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.
The easiest part.
D+ SEATS
These are just the weakest seats for the Democratic party between the seats with a favourable leaning. It is necessary to take into account that if it would be great solutions for them these seats would not be in Republican hands.
The options with higher political profile would be:
NY-19: Open by R
Recruitment options of higher profile:
J Hall
ME-02: B Poliquin (R) 45.19% (the percentage of the Republican in 2014)
Recruitment options of higher profile:
J Baldacci
NV-04: C Hardy (R) 48.53%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
S Horsford
IA-01: R Blum (R) 50.67%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M Blouin
IL-10: R Dold (R) 51.30%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
B Schneider
CO-06: M Coffmann (R) 51.90%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
-
CA-21: D Valadao (R) 57.83%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
C Bustamante
R Lehman
NY-24: J Katko (R) 58.57%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
D Maffei
NJ-02: F LoBiondo (R) 61.73%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
-
Some options seem interesting for me. I think J Hall, J Baldacci, S Horsford, M Blouin and B Schneider would do well.
Other options are not appealing, but should not be totally rejected because the alternatives must prove to be better, if not we can suffer big failures like the case of NY-19 in this cycle, and this is not acceptable in these districts.
CO-06 and NJ-02 have only lower profile options, but everyone of these seats is a must win in order to win a majority of the US House. Even, most of them are must win in order to reach 200 seats.
The difficult part.
EVEN TO R+5 SEATS
Between the 57 seats without a Democratic lean, but with weaker Republican lean, the Democratic Party will need to find a path to a majority of at least 218 seats. At least 21 of them are necessary without loses. But also here the Democratic party can find some interesting and unexplored high profile options between the following lists, in order to challenge the Republican incumbents or to fight some open seats.
PA-08: Open by R
Recruitment options of higher profile:
P Murphy
R Wiessmann
NY-11: Open by R
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M McMahon
TX-23: W Hurd (R) 49.78%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
P Gallego
C Rodríguez ??
C González ??
AZ-02: M McSally (R) 49.81%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
G Giffords ??
K English ??
R Barber
FL-26: C Curbelo (R) 51.46%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
J Garcia
NH-01: F Guinta (R) 51.80%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
C Shea-Porter
MI-01: D Benishek (R) 52.14%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
B Stupak (also in line for easier statewide goals)
IL-12: M Bost (R) 52.46%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
S Simon
J Costello
W Enyart
IA-03: D Young (R) 52.73%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
S Pederson (also in line for easier statewide goals)
M Mauro
NY-21: E Stefanik (R) 53.16%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
S Murphy
W Owens
NY-01: L Zeldin (R) 53.63%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M Forbes
T Bishop
MI-08: M Bishop (R) 54.60%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
R Carr
NJ-05: S Garrett (R) 55.70%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
S Rothman
MN-02: J Kline (R) 56.04%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M Hatch
C Johnson
VA-10: B Comstock (R) 56.49%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
A Herman ??
WI-06: G Grothman (R) 56.76%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
P Lautenschlager
MI-03: J Amash (R) 57.91%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M Schauer (also in line for easier statewide goals)
CO-03: S Tipton (R) 57.98%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
R Kogovsek
VA-02: S Rigell (R) 58.68%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
G Nye
VA-05: R Hurt (R) 60.86%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
T Perriello
L Payne
WA-03: J Herrera Beutler (R) 61.53%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
J Erickson ??
MN-03: E Paulsen (R) 62.12%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
J Dutcher
W Luther
WI-01: P Ryan (R) 63.27%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
P Barca (also in line for easier statewide goals)
OH-14: D Joyce (R) 63.33%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
D Eckart
NM-02: S Pearce (R) 64.43%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
G King
H Teague
maybe someone else
WI-08: R Ribble (R) 65.01%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
S Kagen
OH-10: M Turner (R) 65.39%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
P Leonard ??
NV-02: M Amodei (R) 65.73%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
K Marshall (also in line for easier statewide goals)
F DelPapa (also in line for easier statewide goals)
IL-06: P Roskam (R) 67.14%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M Bean
NY-22: R Hanna (R) 74.32%
Recruitment options of higher profile:
M Arcuri
Until 30 of the 57 seats of this group have high profile options, that can make competitive some races totally unchallenged in the last cycle. I think there are very interesting options in order to make these races competitive, and even in order to win.
Also there are more seats of this group that even without persons of as high profile can be competitive like MI-07, NJ-03, MI-06, MI-11, CA-10...
I think there is some room for a hope, working the right seats and if the recruitment proces goes by the right way. Looking at the bench of high profile options, I think there is room to recover some loses with the obvious rematchs and to do far better than with the bench of low profile challengers of 2014.
Note: Some people that can be in line for higher level races (senate or gubernatorial races) in their home states has not been included. Also people under scandals or with illness that affected in a bad way their work at the time they were in office (like P Kennedy for NJ-02) has not been included.
The diary has been updated to include the effect of the resignation of M Grimm in NY-11 and the retirement of C Gibson in NY-19.