If you notice on our updated House list, the highly targeted Republican incumbents in Connecticut and the Philly suburbs have dropped and appear to be a little more secure that they were over the summer. Of those six seats (CT2, CT-4, CT-5, PA-6, PA-7, PA-8) the GOP is actually in a position to potentially hold all six and could easily keep their losses to only two. Weldon and Shays appear the most vulnerable of that group on our list.

This seems to be the one geographic pocket of good news for Republicans and looks to be confirmed by the release of NPR-sponsored data from GQR and POS that shows the Northeast as clearly the region where Republicans are doing the best in contested house seats. The NPR poll (the poll is in 48 districts, 38 GOP held, 10 Dem) has Republicans trailing in the named congressional ballot by 11% in the West, 8% in the Midwest and 11% in the South versus only 2% in the Northeast.

Jay commented on this a while back, speculating that perhaps Northeastern Republicans, who are always in for tough races, recognized this year would be particularly hard for them and thus have been campaigning aggressively for some time whereas some Republican incumbents in what are thought to be safer GOP districts might have gotten caught a little flat footed.

Another factor in the Connecticut races is that it now looks clear Joe Lieberman's independent bid for Senate is really helping the trio of Connecticut Republicans. It certainly would be ironic if the GOP held the House because of Ned Lamont's big August win.