House Democrats release list of 22 targets for midterms

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

House Democrats on Tuesday released a list of 22 seats they plan to target in the 2022 midterm elections, largely in the suburbs where the party gained ground during Donald Trump’s presidency.

“Every Republican member on this battlefield voted against putting money in people’s pockets and getting shots into people’s arms,” said Rep. Sean Maloney (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “They are on the wrong side of the most important issues.”

The list is less ambitious than the party’s targets at the start of the 2020 cycle, when Democrats hoped to make deeper inroads with college-educated White voters. The party lost 10 seats in November: California’s 21st, 25th, 39th and 48th districts, Florida’s 26th and 27th districts, Iowa’s 1st and 2nd districts, New York’s 22nd District and Utah’s 4th District. One district, Arizona’s 2nd, is now held by a Democrat who is retiring next year.

Some redder seats flipped by Republicans last year — in Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Oklahoma — did not make the DCCC’s initial list. Eleven of the districts were carried by Biden, and all but three — the two South Florida seats and Texas’s majority-Latino 23rd District — grew more Democratic from 2016 to 2020. Across the initial map, said Maloney, Democrats could run on the party’s agenda so far against Republicans who have voted against it.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/06/joe-biden-live-updates/#link-65ZNAE5KSFF3LGPELOKORL6SNY

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Just an observation: none of these races are in safe Blue seats where OR and JD can get a "real Democrat" elected.

DCCC 2021-2022 Districts In Play

AZ-02 (open)
AZ-06
CA-21
CA-25
CA-39
CA-48
FL-26
FL-27
IA-01
IA-02
IN-05
MO-02
NE-02
NY-02
NY-22
NY-24
OH-01
PA-01
PA-10
TX-23
TX-24
UT-04

[Freddie]

1. PA-01

Why people keep voting for Lyin’ Brian (and keep getting fooled by his “moderate” BS) is beyond me. Now that he’s shown his true colors by voting in lockstep with the party against the For the People Act...it’s frustrating that no matter what he keeps getting re-elected in this purple-blue district.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. 50 years of Fitz in county politics

That's why they keep electing them.

[Deminpenn]

18. +1

Both Fitzpatricks served as Bucks Co commissioners, a job that is generally done in a non-partisan manner. There's no red or blue trash collection, snow-plowing and other mundane services that actually affect residents.

[jimfields33]

4. Redistricting might get rid of this problem as well as the 21 on the list.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. The state Supreme Court already redrew the gerrymandered lines in 2018

so that we were able to go from 13 (R) - 5 (D) to 9 (R) - 9 (D). At this point, I would hate to mess too much with that or we'll be right back into the minority unless we hold Wolf (or get a follow-on D governor) in there long enough to override any attempt to screw with it and keep the General Assembly from gaining a super majority (which they currently don't have at the moment) so they could override a veto .

We just need to do a door-to-door in Bucks County to get the Democrats out in the little cities like Bristol, Bensalem, Warminister, and Warrington, etc.

2021 Voter Registration Statistics

As of January 22, 2021:

Democrat - 208,535
Republican - 197,557
Others - 81,534

Total - 487,626
Number of Districts - 304
Number of Municipalities - 54

https://www.buckscounty.org/government/administration/ChiefClerk/BoardofElections/VoterCounts

[Deminpenn]

19. Those Dems in Bristol and Bensalem are conservatives

They just haven't changed their registration. Lots of them grew up in the Phila River Wards and moved up to lower Bucks, just inside the county line.

[BumRushDaShow]

21. Right

A lot of the cops moved there.

However there has been an interesting trend in the state (with news articles here about it and about the same thing happening nationally) regarding the sudden reversal of the trend of party switches to GOP and moves either to Independent ("Unaffiliated" ) or to Democrats. So every once in awhile, I go to the state's Voter Registration site here - https://www.dos.pa.gov/VotingElections/OtherServicesEvents/VotingElectionStatistics/Pages/VotingElectionStatistics.aspx and download the spreadsheet to review the tabs for party switches.

