District By District On The Undecided Obamacare Votes: Why The Dems Are Still In Big Trouble

19 Mar, 2010 by John Hawkins

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If you look at the best whip count out there, at The Hill, the Dems have 36 votes that are “Firm No, Leaning No, Likely No.” After losing lefties Dennis Kucinich and Luis Gutierrez from that list, the remaining 36 votes look pretty solid. That’s problematic for the Dems because they can only have a maximum of 37 defections and despite the fact that the vote is supposed to be on Sunday, there are still 47 undecided votes (The Hill lists 48, but last night one of them, John Salzar, came out in favor of the bill).

I’m of the opinion that they’re not going to get the votes by Sunday and may not be able to get them at all. Part of the reason for that is because of the number of Democratic congressmen representing Republican leaning districts that remain in the undecided category.

This year, having a (D) beside of your name will probably cost these candidates 5-7 points off of the totals they’d otherwise get. In competitive districts, particularly Republican leaning districts where this legislation is likely to poll even worse than it does nationally, a vote for this bill is probably a political death sentence. So, let’s take a look at the remaining undecided votes and the Cook Partisan Index scores for each district:

Earl Pomeroy: R+10
Alan Mollohan: R+9
Brad Ellsworth: R+9
Zack Space: R+7
Nick Rahall: R+6
John Tanner: R+6
Glenn Nye: R+6
Baron Hill: R+6
Harry Mitchell: R+5
Tom Perriello: R+5
Bill Foster: R+5
John Boccieri: R+4
Ciro Rodriguez: R+4
Suzanne Kosmas: R+4
Jerry McNerney: R+3
Kathy Dahlkemper: R+3
Jason Altmire: R+3
Bob Etheridge: R+3
Solomon Ortiz: R+1
Mary Jo Kilroy: R+1
Henry Cuellar: R+1
John Hall: R+1
Melissa Bean: R+1
Debbie Halvorson: R+1
Bill Owens: R+1
Brian Baird: D+0
Jim Costa: D+1
Kurt Schrader: D+1
Dina Titus: D+2
Scott Murphy: D+2
Sanford Bishop Jr.: D+2
Ron Kind: D+3
Dennis Cardoza: D+3
Tim Bishop: D+3
Chris Murphy: D+4
Ron Klein: D+4
Loretta Sanchez: D+5
Paul Kanjorski: D+5
Jim Cooper: D+6
Adam Smith: D+6
Paul Tonko: D+9
Shelley Berkley: D+9
Marcy Kaptur: D+10
Richard Neal: D+13
Bobby Rush: D+33
Marcia Fudge: D+33
Michael Capuano: D+33

Yes, you’re reading that right. To get to 216 by Sunday, Pelosi will have to flip 24 out of 25 undecided congressmen in Republican leaning districts to yes — and that’s assuming she picks up every member of Congress in a Democratic district, which is not a safe assumption in a post Scott-Brown world. After all, Stephen Lynch, who just came out strongly against the bill is in a +8 Democratic district.

To me, that almost certainly looks like a heavier lift than Obama and Pelosi can manage by Sunday and looking at how things are breaking down, I think the odds are still against the bill passing at all.