All seven states with only one House seat have experienced at least one turbulent, competitive House race in the past decade. That's surprising, given that none of these small states - Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming - are particularly competitive between the parties at the presidential level. In 2014, Montana featured a spirited open seat contest but in the end, Democrats couldn't really come close. In 2016, all seven of these states appear fairly well-settled at the House level, for several reasons. First, small states aren't subject to redistricting and tend to afford their representatives a better chance to bond with voters at a personal level in a shorter time frame. Second, while all seven of these states used to be quite competitive between the two parties, they have all taken on much more partisan hues. If there's a state to watch here, it may be Alaska, where GOP Rep. Don Young has announced he will run for a 23rd term after an underwhelming 10-point reelection last fall but is nonetheless a perennial fixture on

More from the Cook Political Report

Archives1984-2022
Free
CPR Archives
dw