Rating Changes: Two Weeks Out

Each week until Election Day, The Caucus reviews our full board and reports every race that changed.

This edition covers the 12 moves in the past week. Every one moved toward Democrats, again. Most of it is consolidation. Six races went from D Advantage to Expected D, and five of those are seats Democrats already hold. The sixth, New Jersey's 7th, is a Republican seat we now expect them to take.

In the House, Democrats are up to 213 seats strongly or at least leaning in their favor, with 21 toss ups and 10 seats with a GOP advantage but still winnable for Democrats. It takes 218 to elect a House Speaker.

• NC-SEN, now Expected D. Elon put former Gov. Roy Cooper 11 points up on Michael Whatley, 49 to 38, and Fox had the lead at nine. Nothing public this fall has shown the race inside the margin.

• CA-13, now Expected D. Rep. Adam Gray carried this seat by four tenths of a point in 2024, and the mid-decade redraw left him on friendlier ground against Republican Kevin Lincoln. We rate it a tier better for him than the new district's 2024 math alone would argue.

• NJ-07, now Expected D. Republicans put $2.1 million behind Rep. Tom Kean during the second week of October and have bought nothing for him since. Democrat Rebecca Bennett out-raised him better than four to one over the summer.

• NY-03, now Expected D. Groups aligned with MAGA Inc. went dark on television in mid-October, weeks after spending heavily against Rep. Tom Suozzi. Trump, JD Vance and Mike Johnson had all campaigned in Nassau County. Republican Mike Lipetri is on his own there now.

• NY-04, now Expected D. Republicans never landed their recruit. Anthony D'Esposito passed on a rematch, which left Jeanine Driscoll, the Hempstead Receiver of Taxes, carrying a seat Rep. Laura Gillen won narrowly in 2024. Driscoll has raised $665,000 against Gillen's $6.02 million.

• OH-01, now Expected D. Rep. Greg Landsman's redrawn district voted 2.6 points Republican in 2024. That number on its own would argue for a toss up, and against Republican Eric Conroy we have him a tier clear of it.

• TX-28, now Expected D. Rep. Henry Cuellar faces Republican Tano Tijerina in a seat that went 10.4 points Republican in 2024, and we carry it three tiers more Democratic than that margin implies. Few seats on the board sit that far from their own partisan math.

• IA-03, now D Advantage. Sarah Trone Garriott climbed six places in our Top 25 this week and closed September holding more cash than Rep. Zach Nunn.

• MT-01, now Toss up. Rep. Ryan Zinke's retirement left this seat open. Aaron Flint and Sam Forstag are both running for the first time in a district Trump carried by 12 points, and no incumbency is holding it down.

• OH-10, now R Advantage. Rep. Mike Turner's redrawn district voted 7.8 points Republican in 2024, so the move puts our rating level with that result. Turner has raised $1.24 million, only $400,000 more than Democrat Kristina Knickerbocker.

• OH-15, now R Advantage. Rep. Mike Carey's seat is 10 points Republican by the same measure, and we now rate it a tier better for Democrats than that.

• WI-01, now Expected R. The DCCC added Rep. Bryan Steil's seat to its Red to Blue program in September, putting national money behind Mitchell Berman, a nurse making his first run. Steil is going for a fifth term.

Where the board stands after this week:

HOUSE RATINGS SUMMARY · DEMOCRATS NEED 218
CATEGORY		SEATS	D TOTAL
Safe D		185	185
Expected D		21	206
D Advantage		7	213
Toss up		21
R Advantage		10
Expected R		14
Safe R		177
HELD NOW  214 Democratic     218 Republican  1 independent     2 vacant
Both vacancies are holds, TX-23 for Republicans and FL-20 for Democrats, so Democrats count 215 toward 218. They reach 213 without the toss ups and 234 with all of them.

Democrats need a net gain of three to reach 218, and the toss ups still decide it. Twenty-one House races are open, along with six in the Senate and five for governor.