As the coronavirus pandemic halts candidate’s fundraising, and the results of the California jungle primary become finalized, I am amending my ratings in 17 congressional districts.
District | Old Rating | New Rating |
AZ-1 (O’Halleran, D) | Lean D | Likely D |
CA-21 (Cox, D) | Lean D | Toss-Up |
CA-22 (Nunes, R) | Likely R | Safe R |
CA-25 (OPEN, D) | Lean D | Toss-Up |
CA-49 (Levin, D) | Likely D | Safe D |
IL-14 (Underwood, D) | Toss-Up | Lean D |
NC-9 (Bishop, R) | Lean R | Likely R |
NE-2 (Bacon, R) | Toss-Up | Lean R |
NJ-11 (Sherill, D) | Likely D | Safe D |
NY-19 (Delgado, D) | Lean D | Likely D |
OH-13 (Ryan, D) | Likely D | Safe D |
OH-14 (Joyce, R) | Likely R | Safe R |
PA-16 (Kelly, R) | Likely R | Safe R |
TX-22 (OPEN, R) | Toss-Up | Lean R |
UT-4 (McAdams, D) | Toss-Up | Lean D |
WA-8 (Schrier, D) | Lean D | Likely D |
WI-5 (Steil, R) | Likely R | Safe R |
District | Old Rating | New Rating |
Coronavirus Halts Fundraising
When one wants to go about running against an incumbent congressman in a district that favors the incumbent’s party politically, one must raise a good amount of money if he or she is to actually get anywhere. He or she must create a campaign machine that can compete with the incumbent’s when it comes to voter outreach and getting the word of your campaign out. One of the many things coronavirus has impacted is fundraising. It’s more than a bit tricky to get people out to fundraisers when people are scared they’ll get themselves and other sick if they don’t follow social distancing and sanitation guidelines to a tee. This is assuming gatherings are even legal in a given area.
The lion’s share of these ratings changes are from districts that are competitive in turns of partisanship, but it’s just so that one side has raised little to no money thus far, and obviously won’t be able to now.
Failures by Democratic candidates to raise meaningful amounts of money have moved NC-9 to Likely Republican, and OH-14, PA-16, and WI-5 to Safe Republican.
Similar failures by Republicans have pushed UT-4 to Lean Democratic, NY-19 and WA-8 to Likely Democratic, and NJ-11 and OH-13 to Safe Democratic. UT-4 in particular is looking like a missed opportunity for Republicans. The party’s preferred candidate in this race dropped out unexpectedly late last year, leaving the Republican candidates here underfunded. Not only did the district vote for Trump by 9 points with, may I add, the presence of a third-party candidate that siphoned votes away from him, it also voted for Romney by a draw-dropping 37 points. McAdams is just too well-liked and Republicans too unenthusiastic to justify keeping this race in Toss-Up. Utah arguably has the highest percentage of never-Trump Republicans of any state.
If both sides are bleeding pickup opportunities, why do I say coronavirus is taking away Republican’s chances of flipping the House? Republicans need to put new districts on the table much more than they need to defend their own. Part of the Republican plan is nominating competent, intelligent, and locally relatable candidates in Lean Democratic districts that can get real support outside the Republican base and make Toss-Up districts of Lean/Likely Democratic ones. While there have certainly been a few Republican success stories which I’ll get to later, it isn’t happening in enough districts. In Leans Democratic districts now, good Republican fundraising is far from uniform. It’s unlikely candidates are likely to suddenly improve now with the coronavirus pandemic. The NRCC failed to make the magic happen with recruiting good candidates. They have to work with the people they got, and for that reason, I’m shifting the overall House rating from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic.
“The People They’ve Got”
In AZ-1, which I’m moving from Lean to Likely Democrat, money isn’t the problem for Republicans, it’s the divisiveness of their candidate, Tiffany Shedd. She’s definitely campaigning as a decidedly right-wing, tough on immigration, minion of Trump. Shedd’s campaign style won’t contrast well with the easygoing, Blue Dog O’Halleran in this nearly majority-minority swing district.
A weak Republican candidate is also the cause for my change in IL-14 from Toss-Up to Lean Democrat. The Republican candidate Jim Oberweis’ problem isn’t money, he has plenty from his business ventures, it’s his legacy of failure. He’s run for office 6 times before, most of them under very winnable circumstances, but has only won once. He’s also tied himself closely to Trump, which is problematic in this suburban Chicago district. Suburbs all around the country are beginning to resemble more closely the city that anchors them, and there are few cases where this is more true than Chicagoland, where Democrats won elections all across the metro area in 2018 to seats no one thought they’d ever win. At the beginning of the cycle, I worried incumbent Lauren Underwood, who was a nurse with no political experience beforehand, was too much of a single-issue politician when it came to healthcare. But she’s proven to be one of the most skilled and versatile congress freshmen. And besides, as we’ve seen in the Democrat primary, healthcare is a big issue for voters.
