GOP plays blame game while fighting to save House majority
Republicans have begun to concede defeat in the evolving fight to preserve the House majority. The party’s candidates may not go quietly, but from the Arizona mountains to suburban Denver to the cornfields of Iowa, the GOP’s most powerful players this midterm season are actively shifting resources away from vulnerable Republican House candidates deemed too far gone and toward those thought to have a better chance of political survival. And as they initiate a painful and strategic triage, the early Republican-on-Republican blame game has begun as well. GOP operatives connected to several vulnerable candidates complain that the committee responsible for electing House Republicans has failed to deliver on its promise to invest $62 million in political advertising across 11 states this fall, a promise detailed in a September memo that declared, “The cavalry is coming.” The operatives spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution; vulnerable Republican candidates still hope to receive additional financial support over the three weeks before Election Day. But if the cavalry is coming, it’s not coming for everyone. Already, the Republican operatives and spending patterns by both sides indicate GOP defeat in as many as a dozen House races — halfway to the number Democrats need to seize the House majority this fall. Dozens more seats are in play. “We’re starting to hone in on what are the races we can actually win. Sometime that requires a hard conversation,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan‘s fundraising chief, Spencer Zwick. Even after a burst of enthusiasm that helped Republican Senate candidates in several states following the recent Supreme Court debate, some Republicans closely following the more complicated House battlefield fear the party may have already lost Congress’ lower chamber. With 22 days to go, they’re working furiously in an expanding political battlefield to limit their losses. Fundraising challenges make it harder. As of Friday, the National Republican Congressional Committee has spent or reserved $44.8 million of television advertising in competitive House races since the end of July, according to spending records obtained by The Associated Press. That’s significantly less than the $62 million promised in last month’s memo. A committee spokesman explained it would meet the original spending projection by including polling and online advertising, which is more difficult to track. Meanwhile, the Republican committee is expected to take out a sizable loan to help meet its commitments. A separate memo, circulated to donors in recent days by the super PAC associated with Ryan, noted that it’s been forced to carry the bulk of this year’s financial burden given weak fundraising by the Republican candidates themselves. Of more than 30 races considered pure toss-ups, the memo states, Ryan’s super PAC is the sole spender in 14. “The GOP is now facing a green wave,” wrote Corry Bliss, who leads the group, known as the Congressional Leadership Fund. “Democratic candidates are outspending Republican candidates in key races by $50 million.” Indeed, Democratic candidates have outspent their Republican counterparts $116 million to $66 million across almost 80 competitive House districts since July, according to Friday’s spending records. The Congressional Leadership Fund has helped make up the difference, having invested $93 million over the same period, backed by massive donations from Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. “This is going to be a devastating election for Republicans across the ballot,” said Republican strategist Terry Sullivan, who called the party’s fundraising issues a symptom of the GOP’s broader challenge this fall. “Republican donors are smart folks,” he said. “They’re not going to give money to a losing cause.” The Republican triage has been shaped by geography and demographics as much as by the candidates themselves. The GOP has a decent chance of preserving any House district that features a cornfield, pollsters and strategists say, pointing to less-educated rural voters who make up a significant portion of the Republican base. But where education and incomes are higher in suburban areas, Republicans are growing increasingly pessimistic. The NRCC in recent days has canceled plans to help at least three vulnerable Republican candidates: Rep. Kevin Yoder in suburban Kansas, Rep. Keith Rothfus in suburban Pittsburgh and businesswoman Lea Marquez Peterson in Tucson, Arizona. GOP strategists fear three open seats in the Pennsylvania suburbs and two more in suburban New Jersey are slipping away if they’re not lost already. And Republicans haven’t invested at all in a handful of other would-be competitive races, including Southern California’s open seat to replace retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa and the seat of Iowa Republican incumbent Rep. Rod Blum, whose district features the state’s northern suburbs and more than a dozen college campuses. Democrats canceled their advertising reserves in GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock‘s suburban Virginia district, a sign of confidence in light of public and private polling that gives the Republican incumbent little chance of winning. That’s despite the NRCC spending nearly $5 million in the district since July. At the same time, the Republican super PAC has shifted money away from at least two other vulnerable Republicans, including suburban Denver Rep. Mike Coffman and Michigan Rep. Steve Bishop. Yet Coffman spokesman Tyler Sandberg notes that Democratic groups ramped up their spending by more than $1 million over the last week, evidence that the race is “trending back in Coffman’s direction.” Bishop noted that the NRCC has invested more than $3 million in his race despite one super PAC’s recent decision to abandon the district. The Congressional Leadership Fund “has got lots of folks out there who really need help,” Bishop said. “I’m confident that their decision to do what they’ve done is a decision based on the fact that I’m well-covered here.” Bishop conceded that he’s been badly outspent by his opponents: “Michigan’s never seen this influx of money.” It’s not all bad news for Republicans. Polls suggest Republican prospects have improved in several GOP-leaning states where Democrats face re-election, silencing recent concerns that Democrats could take the Senate majority this fall as well. And several vulnerable House Republicans coming into the election year — a group that
