14 of those 52 Republicans fell in 1982, but Johnson says the Democrats will not suffer similar losses because "our freshmen won't rise and fall with Mondale."
An important factor working against House Republicans is the scant likelihood that they will assume majority status within the next three or four elections, observers say.
"It's awfully depressing to know you may not be in the House majority, even in your lifetime," says Ornstein.
Ornstein noted the retirement of respected Republican New York representative, Barner B. Conable Jr., as an example of about a halfdozen senior House GOP members who are stepping down this year.
Democrats in national organizations and those in Congressional offices cite the new Democratic "media center"-at which candidates can produce commercials for one-third the cost charged by independent media firms--as a factor in their chances. Republicans have long had such a production facility, and Democrats hope the center will alleviate some of their financial woes.
Some of the interesting races involve rematches between House freshmen and the Republican incumbents they defeated, although in this area too, a Republican weakness is evident.
Republican difficulty in convincing defeated Republicans to run again has forced the GOP to cool its rhetoric. So after the Democrats picked up 28 seats in the 1982 elections, GOP spokesmen talked of 20 more rematches. These days, Vander Jagt boasts of a possible 10.
A few of the lively rematches:
Democratic freshman Bruce Morrison of Connecticut, at 39 seemingly too young for his New Deal Politics, faces Larry DeNardis, an exponent of the Italian-American machine politics which has dominated his New Haven district since the fifties. Morrison nipped DeNardis 50 to 49 percent in 1982.
Freshman Lane Evans of Illinois faces Kenneth G. McMillan, a hardline conservative who won the 1982 GOP primary over then Rep. Tom Railsback, largely because Railsback was implicated in the Paula Parkinson sex scandal. in Illinois, along with Texas, the Democrats expect to make their biggest House gains, and Evans' district, which is fairly representative of Illinois outside of Chicago, is a watermark for Democratic chances.
One of the most expensive and prominent House races will pit Democratic Rep. James K. Jones (D-Okla.) against the winner of a Republican primary in which both contenders have already spent more than $1 million each. Jones parallels the conservative Democrat, but as Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he has done as much as any congressman to dismantle the Reagan economic program.