Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's election dissection, your election analysis for Across the Circus. I hope you all are doing well today wherever you are. So at this point a lot of states have started early voting or mail-in voting depending on where you live. So a lot of you out there probably got your ballots already. But if you're not ready to vote just yet, that's okay.
You know there are plenty of decisions to make, plenty of local races, federal races, presidential races, even some measures across your city or state. So there's still time to think about it. Vote the best way you can. Vote with your head. You know, think about everything that's up for grabs and go from there. So since there's still time, we'll talk a little bit about the elections in the US House of Representatives.
Specifically, the races that could determine which party holds the chamber on January 3rd of 2025. Actually, before we do that, I would like to make an update and it kind of shows how fascinating these few weeks in between the elections are. We talked about last week the Senate races, the state of Wisconsin Senate race between Tammy Baldwin and Eric Huff was a lean Democratic race. Well just recently the Cook PVI put it on to toss up. So now it's now a toss up race just like Michigan and Ohio.
And it just goes to show you how we're only a month away from the election and things could change so quickly. So if there are any more updates, I'll be sure to add them here on the show. So there are a lot of House races, 435 to be exact, and a lot of them are more competitive than others. And a lot of them are actually already finished before they even begin. So we're only talking about toss ups on the Cook PVI, not lean races or likely races, just toss ups.
And it's kind of a rapid fire because we have a good number to talk about. So we'll start today with the Democratic seats that are toss up for the US House elections. Now as of this taping, there are 12 toss up elections in seats held by Democrats. So the Republicans are spending a lot of money on these specific races as many of them have very even voting blocks or swinginess depending on the state or counties there are.
So the Republicans really want to win these and the Democrats really want to keep them. So let's take a look at them, shall we? So we're not going to do a lot of talks about polling and talks about fundraising. We're just going to go through each one as we go along. We've done a few rapid fire shows, you know, you've seen how they are. And we'll go alphabetically here. So we'll start with the last frontier, the state of Alaska.
Now the current representative for Alaska's at-large congressional district is Democrat Mary Peltola. Yes, Alaska is an at-large congressional seat, meaning the entire state comes out and vote. Her main opponent in the election is software executive Nick Beckage III. And bear in mind, Trump won Alaska back in 2020 and is likely to win the state. So that may help Beckage in his run for Congress.
Next we head to the Centennial State, the state of Colorado, specifically Colorado's eighth congressional district. The current representative is Democrat Yadera Caraveo and they're facing off against state representative Gabe Evans. From there we head to the pine tree state, the state of Maine, specifically Maine's second congressional district. The current representative is Democrat Jared Golden and he is facing off against state representative and former NASCAR driver Austin Terrio.
And for the next state we have two toss-up races in Democratic seats, not one, but two. So we head to the Great Lakes state, the state of Michigan. First we go to Michigan's seventh congressional district. The current representative is Democrat Elissa Slotkin, who is not running for reelection. She's running for Senate, as you may remember from last week.
Well the Democratic candidate is former state senator Curtis Hurtell and the Republican candidate is another former state senator, Tom Barrett. And then we head, not that far off, to Michigan's eighth congressional district. And the current representative is Democrat Dan Kildee, who is retiring at the end of his term. The Democratic nominee is state senator Kirsten McDonald Rivett and the Republican nominee is former USCIS official Paul Junch.
Next we head to the land of enchantment, the state of New Mexico, specifically New Mexico's second congressional district, where incumbent Democratic representative Gabe Vasquez is facing former Congresswoman Yvette Harrell. Next we head to the Tar Heels state, the state of North Carolina, specifically North Carolina's first congressional district, where incumbent Democratic representative Don Davis is facing consulting firm owner Lori Buckhout.
Next we head to the Buckeyes state, the state of Ohio, specifically Ohio's 13th congressional district, where incumbent Democratic representative Amelia Sykes is facing former state senator Kevin Coughlin. And next, our second state with two toss-up races with Democratic incumbents, we head to the Keystone state, the state of Pennsylvania.
First we head to Pennsylvania's seventh congressional district, where incumbent Democratic representative Susan Wild is facing state representative Ryan McKenzie. And next we head not that far off to Pennsylvania's eighth congressional district, where incumbent Democratic representative Matt Cartwright is facing businessman Rob Bresnahan. Now we head to the old dominion, the state of Virginia, specifically Virginia's seventh congressional district.
The current incumbent representative is Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who is retiring at the end of her term to focus on her run for Virginia's governor next year. The Democratic nominee is retired army colonel Eugene Vindman, and the Republican nominee is attorney Derek Anderson.
And last but not least, we head to the Evergreen state, the state of Washington, specifically Washington's third congressional district, where incumbent Democratic representative Marie Glucin Camp Perez is facing off against tech project manager Joe Kent. So those are the 12 elections that the Cook PVI says are a toss-up in Democratic-held seats, and they are ones to look at on election night.
And these are all very important for Democratic supporters and Democratic voters as they want to get control of the House back after two years, since 2023. However, next week we will be talking about the Cook PVI toss-up races in races that are currently held by Republicans.
The races that the Republicans are spending a lot of money to keep hold, but the Democrats are spending a lot of money to possibly take, and hopefully take the majority, but the Republicans are hopefully trying to keep that majority. And remember, if you're willing to look more about elections in your neighborhood, be sure to look at politicsone.com as well as ballotpedia.com, and if you're willing to look at recent polls, check out 538.com as well as realclearpolling.com.
So we will talk about the Republican races next week, and as always I say, since ballots are starting to come out in many states, if you are a registered voter in any of the states mentioned in the show, or anywhere, I don't care who you vote for, but I do care that you vote. So please do. Thank you all for tuning in. If you'd like to learn more about the show, go online to aldridproductions.com slash across the circus and be sure to listen to us on any podcasting form you like.
Thank you all for listening, and I will see you all very soon. This Episode was brought to you by Algid Productions LLC. Thank you for listening!