2018 Congressional Recruitment/Fundraising/Ratings Megathread

[Landslide Lyndon]

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One could hope that trend continues until Democrats have 6% and Republicans have 0%.

I think we found that Alabama "progressive" who won't vote for Jones because he is insufficiently liberal.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Dems outraised the GOP throughout the 2000's? What?

2000 was a very good election for congressional Democrats.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Yikes. Dem internal poll has Ed Royce in CA-39 up 48-44. https://www.scribd.com/document/367450908/CA-39-Tulchin-Research-for-Gil-Cisneros-Nov-2017

Throws some cold water on the hopes of a California sweep.

It's been clear for a while that Royce is in a much better position than Issa/Rohrabacher.

I believe that if Democrats can't win his district, they're not winning back the house. It went to Clinton by 8.5 points, the most out of any of those OC districts.

And I believe you're an annoying troll who takes advantage of the fact that the moderators of this forum are too nice, otherwise they would have sent you where you came from.
If you want to be a good troll at least learn some basic things about how politics work.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Interesting. New Mclaughlin poll has Democrats narrowly leading the generic ballot 45-44.

http://mclaughlinonline.com/2017/12/20/december-national-survey-results/

For anyone not knowing who these clowns are, they are the polling company that showed Cantor crushing Bratt by 40 in the primary a few days before he lost by 20.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I conducted a similar "experiment" where Democrats sweep every seat that R+5 and lower.
In that case they pick up 48 seats.

[Landslide Lyndon]

We can't really know if Republicans overperform their numbers because two Republican president midterms are missing from this chart: 1990 and 2002. The data are insufficient to reach such a conclusion.

[Landslide Lyndon]

A tax reform bump wouldn't hit until it goes into effect in 2019...just in time for 2020.

But the premium increases will hit next year, just in time for the 2018 midterms.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Cuomo didn't have a credible candidate in 2014 either and he managed to take only 51% of the vote.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Cuomo didn't have a credible candidate in 2014 either and he managed to take only 51% of the vote.

That was because he signed the SAFE act which pissed off upstate and it was a GOP wave year

I think that it had more to do with non-existent Democratic enthusiasm (something evident from his underwhelming primary win) than anything else.

[Landslide Lyndon]

the generic ballot is tighening, according to 538. I expected some reversion to the mean, but how far will it go? Last year reversion-to-the-mean type tightenings ended with around D+8. Will D+12 (where it is now) or D+10 be the new normal?

It's tightening for the same reason Trump's numbers improved: holidays.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Trump is approving offshore drilling in Florida and local R's are freaking out this will cause a massive backlash in 2018 https://www.politico.com/amp/story/2018/01/04/trump-drilling-coasts-pacific-atlantic-florida-324025?lo=ap_e1&__twitter_impression=true

South Florida and Orange county congressmen must be thrilled. That will certainly dampen Democratic enthusiasm.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Reminder: Republicans were barely ahead of Democrats at the generic ballot in January 2010.
And Democrats reclaimed their lead the following summer.
We all know how that movie ended.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Trump's base also may be less likely to turn out though(and minorities turned out in Alabama).
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2018-could-be-the-year-of-the-angry-white-college-graduate/

May be. But i don't think that Alabama is good example. Republicans will NOT have Roy Moore in every state. Most likely - they will not have even one "Roy Moore" among their candidates. He is unique. Only he could lose a Senate seat in Alabama for Republicans. Mad dog with "R" after name could win it.

And Democrats didn't have Martha Coakley in every state in 2010.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Trump's base also may be less likely to turn out though(and minorities turned out in Alabama).
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2018-could-be-the-year-of-the-angry-white-college-graduate/

May be. But i don't think that Alabama is good example. Republicans will NOT have Roy Moore in every state. Most likely - they will not have even one "Roy Moore" among their candidates. He is unique. Only he could lose a Senate seat in Alabama for Republicans. Mad dog with "R" after name could win it.

And Democrats didn't have Martha Coakley in every state in 2010.

Coakley is simply bad politician. That happens. Moore is absolutely unique.

They also had Ed Gillespie in Virginia and he suffered the biggest Republican loss in 30 years.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Coakley is simply bad politician. That happens. Moore is absolutely unique.

Republicans have the biggest Roy Moore of them all at the top of their ticket, even if he's not literally on the ballot.

We will see. IF he will be as bad as Roy Moore was (so far - close, but - not yet), and IF Democrats will be able to nationalize all races - then, may be...

