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| Reps. Kendra Horn (left) and Lucy McBath (right) are two of the most vulnerable House Dems in 2020 (and appropriately, Rep. Susie Lee isn't far behind them) |
I'm going to begin with three caveats. The first is that it's impossible to know exactly which seats the Republicans should most target headed into the 2020 seats. Looking at 2018 as a metric, thirteen of the Democrats 43 Election Night seat pickups were in open seats, and as a result if some key Democrats were to retire in 2020, they would easily make the list. Most commonly cited in this camp is Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, whose seat would basically be handed to the GOP were he to retire, but others like Matt Cartwright (PA) or Tom O'Halleran (AZ) would be uniquely vulnerable if they were to leave office. The first job of the DCCC Chair (Cheri Bustos, in this case) is not to recruit challengers-it's to ensure men like these who represent tough districts stick around as long as possible, or at least through 2020 so they're no longer her problem as Chair.
The second is that people keep referring to only the Trump era numbers, ignoring perhaps that, in shattering a host of norms, Donald Trump may well have also shattered some rules about politics along the way. I frequently see Michigan referred to as a "Trump state," and while it's true he did win the state, it's a bit misleading to refer to it as such, considering the strength of Barack Obama, Gary Peters, Debbie Stabenow, and Gretchen Whitmer there in recent years-arguably, Michigan has had more success for the Democrats than the GOP, and really it's more Minnesota than it is Ohio. This carries forward to places like Maine-2, for example, which just overturned its Republican incumbent and is a seat many might consider a tossup, but I'm skipping because with the IRV aspects of the race Jared Golden should be able to win it again. In a similar vein, I am also going to skip someone like Angie Craig, who seems to have well-rebounded enough in 2018 in a district that barely went GOP in 2016 to go into 2020 with confidence.
Finally, it's worth noting that none of these races are lost causes. Frequently during a wave election, someone wins because they were against a scandal-plagued incumbent or their challenger was a joke. The Senate, for example, has this (it will take a true miracle for Doug Jones to win in Alabama), but the challengers to safe seats like IA-4, CA-50, and NY-27 all lost in 2018, and as a result no one heads into 2020 with worse than 50/50 odds at this juncture.
I'm going to, as a result, skip ranking these and instead list them alphabetically (this will also save me further embarrassment since almost all of these people, unlike the Senate races, are nearly unknown to me other than this past election since they've only been in federal office for a couple of months). This list is the ten seats I think the Republicans have the best shot of picking up in 2020 at this point, assuming all incumbents in marginal districts run for reelection.
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| Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) |
Why It's Vulnerable: While there were no "unwinnable" seats that went to the Democrats this past cycle, let's not pretend there weren't surprises. One of those surprises came in Georgia, where Lucy McBath outdid over two decades of history to best Rep. Karen Handel in the 6th. Handel had won a very hard-fought special election against Jon Ossoff in the most expensive House race in American history, and as a general rule you don't lose the first general after you win a special (no one has done so since 1994). McBath likely won because she was able to increase African-American vote in her district due to the historic nature of Stacey Abrams running for governor, which may or may not be able to be duplicated in 2020, and this is a district that historically has been a Republican stronghold.
Why It Might Not Be: The big question mark for House Democrats in 2020, and what will be the fate of Bustos's tenure as Chair, is whether or not some of the suburban shifts that happened in 2018 will stick or were just a reaction to the first two years of the Trump presidency. Keep in mind that in 2016 Trump was able to use Hillary Clinton as a boogeyman to help win over wayward voters, something that was not possible in 2018, but certainly will be his strategy in 2020. This is particularly true for a place like the 6th, situated in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, which went for Mitt Romney by 23-points, but Trump by less than two, and actually voted for Stacey Abrams by just under 4 points. If that trend line continues, McBath could be safer than expected, and she also could be helped in boosting the district's black turnout if Stacey Abrams runs for Senate in 2020, which appears increasingly plausible.
