Uh-oh: things aren't looking so hot for the Republicans in next year's House elections.

AS Republicans entered the 2008 election cycle, Washington's conventional wisdom offered them three certainties. First, their odds were long for keeping the presidency--as bad as four-to-one, Newt Gingrich has said. And, second, Republicans could expect to lose a seat or two in the Senate, perhaps more.

Amidst these grim predictions, though, there was a consolation: Republicans could expect to gain seats in the House, even if they could not take back the House majority in the presidential year. Surely, after losing 30 seats in 2006, the only direction for Republicans was up--wasn't it?

Well, maybe not.

Having lost the fundraising advantage that comes from holding the majority, and with scandals and retirements racking up this summer, House Republicans find themselves in an increasingly dire situation. They remain confident about their ability to retake some House seats unlikely to remain Democratic for long--those vacated, for example, by scandal-tainted representatives Don Sherwood and Mark Foley in Pennsylvania and Florida, as well as the Houston-area seat of former majority leader Tom DeLay.

But potential Republican House take-backs start to look much less promising as one continues down the list. Seats in southern Minnesota, upstate New York, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, and southeast Iowa, among many others, will be difficult or simply impossible to reclaim, particularly if the sour national mood toward the Republican president persists. To make matters worse, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which last year bailed out several Republican candidates with over $81 million in independent expenditures, is lagging badly behind its Democratic counterpart, a grave departure from the norm. The NRCC held just $2 million in cash in July, compared with the DCCC's $19 million.

The House GOP reached the height of its strength under the current districting after the 2002 election. The 2004 election provided the evidence of this: Despite a fantastic national performance, Republicans would have actually lost House seats if not for a special round of redistricting in Texas in 2003. By 2006, there were relatively few House Democrats who could be plausible targets.

Now, Republicans have the same problem in reverse: The list of their own seats in peril remains long because they did not lose badly enough last year. They had scores of near-misses, and many of the dominoes that didn't fall last time are still wobbling.

The story begins with retirements. Nearly all Democratic members plan to stick around and enjoy their new majority status. But Republicans have already begun to jump ship. Although it is not considered a likely takeover, even the defense of former Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat will require scarce Republican resources, now that he has chosen not to seek reelection. The same could be said of the Mississippi seat of retiring representative Chip Pickering, a safe incumbent had he chosen to run again. His district was originally drawn after the state lost a seat in the 2000 Census, and became the 2002 battleground between Pickering and former representative Ronnie Shows, a Democrat. Although Pickering won that race by 29 points, open-seat races are always more competitive--and Mississippi has not completely lost its affinity for electing conservative Democrats.

Rep. Deborah Pryce (R., Ohio), coming off a bruising election she won by only 1,100 votes, recently announced her retirement as well. This open district, which gave President Bush just 50 percent in 2004, is a genuine target for the Democrats, and Franklin County commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, Pryce's 2006 challenger, is preparing another run.

Just outside Washington, there is no doubt that moderate representative Tom Davis (R., Va.) is eyeing the Senate seat of his fellow Republican, John Warner. Davis has been elected seven times in his evenly divided district, but Republicans admit that they have less than an even chance of keeping it, should he leave the House.

In addition to retirements--the list of which will grow before the end of 2007--Republicans face a new round of members caught up in scandals real or manufactured. These will find reelection difficult, perhaps choosing to retire instead.

In northeast Arizona, Rep. Rick Renzi probably will not stick around to defend the misshapen district that he first won in a close 2002 race. Ethics questions in the closing weeks of the 2006 election winnowed his take of the vote to 51 percent, and Renzi's family business was raided by federal agents this spring. Since then, Renzi has given up spots on three House committees. If he retires, the sour national mood will make it difficult for the GOP to hang on to what was originally drawn to be a 50-50 congressional district--a district where Democrats have a slight registration advantage today.

In neighboring New Mexico, Rep. Heather Wilson has fended off tough challenges in every cycle since she came to the House, but her 900-vote margin of victory in 2006 over state attorney general Patricia Madrid may have been her ninth life. Congressional investigations of the Bush administration have ensnared her in the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorney David Iglesias, whom she allegedly pressured to investigate voter-fraud cases. Democrats will be sure to exploit this in 2008.

The California district of Rep. John Doolittle probably won't be competitive against a Democrat, unless he wins the nomination for reelection. Doolittle, facing pressure from a federal investigation into his relationship with imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, won his solidly GOP district by just 3 percent last year. He has already drawn two Republican challengers.

Alaska may have the most stable Republican congressional delegation in the nation--a combined 73 years of service between the formidable appropriators Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. But both are now subject to federal corruption investigations, which could weaken them or force them into early retirement. Alaska is not as red a state as some believe--unions still have great influence over elections--and Democrats will likely dedicate massive resources there in the event of House and Senate vacancies. Jake Metcalfe, the former chairman of the state Democratic party, has already announced against Young and is considered a serious candidate.

In addition to those tainted by scandal, other Republican congressmen have not carried their weight in recent elections, thus forcing the party to use limited resources to pull them through. Some of these are in serious danger of losing seats that Republicans should not lose.

Rep. Jean Schmidt (R., Ohio) inherited a solidly Republican district east of Cincinnati from Rob Portman, now the White House budget director. President Bush won 64 percent there in 2004, but in just one election cycle--and partly thanks to Schmidt's controversial style, which has made her all too famous--the district has become a swing seat. The congresswoman clung to it by 2,500 votes last year, helped along by a $316,000 infusion of independent expenditures by the NRCC.

Rep. Barbara Cubin (R., Wyo.) holds the at-large seat in one of the nation's most Republican states, but she underperformed so badly in 2006 that the NRCC had to give her $10,000 and spend a shocking $249,000 against her Democratic opponent, rancher Gary Trauner. Even with this help, she won by just 1,000 votes.

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, in neighboring Colorado, required a $170,000 NRCC bailout to win 46 percent in a three-way race, even though hers is traditionally one of Colorado's safest Republican districts, in which President Bush won 58 percent in 2004.

Conservative freshman representatives Bill Sali of Idaho and Tim Walberg of Michigan may face trouble as well. The Club for Growth PAC made more than $441,000 in independent expenditures for Sali, and the NRCC spent over $600,000 on his race for an open seat in 2006. The conservative panhandle district that had given 69 percent of its vote to President Bush two years earlier gave Sali just 50 percent. Walberg defeated a hopelessly underfunded Democrat--an organic farmer who spent less than $50,000 on her race--with just 51 percent of the vote. Both congressmen posted lackluster fundraising numbers in the second quarter of this year.

The list of targets for the Democrats, then, is indeed long. And that goes without even counting some of last year's closest calls: Reps. Steve Chabot (R., Ohio), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Vern Buchanan (R., Fla.), and Dave Reichert (R., Wash.). And what will happen next year to the three seats Republicans narrowly held in upstate New York if Hillary Clinton winds up on the presidential ballot?

Despite their swoon in 2006, Republicans are still clinging to so much shaky ground that they may face a 2008 rout rather than a rebound.