It is not easy to do a strong recruitment for the seats in Republican hands. These seats are the seats where the Democratic party failed until now, but the Democratic party need to try.
The last cycles are not being succesful for the Democratic party in terms of recruitment. Only a few of the selected candidates become successful and win, and even in the bluest seats an effort must be done to give them the necessary strength to survive. The Democratic party needs something else for 2016.
A good recruitment just means to have the best people running for the offices where there is some chance for a victory.
Talking about recruitment, there is only one person, the best person, for a succesful recruitment. The second can be a good alternative, a good replacement, but can not be considered a success. The best is the best and something else is not a successful recruitment.
In order to have a good recruitment, the first step is to find the available people in every case with proved talent winning at least some time something important. And this is what this diary want to do. This people maybe not the best (or yes), but they fix a minimum level for the recruitment of the Democratic party in every district. Who finally becomes the best option must prove (in a primary) to be over them.
Before to begin, it is not easy to know which will be strongest combinations, it is not easy to see where the combination of a winnable constituency plus a good recruitment option for the Democratic party can become stronger and put the Republican incumbents in higher troubles. Also we know not where can be competitive open seats, then, it is necessary to begin doing a complete overview of the seats that can become competitive.
For me there are two groups of seats potentially competitive for 2016:
- The Republicans will have since January 9 D+ seats. These are the seats with a blue leaning where the Democratic party is favored by the lean of the voters.
- The Republicans will have since January 57 EVEN to R+5 seats. These are the seats with a little to moderate red leaning, where the Democratic party can become competitive with a strong candidate. And also these are the seats where the Democratic party can have a options for a defense in a red wave year.
For me R+6 or worse seats (all them worse than MN-07 and FL-02) are too difficult and too undefensible in red wave years, taking into account that seats like WV-02, UT-04 or AR-02 were open in 2014. They will have Republican incumbent in the following cycles.
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