There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing one of those Republican Congressmen who just opted to coddle and fellate the nation’s multi-millionaires at the expense of all the rest of us gleefully running without any Democratic challenger to his (or her) House seat. Fortunately, and as reported today in the New York Times, this year that is not going to happen:
Federal Election Commission filings show that if a wave crashes on the Republican House majority in November, as many have predicted, Democratic surfers will be on their boards to catch it. Nearly a year out from the election, Democratic candidates have filed in all but 20 House districts held by Republicans. By comparison, Democrats in 80 districts do not have a Republican opponent for their seat.
The Times article cites the experience of Republican Pete Sessions (R-TX) who won election in Dallas despite the fact that Hillary Clinton carried his district. He won because there was no Democratic challenger on the ballot. This year he has ten challengers vying for the chance to send him packing.
in 2018 Democrats are running not just in traditionally competitive districts, but buoyed by extraordinarily strong Democratic performance and unusually strong fundraising in virtually every special election held since the Trump Administration slithered into the Oval Office, they are running practically everywhere:
The Democrats are not just filing to run in districts where Mrs. Clinton performed well. They are also running for conservative seats that were uncontested in 2016 and where Republicans remain heavy favorites, in states like Texas, Arkansas and Nebraska.
Simply having the candidates running, of course, is not going to assure that they win, even with an especially irate and energized Democratic base eager to take out their fury on Donald Trump. The Republicans do not have a small donor base of the type that fueled the campaigns of Jon Ossoff in Georgia and and Doug Jones in Alabama. Instead they have a few Billionaire donors who coldly and secretively dispense their largesse in million dollar increments thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court that equates dumping vast sums of money to distort our elections with the exercise of “free speech.”
And many of these races will simply end in losing efforts—that’s reality. But the fact that we already have a candidate—and in many cases, multiple candidates-- poised for nearly every House contest in the country is an ominous sign for the Republican Party, as is the fact that the GOP can’t seem to muster many Republicans prepared to challenge a Democrat. Sara Dady, one of five Democrats running to unseat Adam Kinzinger in Illionois’ 16th District (Kinzinger ran opposed in 2016), typifies the thinking that is driving this surge of Democrats entering the fray:
“I started seeing changes to U.S. policy that concern me,” said Sara Dady, one of the candidates. “I’ve been practicing immigration law under three administrations. I have a client who has a green card. He did everything right. He was denied boarding. To me that is not the America I know and love.”
Trump and his Republican enablers provide new reasons on a daily basis for Americans who actually care about this country to be both enraged and inspired to do something about it. As we have just seen, the GOP-controlled Congress will continue to work to harm Americans until it is kneecapped by the voting public.
All of us will have the opportunity to do that in eleven months. Donating here is one good way to start.