There is no if. After 2006 all midterms have been nationalized.
It's the norm in the era of internet.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Couldn't find a FL thread to post this, and relates to recruitment but.... Possible sign that Rick Scott isn't 100% behind running.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/new-alarm-among-republicans-that-democrats-could-win-big-this-year/2018/01/13/9be31acc-f8a8-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html?utm_term=.9665e350a0b2

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The stupid offshore drilling shenanigan was clearly the White House pushing Scott. I still maintain that Rubio won't run again in 2022 and if Scott wants an easy, cheap seat, he should go for that.

Rubio will run again, and Scott will be forgotten by then and someone’s new will draw attention. It’s now or never for him.

Rubio himself said last year that he has no fun as senator and I don't think that has changed for the better under Trump's administration. He will probably retire in 2022 to focus on his presidential run.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The generic advantage tends to go down as election day comes closer and closer (2006 as an example).

No.

[Landslide Lyndon]

The generic advantage tends to go down as election day comes closer and closer (2006 as an example).

No.

Hasn't it, though, at least for Democrats? I seem to remember gaudy Democratic margins that get trimmed as some Republicans come home in the end.

They underperform some times but that's different from saying that the GCB tightens as we come closer to election day.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Friendly reminder that Democrats need to win the generic ballot by upper single digits to even think about flipping the House. 8-9 points is good, but dangerously close to the threshold most analysts are using

Harry Enten and Dave Wasserman think there's a very good chance it could be as low a threshold as 4-5.

I think it's Abramowitz who thinks it could be this low. The other two believe it will be a bit higher (7-8).

[Landslide Lyndon]

It’s so obvious the Democratic generic ballot lead is collapsing, at this rate Republicans could have a 1-2 point generic ballot lead by November. The biggest problem for Democrats is that when the Dow Jones is hitting records every day (it’s going to be 30,000 by the midterms), and the GDP is growing at 3% every quarter people don’t feel compelled to throw the Incumbent party out of Congress.

Oh really? Tell that to Senator-elect Jarchow.

Seriously Lear, we are sick of this. Enough with your bullsh**t.

The Ignore button is your friend.

If only some people stopped quoting him and forcing us to read his inanities.

[Landslide Lyndon]

First Wisconsin I believe was actually had fairly high turnout from what I hear.

No.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I'd be surprised if Ryan didn't run for re-election, but I don't think it's improbable. The seat would be vulnerable if the two recent Wisconsin specials are anything to go by. The filing deadline in June 1st.

Would be nice to get a high-profile challenger that's not Randy Bryce.

Why? He's raising solid numbers and I - unless I'm mistaken - has the support of local Democratic politicians as well.

He wasn't paying child support until he filed to run.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/

Big piece in The Intercept hightling how the DCCC and Dem establishment groups are once again choosing terrible centrist candidates over good ones because they can fundraise better. Essentially the same stuff they did in 2006 that gave them an unworkable majority filled with business-friendly moderates that got decimated in 2010.

PA-16, MN-02, AZ-02, NV-03, TX-07, TX-21, and VA-02 are amomg those mentioned in the story. The PA-16 example is particularly egregious because 1] The left-leaning candidate is outraising the DCCC's choice, 2]The DCCC's choice spent record breaking amounts of money in 2016 to end up not ony underperforming Clinton but the 2014 D candidate.

Yeah, it's a pity that DCCC won't support stellar candidates like Tim Canova, Zephyr Teachout and Vincent Fort.

[Landslide Lyndon]

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/

Big piece in The Intercept hightling how the DCCC and Dem establishment groups are once again choosing terrible centrist candidates over good ones because they can fundraise better. Essentially the same stuff they did in 2006 that gave them an unworkable majority filled with business-friendly moderates that got decimated in 2010.

PA-16, MN-02, AZ-02, NV-03, TX-07, TX-21, and VA-02 are amomg those mentioned in the story. The PA-16 example is particularly egregious because 1] The left-leaning candidate is outraising the DCCC's choice, 2]The DCCC's choice spent record breaking amounts of money in 2016 to end up not ony underperforming Clinton but the 2014 D candidate.

Yeah, it's a pity that DCCC won't support stellar candidates like Tim Canova, Zephyr Teachout and Vincent Fort.

Spending a billion dollars so Hillary could lose to a clown in orange face was money well spent

Must be news to every political reporter that DCCC spent money to elect Hillary Clinton.

[Landslide Lyndon]

People seriously underestimate how much of an issue Kirkpatrick's carpetbagging really is. She has no appeal at all in Tucson and surrounding AZ-02, which is a wildly different district from AZ-01. Matiella is a local and she's a veteran, two things that the district should just love, on top of having a proven record of government service.

Sorry but I can't trust you. You are the same guys who sat out and grumbled about how Northam will lose because he was too conservative and not exciting enough for the base.
For all I know Kirkpatrick's carpetbagging is a thing only among Sandernistas and Justice Democrats.