Partisan Democrats get incredibly excited when Republicans pick lousy candidates who enable them to stumble to victory. Names like Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin, Sharron Angle, and Richard Mourdock are etched in recent political history as extremist conservatives who handed Democrats seats they were fated to lose. You’ll be hearing references to those names a lot, because liberals are now back at it, giddy that a Donald Trump presidential nomination—or a Ted Cruz nomination, for that matter—could put the 30-seat Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives into play.



Some prominent political analysts have begun to agree with them. David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report recently altered ten House ratings to favor Democrats, commenting, “It’s impossible to know just how bad it could get for Republicans sharing a ballot with Trump or Cruz.”

True enough. But before liberals get too excited, a reality check may be in order: To take advantage of the Republicans’ terrible choice at the top of the ticket, Democrats would have to actually run candidates for the House who can win. A lot of them. And after two historic wipeouts in recent midterms, combined with a thin bench of state legislators who can move up and a learned helplessness about redistricting that assumes many seats off the table before elections even begin, Democrats may not be well-positioned for sudden viability in a sufficient number of House races.

Even experts who give Democrats a chance to flip the House recognize that everything would have to go perfectly. Wasserman notes in his report that, despite the recent alterations, he rates only 31 Republican seats at risk of a loss. (Daily Kos Elections puts it a bit higher, with 36 Republican seats potentially threatened.) This means Democrats would have to win virtually every seat in play, and lose none of their own, just to regain a bare majority.

But it takes years to recruit and train candidates who can raise enough money to win a congressional election; you can’t throw it together in a few months. You can see how unprepared Democrats are for this scenario by looking at how many districts won’t have a Democratic candidate at all. Nineteen states have already closed their filing process for House elections, representing 163 Congressional districts. And as Stephen Wolf points out, in 27 of those 163 seats—about one in six—no Democrat will appear on the ballot.