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| House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) |
I was going to put this in yesterday’s link roundup, but I
started to write my short blurb and once I hit a second paragraph, I figured it
was probably best to give this its own article.
On Thursday, the DCCC announced that it would book time in 36 races in the fall, spending $43.5 million. This isn’t unusual by any means, and the congressional
committees for the Democrats have been doing a robust business this cycle,
regularly out-earning the Republicans (though the DNC’s fundraising operation
continues to be a joke). However,
it is always noteworthy to parcel through the list, seeing which incumbents and
challengers are getting money (and perhaps more tellingly) which ones
aren’t. Below are some of my
thoughts based on the announcement:
The Democrats Have
Essentially Given Up on Winning the House
The Democrats do have seventeen challengers on the list, and
they do in fact need to win seventeen seats in order to take back the House, so
one could make the technical argument that they are making the shot at winning
back the House. However, two open
Democratic seats (NC-7 and UT-4) are both absent from this list and that’s
because the Democrats have no way of winning them with incumbents Mike McIntyre
and Jim Matheson retiring.
Therefore, even if the Democrats were to win all 36 of these races (an
impossible task), they would still be two seats shy of winning back the
House. The question that comes
from this is that if the Democrats don’t win back the House, how much of the
very senior House leadership (including Nancy Pelosi, one of the party’s most
prominent leaders and biggest fundraisers) stick around for two more years in
the minority?
Which Incumbents are
in Peril?
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| Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN) |
It’s early in the cycle, and no incumbent House Democrat has
entered “no chance they’ll win reelection” territory quite yet, so it’s telling
which incumbents haven’t been included on the list and could have. Earlier in the year Rep. Steve Israel
(the DCCC Chairman) announced a heartier list of “Frontline Democrats” that
they thought would be in trouble.
Noticeably absent from this ad buy are Reps. Lois Capps (CA-24), Suzan
DelBene (WA-1), Cheri Bustos (IL-17), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), Dan Maffei
(NY-24), and Patrick Murphy (FL-18), as one would assume that none of them are
perceived as being in trouble right now despite being Frontline Democrats, as
they surely would have been included in the ad buy.
On the flip side, while there are certain incumbents that we
all knew would be part of an ad buy (Ron Barber, John Barrow, and Joe Garcia,
for example), I was a bit flummoxed by Elizabeth Esty (CT-5) and in particular
Rick Nolan (MN-8) being listed.
Nolan, for example, wasn’t even on the Frontline lineup (neither was his
home state colleague Collin Peterson, but Peterson’s district is far more
conservative and he has a more formidable challenger). Perhaps internal polling in the
district shows that Republican Stewart Mills is gaining traction, but this is
one of the odder buys.
Which Challengers are
Viable?
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| Sean Eldridge (D-NY) |
On the flip side of the incumbents, any challenger that
poses a serious threat to a takeover is going to be considered a major
contender at this junction.
Therefore, it’s worth noting when a few candidates aren’t on the DCCC’s
radar. Most noteworthy from the
“Red to Blue” program (a program the DCCC puts together to recruit challengers
to GOP seats and to try and win open seats of either party) that isn’t listed
is surely Erin Bilbray, who is running in Nevada’s third congressional district
against Rep. Joe Heck. Heck had a
weak opponent two years ago and Bilbray’s recruitment was highly trumpeted by
the DCCC, but she is nowhere to be seen on the list. Now, this isn’t to say that they won’t add her to the list
in the future, but it’s telling that they would avoid such a high profile
recruit.
The same could be said for Sean Eldridge of NY-19, who is
running in a more liberal district than Bilbray (a Cook PVI of D+1, one of only
five seats with a Democratic-positive Cook PVI that is held by the Republicans)
but has had a series of stumbles.
Money won’t really be an issue in this race (if elected, Eldridge would
likely become the wealthiest member of Congress thanks to his husband Chris
Hughes’ massive fortune), but it is a stain on Eldridge’s potential as a viable
challenger.
State Sen. Brad Ashford (NE-2) is the other candidate I find
really odd that is not on the list.
He wasn’t on the Red to Blue initial program because he wasn’t a
declared candidate, but his race is an excellent pickup opportunity. A marginally red seat at base, Rep. Lee
Terry, the Republican incumbent, barely won against an unknown primary
challenger this past month, and a third party challenge from conservative State Sen. Chip Maxwell could strip away crucial votes. This has always been a seat that was difficult for the
Democrats to reach 50%, but if the bar is lowered to 45%, they have a VERY
strong shot.
Other candidates on the Red to Blue program that didn’t get
ad buys include John Lewis (MT-AL) and Rocky Lara (NM-2), but they were always
far greater longshots.
…Really? That’s Competitive
Three seats stick out to me as being odd buys for the
Democrats, one of which seems like a larger strategy so I’ll get to that in a
second. The first is
Pennsylvania’s 6th district.
In the first decade of the century, this was routinely one of the most
competitive seats in the country, and had Rep. Jim Gerlach retired sometime
between 2001-2009, the Democrats would have made this a primary pickup
opportunity. However, Gerlach’s
seat has gotten considerably more conservative with the census, and Manan
Trivedi isn’t what you’d call a very inspiring candidate.
On the other end of the spectrum is Rep. Steve King’s
district in Iowa-4. King is in the
Michele Bachmann portion of his party, and theoretically would be vulnerable in
a wave election, but this isn’t gearing up to be a wave election and Jim Mowrer
is hardly what one would consider a boffo candidate. Unless they’re hoping for some kind of top-of-the-ticket
coattails or have internals they aren’t releasing for some reason, I have
serious doubts that the Democrats are going to make this competitive, unlike
neighboring district Iowa-3 (which also got a solid ad buy as well).
Coattail Effects
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| Michael Eggman (D-CA) |
When I first looked at this list, I thought that
California-10 and Michael Eggman’s inclusion was bizarre. Eggman is hardly a major candidate and
this doesn’t have the pull of George Miller’s seat or even David Valadao’s
seat. However, looking at the
major ad buys across the board in California (three incumbents, three
challengers), it appears that Nancy Pelosi thinks that she can run the board in
her home state with Gov. Jerry Brown on the top of the ticket. Brown could potentially be facing an
extremely conservative Tea Party challenger (though the Tea Party has been
doing abysmally nationally so I wouldn’t count on this), which would help
turnout particularly amongst Hispanic voters, who are a vital component of a
number of districts in the state.
If the Democrats could run the board in these six seats, it would not
only give them a leg-up in balancing losses in Utah and North Carolina, but
also in helping Pelosi retain her leadership post. Also funding Eggman now helps him with fundraising (he’s
viable) and sets him up if a mini-wave were to happen for the Democrats in
California (California has been oddly impervious in years past to Republican
waves as it shifts further and further left).
Other states could have coattail effects as well. Illinois has three seats (two
incumbents, one challenger, and that’s not counting Cheri Bustos) with buys and
also has an extremely competitive governor’s race that will gain national dollars. New York has Gov. Andrew Cuomo set to
cruise to reelection, which could have down-ballot effects on the four targeted
districts in the state (two incumbents, two challengers, and that’s not
counting Sean Eldridge). Finally,
there’s Michigan where there is a massively competitive Senate race and a
theoretically competitive governor’s race, and where the Democrats are going
all in with four challengers being funded (for those at home who still have a
glimmer of hope of the Democrats winning the House, you’d be wise to send some
money to the Michigan Democratic Party, because a four-seat gain in the state
would be a must).
Those were my thoughts (told you it needed an article). What about you? Did anything stick out as a surprise on
the list? Share in the comments!
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