AR-02 Likely R (Tim Griffin)
10. CO-04 Leans R (Corey Gardner)
11. FL-24 Leans R (Sandy Adams)
15. VA-05 Leans R (Robert Hurt)
17. AZ-05 Toss Up (David Schweikert)
18. OH-16 Toss Up (Jim Renacci)
21. PA-03 Toss Up (Mike Kelly)
23. AZ-01 Toss Up (Paul Gosar)
24. FL-02 Toss Up (Steve Southerland)
30. ND-AL Toss Up (Rick Berg)
31. SC-05 Toss Up (Mick Mulvaney)
46. IN-09 Toss Up (Todd Young)
50. CO-03 Toss Up (Scott Tipton)
55. AZ-08 Toss Up (Jesse Kelly)
56. WV-01 Toss Up (David McKinley)

But that's not all. Gov. Palin has endorsed candidates in three additional congressional Districts that are on the NBC pundits' flip list, although not on the "Take Back the 20" list:

22. IL-11 Toss Up (Adam Kinzinger)
53. WI-07 Toss Up (Sean Duffy)
54. AL-02 Toss Up (Martha Roby)

Of course, nothing can be taken for granted 39 days from the November election, and a lot of work remains to be done to secure victory for these 19 Palin-endorsed candidates, Still, the mood and enthusiasm of the grassroots bodes well for taking back not just the 20, but a number of House seats - enough to take away Nancy Pelosi's gavel.

h/t: Jonah Goldberg

Update: More encouraging news for Gov. Palin's "Take Back the 20" campaign and the wider GOP effort to regain control of the house from Ed Morrissey:

Via Taegan Goddard, who notes that Glen Bolger is a GOP pollster, with the understandable implication that he may be somewhat inclined toward irrational exuberance. Bolger brings the numbers to support his conclusion of a building wave that may be more massive than people have predicted. Traditionally safe Democratic seats won’t be impacted as much, but anything competitive has a strong chance of flipping to the GOP:

Last week, I conducted a national survey for American Action Network. The two key political environment questions show the significant opportunity Republicans have this year. While the overall numbers on the President’s approval rating and the generic ballot are good news, one key crosstab highlights the wave that is building.

The generic ballot shows Republicans leading 44%-39%. Besides all of the usual regional crosstabs, we also broke it out by the type of district. We looked at the sample in the 66 Democratic INCUMBENT districts that Charlie Cook lists as either toss-up or leaning Democratic at the time of the survey. In that key crosstab of Swing Democratic Incumbent Seats, the Republican lead grows to 49%-31% on the generic ballot. That is a very powerful crosstab that says the wave is coming.

[...]

Given that the overall generic gap falls into the middle of most polling these days, this seems at least a reasonable outcome from the polls.

[...]

Bolger... predicts a massive sweep from western Pennsylvania to the Rockies for Republicans, and one that rolls down into the South as well.

Ed's conclusion from all of this is that it's beginning to look a lot like 1994.

- JP