Dems try to enlist military vets in fight for House majority
Democrats hope to enlist military veterans in another type of fight – for majority control of the House. Looking ahead to next year’s elections, Democrats are trying to recruit at least two dozen military veterans to challenge Republican incumbents, arguing that candidates with a military background on their resumes appeal to independent voters and can help the party break the GOP grip on Washington. “Veterans have had the experience of putting the country first, before personal politics” and party dictates, said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass, who did four tours of duty in Iraq, left the Marines as a captain and was elected to Congress in 2014. That tends “to attract the kind of independent voters who are looking for a good leader,” Moulton added. Several veterans already have announced their bids in some of the 79 Republican-held House districts that national Democratic Party leaders have identified as top targets. Decades ago, veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam were mainstays in Congress. In 1969-71, 398 veterans served in the House and 69 in the Senate, according to the Congressional Research Service. But the change to an all-volunteer force in 1973 sent those numbers plummeting. The extended post-Sept. 11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq helped reverse the trend, and now there are 80 veterans in the 435-seat House and 20 veterans in the 100-member Senate. For Democrats, struggling to return to the majority, military veterans provide potential candidates as the party deals with an electoral wipeout during Barack Obama‘s presidency, with the loss of more than 1,030 seats in state legislatures, governor’s mansions and Congress. Moulton and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who lost both legs and partial use of an arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq, have spoken to veterans in districts ranging from obvious Democratic targets to places where the path to victory isn’t as obvious. The party needs to pick up 24 seats to reclaim a House majority next November. In the Philadelphia suburbs, former Air Force officer Chrissy Houlahan is challenging two-term Republican Rep. Ryan Costello in one of 23 districts where Democrat Hillary Clinton topped Trump in November. Outside Denver, former Army Ranger and combat veteran Jason Crow, a onetime campaign adviser to Obama, is running for the seat held by another veteran, five-term GOP congressman, Mike Coffman. Both mentioned President Donald Trump as factors in their campaign. “All the bravado and the wailing and gnashing of teeth isn’t the way we conduct ourselves as professional service members,” Houlahan said of Trump’s rhetoric. Said Crow: “I’m deeply troubled by President Trump and what he’s trying to do to country and our democracy.” Dan McCready, a former Marine who attended Harvard Business School alongside Moulton, steered clear of Trump as he announced his bid to win the more Republican-leaning North Carolina district of three-term Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger. But all three candidates, along with Moulton, agreed that veterans offer voters an approach rarely taken on Capitol Hill. “We know what it’s like to serve the country in non-political ways, and we’re standing up to say that the system is broken,” said Crow. He added that any military unit brings together “Republicans, Democrats, unaffiliated, every different background, every part of the country, urban rural, every rung of the economic ladder, and they have to come together very quickly … or the mission fails.” Democratic veterans have run notable campaigns in recent years. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a West Point graduate and former Ranger, emphasized his record to attract enough voters in a conservative state. In Missouri last year, former Army intelligence officer Jason Kander drew national attention for his U.S. Senate campaign ad in which he assembled an AR-15 rifle while blindfolded. He lost by 3 percentage points, but got 230,000 more votes than Clinton, who lost the state by 18 points. Seth Lynn, who runs the nonpartisan Veterans Campaign, an organization that trains veterans running for office, says research suggests veterans running against a non-veteran get “about a 2-point bump” on average. Lynn isn’t yet tracking exact numbers of veteran candidates, but says he’s seen a “noticeable uptick” among Democrats. Some of that, Lynn says, is the usual clamoring by the party out of power: Republican veterans arose in 2010, the first midterm under Obama, and Democrats’ boasted a large slate in 2006, amid opposition to the Iraq war during President George W. Bush‘s second term. Those veteran candidates did not all win, of course. But those midterm years marked the last two times voters tossed out the House majority in favor of the other party. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
