Why are some Democrats cautiously starting to believe the House might actually be in play this cycle? Because Republicans are acting legitimately spooked. It wasn’t that long ago that almost any analyst—myself included—would have said Democrats had virtually no shot at winning back a majority in the House, but now we’re seeing headlines like this one from the Washington Post:
Could Republicans lose their majority in the House thanks to Donald Trump? Paul Ryan isn’t ruling it out.
And this is not just Ryan hedging his bets. On Thursday, more than 70 prominent Republicans, including former senators, congressmen, and party officials, sent a remarkable open letter to Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus begging him to cut Trump loose so as to save the GOP downballot:
“We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck.”
The problem for us, though, is that a lot of major Republican donors are already heeding this advice, regardless of what Reince does, pouring money at record levels into House and Senate races. While a Hillary Clinton victory is by no means assured, it would be an enormous tragedy if Trump went down to a humiliating defeat but Democrats couldn't capitalize further because Republicans made a successful strategic retreat to their congressional “firewall.”
So let's give our side the tools they need to toss Republicans that bright orange anchor, shall we? Daily Kos has already endorsed one slate of House candidates, and now we’re excited to announce a second group—all of whom, once again, are targeting GOP-held seats:
● Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau, the first American Indian woman ever to hold statewide office in Montana, running for her state’s lone at-large congressional district
● Iraq veteran Doug Applegate, who stunned the political world when he held the repugnant Darrell Issa to just a 5-point margin in June’s top-two primary, running in California’s 49th Congressional District
● Prosecutor Suzanna Shkreli, a first-generation American who has fought to protect children from sexual abuse and violence, running in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District
● Public interest attorney Emilio Huerta, running in California’s 21st Congressional District, which is 74 percent Latino but represented by a Republican
● Human rights advocate Christina Hartman, who has fought to promote democracy everywhere from South Africa to Afghanistan, running in Pennsylvania’s open 16th Congressional District
As we noted last time, these are longer-shot races, but they’re the kind of seats that could, if things go right, help return us to a majority. And what do we need to go right? We need Donald Trump to continue turning off voters, and we need to make sure these candidates have the resources they need to compete. The former (fingers crossed) is going according to plan; the latter is a lot tougher. But tough is exactly what we do at Daily Kos, and these are all contests where our money will go a long way.
We don’t want to find ourselves staring at one another on Nov. 9, wondering how the GOP’s congressional majorities survived a Trumpocalypse. Fortunately, there’s something we can do about it.
Please give $2 to each of these five candidates so that we can turn Congress blue once again.