The Republican Silver Lining
What Republicans can take comfort in is that while they aren’t experiencing robust fundraising success, Democrats aren’t exactly having it either. Remember this time two years ago, incumbent Republicans all over the place were being outraised by Democratic challengers. While there are definitely incumbent Republicans being outraised, they are much fewer and far between than in 2018. In fact, several Democratic incumbents are being outraised by Republicans. Democrat’s inability so far to break through in many red districts will keep Republican losses to a minimum in November. This is reflected in two ratings changes. TX-22 and NE-2 move from Toss-Up to Lean Republican. In TX-22, the nation’s most diverse district, a special election two months ago took place for a state legislative district, and in it Republicans won in a landslide. The two Republican candidates running for the nomination are Kathleen Wall, a businesswoman who can self-fund, having already pumped $3 million into her campaign, and popular Fort Bend county sheriff Troy Nehls. Both bring something big to the table in this leftward-trending but still red district. However, the Democratic candidate, former ambassador Sri Kulkrani, also happens to be one of Democrat’s best recruits this cycle, raising over $1 million, and setting up a multi-lingual campaign outreach program for this diverse, polylingual district. This race could be back in Toss-Up if things go sideways for Trump nationally.
In NE-2, incumbent Republican Don Bacon was one of only a select few Republicans to survive the suburban revolt in 2018. His Omaha-based district backed Trump by only 2 points, and may very well back Biden this year. However, Democrats certainly aren’t acting like they have a good shot here. The two candidates fighting for the nomination are Ann Ashford, wife of the former congressman Brad, who has raised minimal amounts of money and isn’t seen as very charismatic or spirited, and Kara Eastman, who fell short against Bacon in 2018, a year much more favorable to the Democrats. NE-2 will likely remain the itch Democrats can’t scratch, where at the start of an election cycle they appear to have a good chance but just can’t quite seal the deal.
The Golden State: Toss-Up Central
One of the big surprises this cycle is that some of the Republican’s best, most competent, politically talented candidates are from California of all states. This may be the best chance in decades for Republicans to flip seats in California.
California has a jungle primary, where all candidates from all parties compete in the same primary, and the top two candidates advance to the general election. This gives us important insight into where each Cali district stands. Incumbents Devin Nunes (R, CA-22) and Mike Levin (D, CA-49) both received over 56% of the vote in their districts that both lean Republican and Democrat respectively. They both have a fundraising and name recognition advantage over their opponents, so they should be fine. Both move to Safe for their respective party.
I’m moving CA-21, a Clinton+16 district, into Toss-Up. Why would I do that? Incumbent Democrat TJ Cox has some scandals related to underpaying property taxes, and isn’t the most popular, well-known guy in his rural, Central Valley district. Who is more well known? The congressman from this district from 2013-2019, David Valadao, who is running again. He won his first 3 elections by comfortable margins, and only lost his fourth due to TJ Cox’s massive ballot harvesting operation Valadao wasn’t prepared for. (Ballot harvesting, a legal practice in California, is when a group independent of government, usually a campaign, submits people’s mail-in or absentee ballots for them.) He won’t repeat that mistake. He is running a local issues focused campaign that is distant from Donald Trump, running on issues such as water access and agriculture efficiency. He calls for comprehensive immigration reform instead of just simply a wall, which will play well in this 74% Hispanic district. He has raised more money than TJ Cox, suggesting people haven’t forgotten about him, and still look up to him. (It’s relatively rare for a Republican to outraise a Democrat during the Trump era.) To tope it all off, he also won the jungle primary, 49% to 38%, over Cox. Given all of these factors, I’ve determined that despite the district’s solid blue hue, this race belongs nowhere but Toss-Up.
Last, but certainly not least, I’m moving the May 12 CA-25 special election from Lean Democrat to Toss-Up. Despite gloomy chances for Republicans to flip the House in November, this Clinton+7 district may be the Republican’s best pickup opportunity in California. CA-25 is an exurban district in Los Angeles, but it’s separated from the rest of the county by mountain ranges. The Democratic candidate, Christy Smith, is your traditional center-left establishment Democrat that isn’t necessarily the most well known or liked. She’s also done little to separate herself from Katie Hill, the Congresswoman for this district who resigned after it was revealed she had an inappropriate relationship with a younger female campaign staffer (she’s openly bisexual), while she was still married to her husband, who Hill described as “abusive”. This district is much less progressive than the rest of Los Angeles County, so that scandal really rubbed a lot of voters the wrong way. However, Republicans struck gold in their candidate, fighter pilot Mike Garcia. This district has a large military presence, and Garcia’s biography is appealing to voters across the spectrum, as several local political experts have reported. This is corroborated by the fact Garcia has raised a little more money than Christy Smith. Several outside Super PACs have invested heavily in this race, suggesting the parties also believe this race is close. The total vote for Democrats in the primary was barely higher than the total vote for Republicans, 51% to 49%.
However, these are all secondary reasons to the actual reason I put this race in Toss-Up instead of leaving it in Lean Democrat. That reason is that this election will take place during a pandemic. This turns almost every variable one like me would use to predict an election and turn it on its head. It will be pretty much an all vote-by-mail election, meaning there will be no ballot harvesting, and candidates can’t hold live events. Local and national experts (and me) agree this hurts Smith more. Smith has raised less money than Garcia. Ballot harvesting almost always helps Democrats in California, and people haven’t really put a name to the face for Smith yet like they have with the more active Garcia.
In any event, an all vote-by-mail election during a pandemic is a truly uncharted sea. What kinds of people are more likely to fill out the ballots in the mail? There’s no precedent we could look back on to answer that question. The final result could be anywhere from Smith+10 to Garcia+10, and then the result could be totally different in the regular November election. I’d expect this race to get a good amount of media attention, as it could be a litmus test of partisan voting attitudes in this upside-down world.
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