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| Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) |
Why It's Vulnerable: For me it was a genuine tossup whether to feature Iowa's 1st or 3rd congressional districts in the premiere installment of this list. Both seats went for Donald Trump after going for Barack Obama twice, and both seats saw women beat Republican incumbents in 2018 to score pickups for the left. But if you look at the demographics of the districts, it's Abby Finkenauer in the first who appears to be more vulnerable. While Cindy Axne in the 3rd won by a smaller margin and the seat's nature is more right-leaning on-paper, her district also includes a lot urban areas in Des Moines and the suburbs of Omaha, which both have shifted blue in the past decade. Finkenauer represents a more "historically" blue district, but one that is significantly more rural than Axne's. If we're to assume that in 2020 there will be a limited amount of ticket-splitting, it's actually easier for me to see the 3rd going for the eventual Democratic nominee than the first, which hurts Finkenauer as she may have to win over Trump voters who gave Rod Blum a victory for the right in 2016.
Why It Might Not Be: My assumptions about Finkenauer's vulnerability depend entirely on me assuming that Trump's win here in 2016 was a sign of the shifting nature of the state, and not just a fluke election where the state rejected Hillary Clinton. If that's the case, Finkenauer would be fine-this district went for Barack Obama by double-digit margins (twice), and has long been a place where Democrats can win on a presidential level. If Finkenauer can tap into that historic level of Democratic support, she would win. If she can't, she might honestly be better off pulling a Jacky Rosen and trying to win the state's Senate seat next year.
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| Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL) |
Why It's Vulnerable: Not far from Finkenauer's district sits another vulnerable Democratic seat, here held by another woman who beat a Republican incumbent in 2018 in a Trump district. Lauren Underwood was a candidate many pundits didn't take seriously as a threat to win until just a few weeks before the election, when it was clear that the blowout gubernatorial race at the top of the ticket was going to damper Republican turnout (something Underwood won't be able to duplicate in 2020). She beat Randy Hultgren, but is more left-leaning than this district would normally accept, even from a Democrat, and she seems to be attracting a pretty robust slate of Republican challengers already.
Why It Might Not Be: There are two reasons Underwood should be optimistic. First, while she's hardly representing the Chicago suburbs proper (in which case she wouldn't be on this list), she is representing a very urban district, and one that is being filled increasingly by people who likely work in and around Chicago as the metropolitan area expands. The second is that the Republican Party seems intent on shooting themselves in the foot against Underwood, assuming her unlikely victory means that it can't be replicated. If Underwood faces State Sen. Jim Oberweis, for example, she'll have an opponent famous for his botched runs for federal office. Don't discount this-Susie Lee in NV-3 (who just missed this list) won in 2018 in no small part because the Republicans nominated a terrible opponent. If Underwood can score such an advantage, she could well win a second term.
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| Rep. Xochitl Torres Small |
Why It's Vulnerable: This is a Republican district, the last bits of what used to make New Mexico a swing state. One of the only properly conservative districts on the Mexican border, Republicans lost in 2018 due to a variety of factors, including this being an open seat, Trump's hardline immigration stances (this is a majority white district, but one with a significant Latino population), and a poor challenger from the Republicans. Erase any of these factors, and Rep. Xochitl Torres Small almost certainly would have lost her nailbiter of a contest. It'll be hard for her to recreate all of these factors in 2018...
Why It Might Not Be: ...however, she will be an incumbent in a district that has always felt like something of an outlier when you compare it to its neighbors. The GOP will surely have a good candidate here, but 2018 proved that Torres Small is no slouch, and a combination of immigration policy, and economic issues (this district is the 31st poorest in the country), could make Trump less popular here than he was in 2016, allowing Torres Small to create some distance between she and the president.
