WASHINGTON _ Both parties haven't wasted any time unveiling their House target lists for next year's midterm elections, and a few states have emerged as early battlegrounds.
At the end of January, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released an ambitious list of 59 Republican-held districts, followed by the National Republican Congressional Committee's ambitious list of 36 Democratic-held districts just more than a week later.
More than one-third of the targeted House races sit in five states: California, Florida, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania.
After Democrats expanded their majority in the 2008 elections, they held a 90-51 majority in districts in those five states. After the 2016 elections, the Democratic advantage in those states has slipped from 39 seats to 17 seats (78 Democrats to 61 Republicans).
Democrats can't cherry-pick their way to a 24-seat gain to retake the majority in 2016. Since the electoral landscape has shifted, a new Democratic majority doesn't need to look exactly the same, geographically. But the party still needs pick up handfuls in at least a few states.
Even though Democrats have targeted eight districts in California, the party controls five more seats here (39-34) than it had in 2009. Two of the biggest problem states for Democrats are New York (where Democrats have slipped from 26 seats to 18 seats in the last eight years) and Pennsylvania (where they've gone from 12 seats to five seats).
Of course, it's early in the cycle. Most of the races lack a challenger and it's far from clear what the national political climate will be like come election time. But the initial target lists are an indication of where party strategists will be focusing their early efforts.