I miss being able to do tables on DU but to transcribe from the spreadsheet -

COUNTY: BUCKS

Week of 03/29 to 04/05

R To Democratic: 22
OTH To Democratic: 12

D To Republican: 21
OTH To Republican: 12

Yearly Total 2021 (to date)

R To Democratic: 948
OTH Democratic: 207

D to Republican: 429
OTH to Republican: 244

So even with the a near net zero for either party's move to Independent, there is a distinct shift from the GOP to Democrats in Bucks County alone for 2021.

And when you look at the totals across the state you have this -

COUNTY: ALL

Yearly Total 2021 (Yearly Total 2020) (to date)

R To Democratic: 16,178 (10/21/20 - 43,324)
OTH To Democratic: : 4,457 (10/21/20 - 51,396)

D To Republican: 8,775 (10/21/20 - 67,747)
OTH To Republican: 4,190 (10/21/20 - 29,943)

And as for total registrations regardless of parties you have (in comparison to the last spreadsheet I downloaded in October 2020) -

Count of Democratic Voters - 4,078,341 (10/21/20 - 4,207,190)
Count of Republican Voters - 3,447,590 (10/21/20 - 3,506,337)
Count of No Affiliation Voters - 892,931 (10/21/20 - 895,550)
Count of all Other Voters* - 392,171 (10/21/20 - 407,086)
Total Count of All Voters - 8,811,033 (10/21/20 - 9,016,163)

*(am assuming this means Libertarian, Green, Constitution, etc)

So you are seeing a reversal in the GOP upwards registration trend, resulting in gains for Independents/3rd parties, and a distinct uptick in switches to Democrats. But with that comes overall losses by both major parties to that "Unaffiliated"/3rd party category.

I'm not sure if there was a voter purge that went on since there is currently a net 200K dropped from the total rolls as of this latest report for yearly totals (vs the Oct. 2020 totals).

The thing about this trend brings up an issue at primary time since Independents can't vote in a primary and the 3rd parties have to jump through some hoops to get on the primary ballot, being smaller organizations than the major parties.

[Deminpenn]

22. Independents can vote in the primary,

they just can't vote for D/R candidates. But they can vote on non-partisan issues like ballot questions. I know it's been tabled, but Is could have voted on the ballot question on electing judges by district rather than statewide.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. I think the more "correct" way to put it is

that PA is not an "open primary" state.

[Deminpenn]

29. Durin my time as a judge of elections,

a couple Is did come to our poll during the primary and voted on the ballot questions.

[Deminpenn]

23. Since you've got the data, how does Lancaster county look?

York, too? I'm thinking Dems might have a better shot at PA-11, than PA-10.

[BumRushDaShow]

26. Checking now and Lancaster Co seems to be showing the same sort of shift

(Edits to add the Oct. 2020 data in parens)

COUNTY: LANCASTER

Week of 03/29 to 04/05

R To Democratic: 14 (26)
OTH To Democratic: 6 (42)

D To Republican: 10 (33)
OTH To Republican: 12 (32)

Yearly Total 2021 (to date)

R To Democratic: 737 (2,037)
OTH Democratic: 153 (2,017)

D to Republican: 159 (1,534)
OTH to Republican: 154 (1,407)

============
(ETA York's data)
============

COUNTY:YORK

Week of 03/29 to 04/05

R To Democratic: 19 (17)
OTH To Democratic: 10 (23)

D To Republican: 10 (70)
OTH To Republican: 12 (51)

Yearly Total 2021 (to date)

R To Democratic: 640 (1,436)
OTH Democratic: 189 (1,389)

D to Republican: 437 (2,108)
OTH to Republican: 288 (1,425)


I never understood the draw to PA-10 (I was on DePasquale's mailing list and I will admit that he and his team were really engaged at communicating and soliciting). I think he was hoping for a miracle due to "name recognition" since he had previously won state-wide position. He didn't do too badly (did much better than Hammond).

Since Chester County went purple (PA-6), PA-11 definitely would be a better one to go with (particularly given the "forgotten" issues of Smucker and Ghouliani's buddies). Democrats would need to find a strong candidate in there - I would preferably like to see someone who might be a politically-engaged center-left "populist" farm-owner who can relate...

[Deminpenn]

28. Mike Sturla

fits that bill, but I think he's happy in the state house.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. That district used to be PA-8 before the court renumbered it & had Patrick Murphy (D) in that seat

for a couple terms (back during the 2006 Democratic takeover of the House after 12 years being out of power). Murphy was re-elected in 2008 but unfortunately got swept out in the 2010 massacre.