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| Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) |
Why It's Vulnerable: One of the weirder wins of Election Night last year was in New York's 11th, which is basically Staten Island (with a hint of Brooklyn). Most people assumed when former Rep. Michael Grimm didn't win the primary that that was it for the Democrats-Rep. Dan Donovan was the more palatable Republican in the only NYC district that regularly goes for the Republicans. But Rose pulled off a surprise upset on Election Night, an indictment that every burrough of New York City is over one of their most famous residents being POTUS. Still, this is a district that rarely goes Democratic at a House level (the only Democrat to represent the district since the Reagan administration was Michael McMahon after the Obama landslides in 2008, but the district quickly reverted to form until Rose won). Provided the Republicans can find an electable option, Rose will be very vulnerable.
Why It Might Not Be: Rose has two things going in his favor. The first is that New York Republicans are notoriously bad at recruitment, and there's a very real possibility that they'll screw themselves over by nominating someone like Grimm for this seat. The second is-if there is a sense of Trump fatigue in a completely urban district that isn't that Republican on a national level (it went for Obama twice), could Rose ride that to another term? Staten Island has always felt like an outlier that would eventually fall in line with the rest of the city-have enough liberals migrated from Brooklyn & Manhattan to Staten Island at this point to start allowing a moderate Democrat like Rose win consistently?
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| Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) |
Why It's Vulnerable: A lot of the districts on this list are on this list due to the fact that they went for Trump, but by a smaller margin than they went for John McCain or Mitt Romney, indicating that they are upset with Trump but traditionally Republican. This isn't the case, however, for NY-22. The upstate district actually went from extremely narrow victories by McCain and Romney to a blowout win for Trump in 2016. That's trouble for Anthony Brindisi, who won this district in large part because of the controversies surrounding his predecessor Claudia Tenney, who blamed the Parkland shootings on the Democrats and had a history of incendiary comments that might have spared a less controversial opponent. Brindisi is going to need this district to return-to-form from before Trump, which is going to be an issue if the district felt more inclined to select Trump after his campaign, not less.
Why It Might Not Be: Trump the Candidate is a very, very different thing than Trump the President, as we've seen across the country in the past two years. I haven't seen specific polling coming out of NY-22, but it's entirely possible that Claudia Tenney, who is about as good of a Trump proxy as you can get, losing was a sign that the voters didn't agree with their decision to back Trump in 2016. If so, Brindisi could win this seat if the Democratic nominee pulled off numbers similar to Obama in 2008 & 2012.
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| Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK) |
Why It's Vulnerable: The next two districts on this list are arguably the two upsets most people didn't see coming in 2018, and are the two districts that most overzealous pundits would cite if they wanted to call out a district that would be "unwinnable." I don't buy that (more in a second), but it has to be noted that Rep. Kendra Horn starts with some deficits against her. The district went for Trump by 13-points in 2016, a drop from previous Republicans running for public office, but still a pretty strong margin. Horn's win was in large part a result of a poor campaign from Rep. Steve Russell, as well as a rebuke of Gov. Mary Fallin's educational policies, neither of which she can duplicate in 2020. Horn will have to deal with Trump almost certainly winning her district in 2020, even if it might be competitive, and having almost no infrastructure from her state party, which has been decimated in the past decade and couldn't even come close to winning a "competitive" governor's race last year.
Why It Might Not Be: Horn's advantage, if she wins, will be a sign that Oklahoma's urban areas are finally starting to align to the rest of the nation's. This district includes Oklahoma City, the state's largest metropolitan area, and is increasingly diverse, with the Latino population doubling from the 2000 to 2010 census. I've speculated on this before on Twitter, but it's entirely possible Horn won this district right on the cusp of it shifting to the left. It has all of the elements making it possible to do so, and it's the sort of district that, if the Trump shift for districts is permanent, could make her a longtime member of the House.
