Biggest Gaps in House Recruitment

State Sen. Jill Schupp (D-MO)

This morning, the St. Louis Dispatch announced what is an extremely solid piece of news for House Democrats: State Sen. Jill Schupp will be running for Missouri's second congressional district against incumbent Republican Ann Wagner.  Wagner is one of the best fundraisers in the House, but her district has become more competitive in recent years thanks to the Democratic takeover of the suburbs in the Trump era (Wagner's seat encompasses parts of St. Louis, but principally the surrounding suburban area).  The district went from a seat that both Hillary Clinton and Jason Kander lost in 2016 (Clinton by 10 points, Kander by 0.2) to a district that Claire McCaskill won last year by 3-points, despite her election loss actually being larger than Kander's.  Wagner went from winning this seat by 20 points in 2016 to winning it by just 4 points last year; this is the sort of district that Democrats need to compete in if they want to gain more ground in 2020, but until Schupp announced, they had yet to recruit a significant candidate to take on Wagner (and, to be fair, we haven't gotten official word that Schupp will enter the race, though it appears likely).

Wagner may well win here next year, possibly by a large margin (it's theoretical that 2018 was a fluke election where Wagner was caught off-guard), but you can't win races like this (which are on-paper winnable), without decent candidates.  Decent candidates here are defined as candidates who have a shot at winning not just in theory, but in actuality.  An argument for a different day, but "if they had money they could compete" is like saying if I had abs, was five years younger, seven inches taller, and had the face of a Michelangelo statue I could get with Russell Tovey, so if you're on social media making that argument know that's just as ridiculous of a thing to say as what I just did-fundraising is a skill you need to win a competitive congressional seat, and if you can't raise that money you aren't a "decent" candidate for that seat.  Every year, though, both sides leave seats on the table that are conceivably competitive and yet neither side ends up pursuing.

This year, with Wagner now matched up with a prominent senate senator, I'd count at least three more seats where the Democrats are phoning it in when it comes to House recruitment (it was five when I started writing this article, but Schupp's entry, as well as Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming's entry in NY-1 this week brought the number down).  The first (alphabetically) would be Kansas's 2nd congressional district.  Democrats came within a point of beating Rep. Steve Watkins here in 2018, and yet they have not recruited one candidate for the district, and the only candidate that's remotely considering appears to be Topeka Mayor Michelle de la Isla, who would be a solid candidate, but has shown only nominal interest in the race.  Coming up next would be Kentucky's 6th congressional district, where earlier this year both Steve Beshear and Democratic nominee for Secretary of State Heather French both won (Beshear by 14 points, French by 7), but no serious candidate seems to be interested in running despite these recent wins in the Lexington-based district, even though several prominent politicians (State Auditor Adam Edelen, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, Lt. Gov. Crit Luallen) all live in the district and would attract instant attention.

One could make a sincere argument that one of the current candidates in Pennsylvania's 1st might win due to coattails, but I'd still wager it counts as the most glaring recruitment gap.  A seat that went for Hillary Clinton, Tom Wolf, & Bob Casey in their last elections, it has local office holders (Christina Finello, Judi Reiss, Debbie Wachspress), but none of them have distinguished themselves in terms of fundraising or gaining major support from outside groups like the DCCC or Emily's List.  Clear-the-field candidates such as former Rep. Patrick Murphy & Diane Ellis-Marseglia have both turned down the chance to run, and it's possible the Democrats win this seat again on a presidential level while letting Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick skirt by with a lower tier candidate.

Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL)

Republicans have more seats to play offense in, and as a result have more seats that they should conceivably win this cycle where they aren't recruiting strong enough candidates.  Some of these it's hard to tell how competitive they will be.  Florida's 26th congressional district changed hands with regularity over the past decade thanks to the conservative Cuban-American population of the district and the Democrats' poor track record with candidates, but incumbent-Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has by-and-large avoided scandal, and that has so far kept serious candidates like County Mayor Carlos Gimenez out of the contest.  Republicans had a decent candidate in Illinois's 6th congressional district, but former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti dropped out last month, worried she might lose in a challenge from her right to former State Rep. Jeanne Ives (a certain loser in a demographically-shifting seat).  Michigan's 11th and Minnesota's 2nd are both seats the Democrats flipped in 2018, but both seats were won by President Donald Trump in 2016.  However, neither seat has attracted a major Republican candidate, and that might have something to do with not only now-Reps. Haley Stevens & Angie Craig winning there, but Democrats also won these seats in the competitive 2018 Gov/Senate races, in most cases by a larger margin than Trump did.  If the local GOP feels that Trump isn't likely to retain these seats in 2020, why not wait a couple of years to take on these two?

New Jersey might pose the biggest challenge for the Republicans in terms of recruitment.  The 11th make sense why they've struggled-after all, Hillary Clinton improved on Barack Obama's margin there in 2016 compared to 2012, and it's always been pretty even for statewide offices, but the lack of major candidates for the 2nd, which turned sharply toward Donald Trump in 2016 and has been a tougher sell for Democrats, feels bizarre to me.  Right now we have a venture capitalist and two recent losers for higher office running despite a robust down-ballot crew who could take on Rep. Jeff van Drew, whom we pinpointed earlier this week as one of the most vulnerable House incumbents.

The House, of course, isn't the only place where top-tier candidates eschew the opportunity to flip a seat.  Next year the Democrats have 4th or 5th choice candidates as their likely nominees in Iowa & North Carolina, and the Republicans are going to be leading with the third string for the New Hampshire Senate race, but statewide contests are different than House ones, as the limited number of contests make even a candidate like State Sen. Cal Cunningham a viable option for the Senate even if the DSCC had him low on their list of recruitments at the beginning of the year.  House races can disappear, or you can underestimate the strength of a recruit long enough that you miss an opportunity (the man who ran against Ann Wagner last year, Cort VanOstran, is a good example of this).

The clock is ticking for candidates to get in, but don't assume you know all of next year's winners just yet, especially if 2020 is particularly kind to one side.  Last year six women (Donna Shalala, Xochitl Torres Small, Lucy McBath, Mary Gay Scanlon, Elaine Luria, & Sharice Davids) all announced in 2018 and still won a seat later that year.  Schupp & Fleming are solid recruits in seats that the DCCC desperately needed to save face in, but I would assume we'll see one or two more major candidates emerge before primary season is over.