And also remember that Brian replaced his brother Mike Fitzpatrick, in that seat. Brian only took over in 2016 thanks to "name recognition".

[leftieNanner]

2. Wish my district was on this list

OR-2

Greg Walden retired - and his replacement is worse.

I'm in a tiny blue island in a sea of red. Nice big blue state, however.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. I doubt this is a serious or actual strategy list

They're calling it initial. It's an across the bow reminder to Republicans what they're up against. Republicans if they buy this think we're running a short list next year. Ha! Disinformation is part and parcel of politics. Rep. Maloney is good at his game.

[ColinC]

6. I mean they have the right, obvious strategy.

Target congress people who voted against one of the most popular pieces of legislation in recent times.

[FBaggins]

15. It's probably just to influence GOP behavior

Could be a few seats on there that Republicans waste redistricting efforts shoring up - thinking they need some extra wiggle room.

It's probably also a messaging effort to head off stories of "how many seats will they lose" (since that's the default story for first midterm elections).

[PortTack]

9. Thx for posting! Bookmarking for future donation reference

[Miguelito Loveless]

10. We should be "targeting"

ALL Republicans, ALL 50 states, ALL government levels.

[brooklynite]

11. How much will you be contributing?

The DCCC (and its contributors) have finite resources. They need to prioritize races that are realistic.

Question: How much money did the Koch Brothers contribute to defeat Nancy Pelosi in her House seat? Answer: none. Instead, they focused on vulnerable Democrats in an effort to get rid of her majority.

[Miguelito Loveless]

16. As I recall Dean got great results with the 50 state strategy

[brooklynite]

17. No, you don't...

The 50-State Strategy was about Party building, not candidate funding. There were still priorities in terms of which House and Senate seats were worth supporting.

[dsc]

12. sadly no seat from my state is on there

and that is no surprise. At least we are 8/5 split post the court ordered redrawing. I hope we at least hold the state supreme court here so that the legislature doesn't get a completely free hand in drawing the lines. Last time they were able to draw a 10/3 split that held even when we won the two party vote for Congress. NC gains one more seat this time according to most estimates.

[ancianita]

13. I just looked at this list on the DCCC site. Why is their list different from the OP's?

Last edited Tue Apr 6, 2021, 08:56 PM - Edit history (1)

When I look up the OP's list, I find AZ Dist 2 and Dist 6 on govtrack.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/AZ/2

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/AZ/2



Yet the frontline member the DCCC lists is Tom O'Halleran AZ-01, the only one from AZ.

2022 Frontline Members
Frontline is the DCCC’s battle-tested program to ensure Democratic Members of Congress from the most competitive seats have both the resources and cutting-edge information they need to execute effective reelection campaigns. This cycle, our Majority hinges on winning these tough Frontline races. These Members need your help to get across the finish line in November 2022.

This page lists 32 tough fights.

https://frontline.dccc.org




I just don't understand the difference from the DCCC site; if the list I found on The Hill's report is the latest updated list to replace the site list, and not an addition, looks like House Dems have to update their own site.

EDIT: Just called the DCCC and left a message, asking them to explain the disparity between their site list and the WaPo list.

[appmanga]

14. If I can't afford to give to anyone else...

...I will scratch and scrape to give whatever I can to Katie Porter. She is a fighter to the core. This is the person who should be replacing Dianne Feinstein, who has slept with the enemy once too often for my tastes. Her praise for Lindsey Graham almost made me ill. A Senate with Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter will give a lot of people in power a lot of restless nights. Until then, she can count on me to help her stay in the House.

[Deminpenn]

20. PA-10

I'm a little surprised because Perry won pretty convincingly over DePasquale who had been a state rep, then served 2 terms as Aud General.

If I were Maloney/DCCC, I might be more tempted to take a shot at PA-11 as Lancaster County is on the same path as its neighbor, Chester County.

[jmowreader]

25. I'd like to see GA-14 and CO-3 on that list

These are held by Qanon insurrectionists. Sending Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Boebert back where they came from if they don’t get expelled needs to be a priority.

[myccrider]

27. Good, they're going to expend the effort to flip my district back...CA-39. Go Blue! n/t