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| Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) |
Why It's Vulnerable: Alongside Kendra Horn, Joe Cunningham stands out as arguably the biggest shock victory of last November. Most people had bet that the historically red nature of South Carolina, even the lighter red of the first district, would be enough to carry State Rep. Katie Arrington to victory. After all, Trump love was the reason she was the nominee in the first place, as Republican congressman (and former governor) Mark Sanford's criticisms of President Trump made him easy pickings for Arrington in the primary. Cunningham's victory was due to Arrington being an unexpected challenger (it's probable he wouldn't have beaten Sanford, who refused to endorse Arrington which splintered GOP support), as well as relying on a national mood that wanted a change in DC. It's impossible to imagine those circumstances being replicated in 2020, and it's even harder to imagine Trump losing this district, even if it's by a narrower margin than last time; just how many people will split their ballots to be Trump/Cunningham voters? In a realm where split-ticket voting is an endangered species, Cunningham better hope it's enough.
Why It Might Not Be: The ancestral friendliness of this district to Democrats still exists and is stronger in the district's DNA than most of its neighbors (Democrat Linda Ketner came within two points of winning it in 2008), even as most majority-white districts in the South have migrated pretty swiftly to the right. Cunningham also has the advantage of a potentially messy primary, as there will almost certainly be another run from Arrington, but it's hard not to imagine Sanford putting in a surrogate after the nastiness of last year's primary, and as a result either of them will go into a general election battered and with less oxygen to regain friendly voters in a presidential election than they'd have in a midterm.
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| Rep. Ben McAdams (D-UT) |
Why It's Vulnerable: I'm not ranking the seats on this list, but if I was this would be #1. Rep. Ben McAdams hardly starts off as DOA for the cycle, and we'll get to why in a second, but suffice it to say it took a lot of very specific circumstances for McAdams to win in the first place. The 4th is egregiously gerrymandered, as the state dices up Salt Lake County to keep Republicans in control, which hurts McAdams. Additionally, McAdams was against an historically weak incumbent, Mia Love, who lost a winnable race in 2012 and then again in 2018, and had struggled even in election cycles that seemed achievable for her. It's hard not to think that Love did so poorly in the district because she is a black woman, something that likely won't be duplicated in 2020 unless she mounts a comeback run, which feels unlikely since she openly criticized Donald Trump after her loss and is a two-time loser here.
Why It Might Not Be: Jim Matheson better be on speed dial in McAdams office, as he's the lesson for how McAdams can win this seat. Matheson served for 14 years as a Democratic congressman from this district despite its red tint, and was able to forge a position as a Blue Dog Democrat that voters would ignore party label for when casting their ballots. McAdams was an established politician prior to heading to Congress, and as a result has a relationship with voters already. If he can forge the same sort of relationship, and like Matheson get relatively weak opponents, he could win this seat, but if I had to guess one House incumbent that would lose in 2020, it'd be McAdams.
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| Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) |
Why It's Vulnerable: Four years after Dave Brat stunned the political world and ousted Rep. Eric Cantor, almost certainly a future House Speaker had he won, in a Republican primary, Abigail Spanberger did something similar this past November when she defeated Brat in an historically Republican district. Trump won this district by 6-points, but that appears on the lower end of the totem pole for Republicans here (Mitt Romney, by comparison, took it by fifteen), and Spanbarger is almost certainly going to be a top target. Her CIA background is impressive, but the Republicans can duplicate or play into Virginia's strong population of military personnel if they so choose; there's a solid bench that they can indulge here, likely a bunch of ambitious pols who were upset when Brat jumped ahead of them in line in 2014. Now they'll have their chance.
Why It Might Not Be: The question for the 7th is whether Spanberger was a fluke or just ahead-of-the-curve (similar to Kendra Horn up-top). After all, the 7th district did deliver a victory to Tim Kaine last year as well, and Ralph Northam nearly won the district in the gubernatorial race. Virginia has been swinging blue pretty ferociously in the past few years thanks to Northern Virginia, which the 7th district borders. Could this be a district that is lost to Republicans until Trump is out of office, or can they squeak by if the national mood is less favorable to the Democrats? Spanberger needs to bet on the former to make sure that's the case, but it's not a bad beet.
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