Within the Margin

Georgia’s 12th District
There’s not a lot of data or reporting to influence this minor change – but the fact that Democrats have produced two polls showing their man John Barrow surviving, while Republican challenger Lee Anderson has been mum, tells me that there is a better shot than I thought of Barrow holding on in a district which is much redder post-redistricting. I still think the Reps pick this seat up, but I’m less confident about that result than I was a week ago.
From Lean Republican to Tilt Republican

Maine’s 2nd District
Republicans bluster every two years about this being in play. It’s not. Shouldn’t have fallen for their game.
From Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic

Massachusetts’ 6th District
Our initial set of House Ratings had this district at Tilt Republican, but that was probably foolish. Democratic incumbent John Tierney has basically acknowledged in a campaign ad that he didn’t do enough to deal with his wife’s  family’s tax-evasion shenanigans, and Richard Tisei’s internal polls include a 17-point lead. Tisei will be the only openly-gay Republican serving in Congress in 2013, and he’ll be the first Republican from Massachusetts to win a House seat since Peter Blute and Peter Torkildsen lost their seats in 1996 – Torkildsen losing to Tierney that year, in fact.
From Tilt Republican to Likely Republican

Minnesota’s 8th District
I’ve always believed that Dems could retake this district, but doubted whether long-ago Congressman Rick Nolan was the man to do it, especially if this overwhelmingly white, working-class territory saw the sort of erosion atop the ticket that we expect for that demographic this year. But almost every poll has Nolan up, and though Obama won’t repeat his 53% from 2008 here, it seems like freshman Chip Cravaack just has too much headwind to work against.
From Tilt Republican to Tilt Democratic

North Carolina’s 8th District
I was working on a North Carolina House Calls piece that would look at this district (and NC’s other competitive races) in depth, but this ain’t my day job, sadly, and time ran out – plus I journeyed to Pennsylvania and back today for GOTV, which is not a quick trip. Anyway, in that piece I would have shifted Larry Kissell’s seat closer to a GOP takeover. We already had the Rep challenger, state senator David Rouzer, winning here – the question is how strongly we feel. The national party gave up on Kissell a while ago in this turf, which was made much redder in redistricting. Kissell doesn’t raise much money and doesn’t campaign all that well; his survival in 2010 was somewhat surprising. Anyway, hedging with a Lean rating is unnecessary.
From Lean Republican to Likely Republican

Note that the Minnesota pickup shifts our overall projection for the House to a +4 net gain for Democrats – leaving the GOP with 238 seats and Democrats with 197. Our revised table of ratings for the competitive races: