Barnes One of Top 10 Races Nationwide

I'm a lawyer, so I am prone to overstating my case. Kay Barnes, however, is running one of the top 10 campaigns in the nation. The #1 reason is that she is a wonderful person, a great candidate and has assembled a winning team.

The #2 reason is that most districts have been carved our to either be a safe Democratic seat or a safe Republican seat. There's just not that many places you can knock off an incumbent from either party. The 6th District is one of them. It was held by a Democratic for many years, it voted for Sen. Claire McCaskill, Auditor Susan Montee and for stem cell research. The district can and will vote for Mayor Kay Barnes.

Don't believe me, look at the recent ad buy from the House Democrats.

House Democratic Campaign Arm Broadens TV Buy

Moving quickly to capitalize on their massive financial advantage, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has reserved television time in nearly two dozen more House districts, bringing their total investment in competitive contests to $53 million.

The new buy encompasses 20 districts and comes ten days after the DCCC dropped an estimated $35 million on ad time in 31 House districts. (A full list of districts in the new DCCC buy is after the jump.)

It also comes on the heels of the latest fundraising figures that show the DCCC outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee $22 million to $15 million over the last three months and, more importantly, ended June with $55 million in the bank, $46.5 million more than the NRCC.

With such a massive fundraising edge, the DCCC is smartly moving to expand their target list into a series of Republican-leaning open seats and GOP incumbents representing marginal districts.

Of the 20 new districts, seven are open seats being vacated by Republicans including several strongly Republican southern seats (Alabama's 2nd district and Louisiana's 4th) where Democrats have recruited their strongest potential candidates and have the potential to pull an upset. In Alabama's 2nd the DCCC has reserved nearly $600,000 in ads while in Louisiana's 4th district the buy exceeds $700,000.

Eight districts currently held by Republican incumbents make the list including a trio of south Florida seats (Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz Balart) as well as several incumbents underperforming what should be safe seats -- New York Rep. Randy Kuhl and Idaho Rep. Bill Sali.

The remaining five districts in the buy are either held by freshman Democrats (Arizona's 8th, California's 11th, Illinois' 14th, and Mississippi's 1st) or are being vacated by a Democratic incumbent (Alabama's 5th district).

When examining all 51 districts in which the DCCC has so far reserved ad time, 34 of the districts (66 percent) are Republican held while the remaining 17 are controlled by Democrats.

Unlike elections past, however, House Democrats are focusing as much on incumbents as open seats. Of the 34 Republican seats, 17 are open while 17 are held by members. That speaks to the treacherous national environment in which the GOP currently finds itself with a far larger number of incumbents in jeopardy than previous elections.

* An ad buy of 1000 points means the average viewer will see the ad 10 times during a given week.

4 Dem Incumbents 8 GOP Incumbents 8 Open Seats

District - Incumbent - Early Buy Amt. - Early Buy Pts.

MO-06 - Graves (R) - $798,000 - 5,600 (multiple mkts.)