Democrats continue to expand the playing field in next year's House elections, and their latest notable recruit, personal injury attorney David Shapiro, comes in a district that so far hadn't popped up on many radar screens. It's easy to see why: Florida's 16th Congressional District, located on the state's Gulf coast and centered around Sarasota, has been represented by Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan for over a decade and went for Donald Trump by a 53-43 margin.
But Shapiro runs a prominent law practice that has advertised on local TV for years, making him the rare non-politician to start a race with a measure of name recognition. And while it's not clear whether he's rich enough to self-fund, he's definitely well-off, and he undoubtedly knows plenty of other trial lawyers—a community with many well-to-do practitioners who strongly support Democrats. Shapiro also has some electoral experience: In 2006, he lost a race in a very red state House district by just 1 point. He now says "the sting of that tight loss finally wore off" and that he's ready to run for office again.
Still, he's taking on a meaty target. In addition to representing a very Republican seat, Buchanan is also one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with an eye-popping net worth of $115 million, so he can definitely self-fund if he feels the need to. Democrats also tried seriously challenging him back in 2012, but he still prevailed over state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald 54-46.
This seat could be winnable under the right circumstances, though. Back in 2006, when its predecessor (then numbered the 13th) came open, Buchanan only beat Democrat Christine Jennings by an incredibly narrow 369 votes, a margin of just 0.15 percent. And Buchanan may only have won that race thanks to a massive undervote in the most Democratic part of the district, possibly due to a poorly designed ballot on electronic voting machines that lacked any paper trail. An open seat is a different beast, of course, but those results suggest Buchanan could be vulnerable.