House Democrats, as we have been reporting now for months, have the wind firmly at their back this year. All signs are pointing to a better than 50-50 shot at taking control of the House, perhaps by a decent margin. Even so, we’ve also noted that Republicans have a built-in structural advantage — namely few swing seats to defend. Moreover, the conventional wisdom has held that the map has gotten much less favorable to Democrats in the House since 2006, thanks in large part to the fact that Republicans controlled the redistricting process in many significant battleground states in 2012, taking many formerly competitive seats off the table.
But, as Senate Leader Mitch McConnell warned everyone very early in the cycle, “don’t fall in love with the map.” In fact, when you look more closely at the kinds of districts Republicans are defending in 2018, they don’t look much different from those they had to defend in 2006. CONT.
Amy Walter, Cook Political Report