Many Republicans like North Carolina Rep. Ted Budd who represent once GOP-friendly suburban districts are starting to sweat about the midterms. His Democratic challenger, Kathy Manning, has already out raised Budd $1.3 million to $832,690. In 2016, Democrats didn't even clear raising $100,000 for the seat. And for Budd, a Freedom Caucus member, that means trying to sound like a reasonable but independent thinker who's bucked party on some issues. His predicament is just one of many, writes the Washington Post:
Across the country, dozens of House Republicans who previously coasted to victory are for the first time facing credible and well-financed Democratic opponents — and working furiously to find a strategy for survival.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) delivered a stern message last month to the rank and file after a surprisingly narrow special election win in a reliably Republican Arizona district: Wake up, because Democrats are motivated. [...]
Budd’s district, which stretches from Democratic-leaning Greensboro to the northern suburbs of Charlotte, backed Trump by 9 percentage points. [...] Budd, 46, who’s backed by the conservative Club for Growth and won his first term in 2016 by promising to “turn Washington, D.C., inside out,” is pitching himself as a hard-working outsider.
He is also talking about the benefits of bipartisanship, though he is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which often pressures the party’s leadership to maintain ideological purity on many issues.
Ha! A Freedom Caucus member claiming the mantle of bipartisanship—nothing's more desperate or hypocritical than that.
But Budd's one of the lucky ones—he has no primary challenge to contend with. Others will be forced to run right to fend off a GOP primary challenger and then, if they survive, move back to the center to keep formerly reliable GOP voters in their districts from defecting.
And if GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger, also of North Carolina, is any guide, they'll be attacking their Democratic opponents as being aligned with billionaire's George Soros, Tom Steyer and the dreaded leftists Antifa groups.
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