Last week I flagged the necessity of attempting to take the U.S. House of Representatives. Today I will do what I can to spotlight those candidates who might make it possible. For a baseline of conventional wisdom on House races, I use the Cook Political Reports House handicapping. cookpolitical.com/... It isn’t perfect, but it expresses the general sense of where things seem to stand. Cook lists 42 seats in which Democrats have a chance of beating a Republican incumbent. Cook also notes one Democrat incumbent who faces a near certain loss.
Because Democrats need 30 seats to gain control, it’s way too dangerous to plan to compete for just 40 seats. We need to expand the map to at least another 20 seats so that we can be playing for 60 seats, which would require taking half rather three-quarters of competitive seats. I am focusing on the Republican seats in districts that are more Democratic than seats held by the Democrats in the most Republican districts, as measured by the 2012 election results. Colin Petersen’s seat in the Minnesota 7th is the cutoff. He is a Democrat who holds a seat in a district in which Obama received only 44%. This is terrain on which we can win. Even in the disastrous 2014 wave, we picked up two seats, the Florida 2nd and the Nebraska 2nd, in districts where Obama received almost 47% of the vote.
To add another 20 seats to the 42 we’ve already targeted, we need to take a look at the 43 seats that Cook has rated as safe for Republicans. I am tracking all of them.
Today, I want to focus on six such races that should be upgraded for more resources and effort. In particular, I am calling for these races to be added to the Kos Elections House Board. These six should make the board based on the strength of their campaigns or because the candidates are previous officeholders. We in the progressive community should be assuming we can ride the wave of Republican division and discontent to successes than we had not anticipated. It starts with these six races ordered by my preferences.
1.Michigan 6th
Obama 2012: 48.8%
Republican Incumbent: Fred Upton
Our Candidate: Paul Clements
clementsforcongress.com
2.Virginia 5th
Obama 2012 45.9%
Republican Incumbent: Open Seat
Our Candidate: Jane Ditmar
janeforcongress.com
3.California 39th
Obama 2012: 47.1%
Republican Incumbent: Ed Royce
Our Candidate: Brett Murdock
brettmurdock.com
4.New York 2nd
Obama 2012: 51.6%
Republican Incumbent: Peter King
Our Candidate: Duwayne Gregory
http://duwaynegregory.com/
5.New Mexico 2nd
Obama 20: 2012 44.9%
Republican Incumbent: Steve Pearce
Our Candidate: Marie Lee Soules
soulesuscongress.com
6.Pennsylvania 11th
Obama 2012: 44.5%
Republican Incumbent: Lou Barletta
Our Candidate: Michael Marsicano
marsicano.us