Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's Election Dissection, or Election Analysis for Across the Circus. Today we're going to be looking at the Republican held toss-up seats. As you may know, the Republicans currently hold the majority of the House of Representatives, a slim one at Bleat, and the Democrats are trying to get their majority back from a couple years back, but the Republicans want to hang on to every seat they can.
And there are almost just as many toss-up races that are currently held in Republican seats. There are 14 that we'll be talking about today compared to 12 from last week. So we're going to do just like we did last week, just go through the 14 important ones, the names and who's running, and that ought to be informative to any of y'all who live in any of those districts. So let's not waste any time, let's get right on it. First we head to the Grand Canyon State, the state of Arizona.
We'll be talking about two congressional districts. First we're talking about the first congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative David Schweighart is facing off against former state representative Amish Shah. Then in the sixth congressional district, incumbent Representative Juan Siscomani faces a challenge from Democrat Kirsten Engel, a former state senator. And we stay on the west coast for our next trek as we head to the Golden State, the state of California.
Now a lot of people don't think of Republican-held House seats when they think of California, but there are a few of them. And in fact, a lot of them are being looked at as hotly contested because in California on the Cook Partisan Voting Index for Republican-held House seats, not one, not two, not three, not four, but five of them are considered to be toss-ups. So let's take a look at them real quick.
First we head to the 13th congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative John Duarte is facing former state assemblyman Democrat Adam Gray. Next we head to the 22nd congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative David Valadeo is facing off against Democrat former state assemblyman Rudy Salas. Next to the 27th district where incumbent Republican Representative Mike Garcia is facing off against former NASA chief of staff, Democrat George Whitesides.
Then we head to the 41st district where incumbent Republican Representative Ken Calvert is facing off against Democrat former federal prosecutor Will Rollins. And finally we head to California's 45th congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Michelle Steele is facing off against Democrat attorney Derek Tran. And there is a note on this.
According to 538.com, which is a website we often use for polling, they just launched a forecast of the House elections and they proclaimed this race, the 45th district race in California to be the closest House election this cycle. So you're going to want to watch all these on election night, but keep an eye on this one the most. Because whoever wins this one will likely win the House. So keep an eye on the 45th district race in California.
And now we head over to the Hawkeyes state, the state of Iowa. Two elections in Iowa we'll be talking about and both of them were actually added to the PVIS toss ups in just the last couple of weeks. So we start in Iowa's first congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Marionette Miller Meeks is facing off against Democrat former state representative Christina Bohannon.
And then we head to Iowa's third congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Zach Nunn is facing off against Democrat former USDA deputy undersecretary Lannon Backham. And now we head to the Cornhusker state, the state of Nebraska.
A couple weeks back we talked about how the Senate race in Nebraska is getting a lot of people looking at it right now being closer than it is and that may influence this race here in Nebraska's swingiest congressional district, their second congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Don Bacon is facing off against state Senator Tony Vargas. And from there we head to the Empire State, the state of New York.
Now very similar to California, New York being a pretty blue state, a lot of the red seats seem to be up for grabs. In fact we'll be talking about three of them. First we head to New York's fourth congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Anthony De Espozito is facing off against Democrat former Hempstead town supervisor Laura Gillen.
Then we head down to the 17th congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Mike Lawler is facing off against former Congressman Mondaire Jones. And then we head not that far away to New York's 19th congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Mark Molinaro is facing off against Democrat attorney Josh Reilly. And last but not least we head to the Beaver state, the state of Oregon.
Specifically Oregon's fifth congressional district where incumbent Republican Representative Lori Chavez DeRemer is facing off against Democrat state representative Janelle Bynum. You may remember we talked about the Democratic primary a few weeks back during Oregon's primary election. So those are the 14 Republican held seats to watch on election night that bring us to a total of 26 House toss ups altogether.
And with the House majority so slim at the moment, these 26 elections will truly decide who holds the House of Representatives on January 3rd, 2025 and it may predict who will win the White House on January 20th, just a couple weeks after. Now there hasn't been any major updates on Cook's PVI as of yet. However, we are going to do one last show before the election in the coming weeks. And if there are any updates, I will be sure to share them with you all.
It is just a reminder that many states have started early voting so if you have got your ballot and you know exactly who you're voting for, I suggest filling it out and putting it in the box. Might as well get it right out of the way and have the satisfaction of voting. And as always, if you are willing to learn more about elections in your area, especially as we gear toward election day, be sure to check out politicsone.com as well as ballotpedia.com.
And if you are willing to look at recent polls, be sure to check out 538.com and realclearpolling.com. That'll do it for this edition and I always say, if you are a registered voter in any of the states that we mentioned here, or any state for that matter, I don't care who you vote for, but I do care that you vote. So please do. Thank you for listening to Driscoll's election dissection.
If you would like to learn more about the show, go online to algidproductions.com slash across the circus and be sure to listen to us on any podcasting forum 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!