John Kerry won in only 18 Repuhlican House districts in 2004, and as a result, CQ Weekly's Gregory L. Giroux believes that it will be difficult for the Democrats to retake the House in 2006.

The Democratic road back might conceivably begin in the 18 districts with Kerry majorities and GOP House members. But the party was not even competitive last year in most of those districts: Only five of the Republicans won by fewer than 10 percentage points.

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But even if Democrats manage to wrest away most of the Kerry-Republican districts, that will not be enough to win the House.

“Just by the numbers, in order to broaden the playing field, we’re going to have to expand our sights into places where Bush won in 2004, and we feel like there are some places where we have some good chances,” said Bill Burton, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

One of the main reasons why the Democrats will have such a hard time in 2006 and why Kerry won so few House districts (180 of 435):

Redistricting after the 2000 census exacerbated the imbalances. Republicans were in charge of redrawing the congressional boundaries in the four most hotly contested presidential battlegrounds: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Bush and Kerry each won two, and the president had a narrow edge in the aggregate popular vote of the four states — but Republicans won 51 of those states’ 77 House districts, in large part because the maps packed Democratic voters into overwhelmingly liberal enclaves and thereby created opportunities for Republicans elsewhere.

It is extremely important that the Democrats work hard within the next two and four years to try to retake the House. That having been said, in the longer term, it is imperative that they force the four aforementioned states to draw fairer districts. Whether that means a ballot measure calling for non-partisan redistricting (Florida) or just doing a better job where the Dems are now in control (Pennsylvania and Michigan), the Democrats simply must do something about these states. If they fail to do so, they might be stuck for the better part of the next decade, too.