Are we paying enough attention to Congressional elections this year?

Obviously everyone is focused on the Presidential race. Understandable. But I don't hear many people talking about the Congressional elections. Kerry would be practically helpless against the current GOP-controlled House and Senate. I know the major midterm elections aren't until 2006, but shouldn't we be also devoting some of our efforts to winning back as many Congressional seats as possible? Anyone have a list of what seats are up for grabs in 2004? Is it possible to win back either the House or the Senate this year?

Or are people in here too busy fighting over Nader and Kerry? :shrug:

Without Congress, Kerry won't stand a chance. I see the Democratic Party making the same mistakes. Some candidates are getting a lot of money and others (who could win) are getting no support of any kind. Without more seats, Kerry will be made to look bad.

I'd be interested in doing something help out the candidates, like donating. Especially to the ones who aren't getting enough support. That's why I'm looking to see if anyone has any info or links.

probably not, but a big election in my district in Houston TX. A borderline psychopath John Culbertson(i think is his name) vs moderate democrat who sounds like he has alot of similar stances to me, Nick Lampson who got redistricted out of his district. I wish I had some idea how this was going to go, but I dont have a clue.

but I don't recall what states are up for grabs.

The toss up seats and Lean Democratic and Lean Republican seats are listed:
http://www.cookpolitical.com/races/report_pdfs/2004_house_competitive_chart_march3.pdf
9 Democratic seats and 4 Republican seats are curently listed as toss-ups.
12 seats are listed as lean Democratic and 11 seats as lean Republican.

Of course this will change as the opponents are selected and the campaign begin

I think we're more likely to reclaim the White House and least likely to reclaim the House of Representatives.

As for the Senate, we are defending NC, SC, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana. They are all open seats, and I think we have good chances of keeping Louisiana and one or both of the Carolinas. I don't know much about Florida, other than that the Bush Administration is backing HUD Secretary Martinez.

I think Oklahoma and Colorado and Illinois have retiring Republicans? Not sure though. Pennsylvania has an incumbent Republican (Arlen Specter) but there's a primary challenge from the right, which is good for us.

There is a chance for a pickup in Alaska since I believe we're putting up a strong challenge to Senator Murkowski.

There are others that I don't know off the top of my head (other than ones like California which Sen. Boxer should have no problem with).

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these. I think at worst in the Senate we'll lose one or two seats and I think at best we'll gain that many. It depends on how we do in the South - if Kerry nominates a Southerner like Edwards, that helps a good deal down ballot in the South. And if Bush's numbers keep falling, that will also help us down ballot.

Um, every 2 years a third of the senate and every house seat is up.

I've been paying plenty of attention. We're definetly at somewhat of a disadvantage in the senate, but not nearly as bad as it looked months ago.

I think right now we should be paying attention to senate primaries. I reccomnend to dems in PA to register as republicans(although I believe it's to late since a few days ago, to vote for Toomey, who we can beat comfortably, unlike Specter.

And to dems in Florida vote for Alex Panelas for the dem nomination, who is both the strongest dem senate candidate and the person who will help Kerry most in winnning the state do to the spilloff Cuban + overall Hispanic vote